Chapter 3 Module Flashcards
Original Definition of Psychology
The description and explanation of states of consciousness.
Moved to behaviorism.
Resumed to include consciousness in the 60s.
Consciousness
Our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment.
Differing states of consciousness exist.
Hypnosis
A social interaction in which one person (hypnotist) suggests to another (subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.
Used in psychotherapy and in medicine.
Cognitive Neuroscience
The interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition.
Including perception, thinking, memory, and language.
Selective Attention
Focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
Conscious mind can only focus on one thing at a time.
Selectively responding to one stimuli (ex. one voice).
Cocktail Party Effect
Your ability to attend to only one voice within a sea of many as you chat with a party guest.
Impacts of Selective Attention
Texting and driving causes accidents.
Inattentional Blindness
Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
Ex. Invisible gorilla
Inattentional Numbness
Failing to feel physical sensations while the attention is somewhere else.
Ex. Pickpockets bumping into you.
Change Blindness
Failing to notice changes in teh environment; a form of inattentional blindness.
Dual Processing
The principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks.
Blindsight
A condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it.
Visul Action Track
Guides our moment-to-moment movements.
Visual Perception Track
Enables us to think about the world and to recognize things and to plan future actions.
Parallel Processing
Processing many aspects of a stimulus or problem simutlaneously.
Enables the mind to take care of routine business.
Unconscious.
Sequential Processing
Processing one aspect of a stimulus or problem at a time; generally used to process new information or to solve difficult problems.
Conscious.
Sleep
A periodic, natural loss of consciousness - as distinct from unconsciousness resulting forom a coma, general anethesia, or hibernation.
Circadian Rhythm
Our biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle.
Young adults tend to be night owls and as you age you become a morning lark.
Ex. temperature and wakefulness.
Length of Sleep Stages
90 mins approx.
REM Sleep
Rapid Eye Movement Sleep / Paradoxical sleep
Sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur.
Muscles are relaxed but other body systems are active.
Brain waves like teeth, sleep paralysis
10 minutes
Stages of Sleep
N1
N2
N3
N2
REM
N3 sleep shortens and REM and N2 sleep lengthen
Hallucinations
False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in teh absence of an external visual stimulus.
Hypnagogic Sensations
Sensation of falling followed by a sudden jerk.
N1 Sleep
Hallucinations and hypnogic sensations
Falling asleep.
N2 Sleep
20 minutes
Sleep spindles: bursts of brain activity that aid memory processing
N3 Sleep
30 minutes
Slow-wave (delta) sleep.
Hard to awaken; deep sleep.
Alpha Waves
The relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state.
Delta Waves
The large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep.
Desynchronization
Fatigue, stomach problems, heart disease, and breast cancer.
Light disruptions in circadian rhythm.
Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)
A pair of cell clusters in the hypothalamus that controls circadian rhythm.
Light –> pineal gland to adjust melatonin production to modify feelings of sleepiness
Functions of Sleep
- Sleep protects (evolutionary to keep us inside during darkness)
- Sleep helps us recuperate (restore immune system, heal infection, repair brain tissue)
- Sleep helps restore and rebuild our fading memories of the day’s experiences (consolidate)
- Sleep feeds creative thinking.
- Sleep supports growth