Ch. 4: Consciousness pt. I

Question 1

Consciousness

Answer 1

One’s moment by moment subjective experiences. Consciousness involves not just sensations and thoughts, but also memories and anything else you are experiencing at the moment. Sometimes viewed as a continuous stream.

Question 2

Dualism definition

Answer 2

The philosopher Rene Descartes proposed that the mind was physically distinct from the brain. It has now obviously been discredited. The rejection of this viewpoint has coincided with psychologists’ current viewpoint that the brain and mind are inseparable.

Question 3

The Global Workspace model

Answer 3

Proposes that consciousness arises as a function of which brain circuits are active. That is, you experience your brain regions’ output as conscious awareness. Most importantly, the Global Workspace model presents no single area of the brain responsible for general awareness.

Question 4

Percentage of all injury deaths for which TBIs are responsible for

Answer 4

30

Question 5

time period to recover from a concussion

Answer 5

1-2 weeks usually, but up to several weeks

Question 6

Minimally conscious state

Answer 6

Being conscious while in a coma. Also, some people are able to move their eyes.

Question 7

Unresponsive wakefullness syndrome

Answer 7

People who emerge from a coma s.t. their eyes are open and they have sleep/wake cycles, but cannot respond to external stimuli for more than a month. When a person is in this state they are not conscious, even though their eyes might be open. The longer such a state lasts, the less likely someone is to be able to emerge from it.

Question 8

Brain death

Answer 8

The irreversible loss of brain function; no activity is found in any part of the brain. The main difference between this and being in a coma is a lack of any brain activity and the necessity of life support to keep someone’s heart beating. Without machinery and care, they would instantly die.

Question 9

Locked-in syndrome

Answer 9

Have little to no muscle control while being fully conscious otherwise.

Question 10

Attention

Answer 10

Involves being able to selectively focus on some things and avoid focusing on others.

Question 11

Automatic processes

Answer 11

Occur when performing tasks that are so well learned that we don’t have to think much or at all while doing them (e.g. riding a bike). It might even be the case that thinking about doing one of these tasks will make it harder to do as compared with not thinking about it.

Question 12

Controlled processes

Answer 12

Occur when performing new or complicated tasks that require people to pay attention.

Question 13

Cocktail party phenomenon

Answer 13

Getting your attention distracted during a conversation by hearing your name called/mentioned somewhere else.

Question 14

Shadowing technique

Answer 14

Saying something you are listening to causes you to be unable to pay attention to other sensory input. The other sensory input can still be processed however, and the person might notice that some sort of sensory input apart for that which he was repeating orally occurred.

Question 15

Filter theory of the selective nature of attention

Answer 15

We constantly filter sensory information so as to not overwhelm our capacity to interpret it, and we do so by throwing out what we unconsciously deem to be unimportant information. An object produces a higher emotional response when it is deemed as socially relevant, and therefore is less likely to be throwing out by this filtering process. When sensory information is thrown out, however, it is still processed to some degree.

Question 16

Change blindness

Answer 16

We are often blind to large changes in our environments because we cannot pay attention to the vast amounts of visual information available.

Question 17

Sir Francis Galton

Answer 17

first proposed the idea of brain activity below the level of conscious awareness, in 1879

Question 18

Subliminal perception

Answer 18

Stimuli get processed by sensory systems, but because of their brevity or subtleness, do not reach consciousness. These types of messages have little influences on behavior. Moreover, preconceptions or preconceived notions related to the subliminal message largely dictate your response to it. If you go into something thinking that the subliminal messaging will do something, that thing will happen even if the subliminal messaging doesn’t occur. This is also why subliminal messaging can’t influence complex actions such as buying a product. It can influence motivational behavior however.

Question 19

Circadian rhythms

Answer 19

Brain activity and other physiological processes that are regulated into patterns.

Question 20

Process of the brain inducing sleep due to light

Answer 20

Information about light detected by the eyes is sent to a small region of the hypothalamus called the suprachaismatic nucleus. This region then sends signals to the Pineal gland, which then secretes melatonin. Bright light suppresses the production of melatonin, meanwhile darkness triggers its release

Question 21

Order of sizes of the different brainwaves along with what stage of sleep they correspond to

Answer 21

Beta –alert wakefullness; alpha –when people close their eyes and relax, but can also be when they are intensely focusing on something; theta –first stage of sleep, where the person would deny being “asleep” if they were woken up; delta –slow wave sleep where people are very hard to wake up and groggy if woken up; beta (for the second time) –REM sleep. This cycle generally repeats about 5 times in an average night of sleep.

Question 22

spindles and K-complexes

Answer 22

Occur during the transition between theta waves and delta waves. Spindles are little bursts of activity in the brain waves while K-complexes are large waves notable because they are basically isolated and only next to the smaller theta waves.

Question 23

REM sleep attributes

Answer 23

rapid eye movement, sexual arousal, (non-mundane) dreams usually occur during REM. Non-mundane dreams include intense emotion during dream, sense perceptions during dreams, and an uncritical acceptance of illogical events. Promotes learning; ie. college students studying for finals experience more REM sleep than average, and studies have found that without sleep people can’t learn complex tasks.

Question 24

Insomnia

Answer 24

a sleep disorder where people’s inability to fall asleep compromises their health and ability to function in daily life. It is associated with diminished psychological well-being, including depression. An estimated 12-20% of adults have insomnia. A major cause of insomnia is: People stress about falling to sleep so much that they actually activate a stress response, which in turn stops them from falling asleep.

Question 25

Pseudoinsomnia

Answer 25

People dream that they aren’t asleep, and if you wake them they would swear they weren’t asleep as a consequence.

Question 26

Obstructive sleep apnea

Answer 26

Someone that falls asleep stops breathing for short periods, causing them to wake up to gasp for air; basically, the person’s throat closes during these periods. It is most common amongst middle-aged men, and is associated with obesity, though it is unclear if it causes obesity or obesity causes it. People with sleep apnea usually don’t know that they have it because they don’t remember the frequent awakenings in the night and the main symptom otherwise is loud snoring that only someone else can detect by being in the same bed.

Question 27

Narcolepsy

Answer 27

spontaneous falling asleep for several seconds or minutes while performing some activity. Someone experiencing narcolepsy usually suffers sleep paralysis during an episode, causing them to go limp and collapse.

Question 28

REM behavior disorder

Answer 28

basically the opposite of narcolepsy; the person has their sleep paralysis disabled, and so will act out the vivid dreams of the REM phase of sleep.

Question 29

Somnabulism

Answer 29

sleep-walking

Question 30

Restorative theory of sleep

Answer 30

People sleep because sleep allows the body to rest and repair itself. This includes physical injuries and cleaning out the metabolic byproducts of neural activity that build up in the interstitial space –a small fluid-filled space between brain cells. During sleep, this space increases by 60%, allowing for efficient removal of the aforementioned byproducts. Growth Hormone is usually released during sleep as well.

Question 31

Effects of sleep deprivation

Answer 31

2-3 days of sleep deprivation have little effect on strength, athletic ability, or the performance of complex tasks. However, subjects find it almost impossible to do quiet tasks such as reading, or boring or mundane tasks. A long period of sleep deprivation causes mood problems and decreases cognitive performance. Sleep deprived students have decreased activity in the hippocampus.

Question 32

Microsleeps

Answer 32

caused by chronic sleep deprivation, a person will fall asleep from periods of a few seconds to a minute.

Question 33

Circadian Rhythm theory of sleep

Answer 33

People sleep because we have evolved to be quiet during the night when our eyes are not very effective and predators hunt.

Question 34

Dreams are a product of ______. Occur during:

Answer 34

an altered state of conscience; both REM and non-REM sleep

Question 35

REM sleep; parts of the brain activated vs. deactivated

Answer 35

Activates brain structures associated with motivation, emotion, and reward, as well as the activation of visual association areas and the deactivation of various parts of the prefrontal cortex –including the region responsible for logic. Note: REM doesn’t produce the dream state, but is simply linked with the dreams that occur.

Question 36

suprachaismatic nucleus

Answer 36

Intermediary in the process of falling asleep. Information about light detected by the eyes is sent to it, residing in the hypothalamus. It then sends signals to the Pineal gland, which then secretes melatonin.