Chapter 4 - Consciousness Flashcards
What is the gateway to consciousness?
Attention
How can people manipulate consciousness?
Meditation
Drugs
When does consciousness shift everyday?
When we sleep
Consciousness
One’s moment-to-moment subjective experience of the world
Qualia
The qualitative experiences of your conscious state
Why can’t we know if two people’s experiences, or quali, are the same?
Each of us experiences consciousness personally
How is consciousness limited?
You are able to fully process only a limited amount of the information available to you at any given time
Change blindness
A failure to notice large changes in one’s environment
Study for change blindness procedure
Stranger was momentarily blocked by a large object and, while out of view, was replaced with another person of the same sex and race.
50% of the people giving directions never noticed they were talking to a different person
Findings on change blindness based on age
Older people were less likely to notice a change in the person’s asking them for directions, whereas younger people did better
Finding on change blindness based on categories
This finding supports the idea that the students encoded the strangers as belonging to a broad category of construction workers without looking more closely at them.
For these students, construction workers seemed pretty much all alike and interchangeable
Findings on change blindness based on looking at cell phones
Students using cell phones while walking across campus failed to notice a brightly coloured close riding a unicycle who was heading toward their walking path.
Students who were listening to music were much more likely to notice the clown
Shadowing
In this procedure, the participant receives a different auditory message in each ear.
The participant is required to repeat, or ‘shadow’ only one of the messages
What do all models of attention agree on?
More recent models of attention have revised the nature of the attention filter, but they all propose some type of gateway to prioritise processing and awareness of relevant information
Endogenous attention
Attention that is directed voluntarily
Exogenous attention
Attention that is directed involuntarily by a stimulus
Relationship between conscious awareness and response in the brain study
Brain activity in these regions followed the conscious perception of the face or house, which varied depending on how the participants allocated their attention
What can provide insights into their conscious experiences?
People share common patterns of brain activity
Why students often feel they are not missing anything when they multitask
They have the illusion that you were paying attention because you have no awareness of events that happened when your attention was otherwise occupied
Freudian slip
Occurs when an unconscious thought is suddenly expressed at an inappropriate time or in an inappropriate social context
Findings of selective listening studies
Found that even when participant’s could not repeat an unattended message, they still had processed its contents
What can processing of irrelevant details of attended stimuli also unconsciously influence?
Behaviour
Priming
A facilitation in the response to a stimulus due to recent experience with that stimulus or a related stimulus
Subliminal perception
The processing of information by sensory systems without conscious awareness
Subliminal messages effect on behaviour
If they work at all, have minimal effects on most behaviour
Study on subliminal messages based on tapes
This research indicated that people’s beliefs about which tapes they listened to influenced the effects of the messages.
People who thought they were hearing subliminal messages about memory reported improved memory, even if they heard the self confidence tape
Subliminal images studies findings on brain regions
These studies found that the subliminal images of money and of frightening stimuli produce activity in brain regions involved in emotion and motivation
Automatic processing occurs when?
When a task is so well learned that we can do it without much attention
Benefit of automatic processing
It allows us to devote our limited consciousness to there tasks
Effect of attention on automatic processing
Paying too much attention can interfere with automatic behaviours
Stroop task procedure
Participants are asked to identify as quickly as possible the colour in which letter strings are printed
How does subjective consciousness vary?
Varies naturally over the course of the day
Altered consciousness
Being in a state that changes your subjective perception of consciousness from how you typically experience it is referred to as altered consciousness
Meditation
A mental procedure that focuses attention on an external object, an internal event, or a sense of awareness
Concentrative meditation
Focus attention on one thing, such as your breathing pattern, a mental image, or a specific phrase (sometimes called mantra)
Mindfulness mediation
You let your thoughts flow freely, paying attention to them but trying not to react to them
Early studies found what benefits in meditation?
Lower blood pressure
Fewer reports of stress
Changes in the hormonal responses underlying stress
Findings on the study based on meditation training
Those who underwent the meditation training showed greater stress reduction and more significant improvement in attention than did the group that underwent relaxation training
Findings of study on meditation about brain
Participants who underwent an eight week meditation course not only reported less anxiety but also exhibited patterns of brain electrical activity that had previously been shown to correlate with positive emotional states
This pattern of brain activity was correlated with measures of enhanced immune function
What have researchers found about long term meditation?
Some researchers have suggested that long term meditation not only changes brain activity patterns but also affects brain anatomy or structure and helps maintain brain function over the life span
Runners’ high
One minute a person might feel pain and fatigue, and the next minute euphoria and a glorious release of energy
This state which is partially mediated by physiological processes results in a shift in consciousness
Religious ecstasy
Religious ceremonies often decrease awareness of the external world and create feelings of euphoria
The concept of flow
A particular kind of experience that is so engrossing and enjoyable that it is worth doing for its own sake even though it may have no consequence outside itself
The selective appeal of escapist entertainment
That it detracts people from selecting on their problems or their failure, thereby helping them avoid feeling bad about themselves
Hypnosis
A social interaction during which a person responding to suggestions, experiences changes in memory, perception, and/or voluntary action
What happens during a hypnotic induction?
The hypnotist makes a series of suggestions to at least one person
As the listener falls more deeply into the hypnotic state, the hypnotist makes more suggestions
If everything goes according to plan, the listener followed all the suggestions without hesitation
Post hypnotic suggestion
Sometimes the hypnotist suggests that, after the hypnosis session, the listener will experience a change in memory, perception, or voluntary action
Such suggestion is usually accompanied by the instruction to not remember the suggestion
Hypnotic suggestibility seems related to what?
Suggestibility seems related less to obvious traits such as intelligence and gullibility than to the tendencies to get absorbed in actives easily, to not be distracted easily, and to have a rich imagination
Sociocognitive theory of hypnosis
Hypnotised people behave as they expect hypnotised people to behave, even if those expectations are faulty.
Neodissociation theory of hypnosis
Acknowledges the importance of social context to hypnosis, but it views the hypnotic state as an altered state
One of the most powerful uses of hypnosis is hypnotic analgesia, which is
A form of pain reduction
Example of hypnotic analgesia
Plunging an arm into extremely cold water will cause high pain and cannot be done for long
People with hypnotic analgesia can do it for much longer
Circadian rhythms
Biological patterns that occur at regular intervals as a function of time of day
Sleepless gene
Regulates a protein that, like many aesthetics reduces action potentials in the brain
Why is sufficient sleep important?
For memory and good health and is often affected by physiological disorders, such as depression
Where does information about light detached by the eyes go to?
Sent to a small region of the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus
What does the suprachiasmatic nucleus do?
Sends signals to a tiny structure called the pineal gland
What does the pineal gland do?
Secretes melatonin
What is the function of melatonin?
A hormone that travels through the blood stream and affects various receptor in the body, including the brain
Effect of bright light on melatonin
Suppresses melatonin production
How can melatonin help?
Help cope with jet lag and shift work
Help to fall asleep
How is your mind aware of your surroundings whiles you sleep?
Analysing potential dangers, controlling body movements, and shifting body parts to maximise comfort
What is the use of the electroencephalograph (EEG)?
The machine measures the brain’s electrical activity
What does the EEG show?
Neurones in the brain are extremely active
The EEG shows this activity as short, frequent, irregular brain signals known as beta waves
The people focus their attention on something or when they close their eyes and relax, brain activity slows and becomes more regular. This is known as alpha waves
Stage 1 of sleep
The EEG shows short bursts of irregular waves called theta waves
You can easily be aroused and if awakened you will probably deny that you were asleep
Stage 2 of sleep
Your breathing becomes more regular and you become less sensitive to external stimulation
Now you are really asleep
Although the EEG continues to show theta waves, it also shows occasional bursts of activity called sleep spindles and large waves called K-complexes
Two findings indicate that the brain must work to maintain sleep
First, abrupt noises can trigger K-complexes
Second, as people age and sleep more lightly, their EEGs show fewer sleep spindles
Stages 3 and 4
This period is marked by large, regular brain patterns called delta waves and is is often referred to as slow wave sleep
People in slow wave sleep are to wake and are often disoriented when they do wake up
REM sleep
The stage of sleep marked by rapid eye movements, paralysis of motor systems, and dreaming
Why is REM sleep sometimes called paradoxical sleep?
Because of the paradox of a sleeping body with an active brain
How does the body show arousal during REM sleep?
Most males of all ages develop erections, and most females of all ages experience clitoral engorgement
Percentage of people who report dreaming when waken up from REM sleep
80%
Dreams
Products of an altered state of consciousness in which images and fantasises are confused with reality
How long do people spend dreaming
On average, people spend six years of their lives dreaming
REM dreams
More likely to be bizarre
May involve intense emotions, visual and auditory hallucinations and an uncritical acceptance of illogical events
Non REM dreams
Often dull
May concern mundane activities such as deciding what clothes to wear or taking notes in class
Relation of REM and dream state
REM does not produce the dream state
REM is simply correlated with the contents of dreams
What did Freud speculate about dreams?
That dreams contain hidden content that represents unconscious conflicts within the mind of the dream
Manifest content
Is the dream the dreamer remembers it
Latent content
What the dream symbolises
It is the material that has been disguised to protect the dreamer from confronting a conflict directly
Activation synthesis hypothesis
A hypothesis of dreaming proposing that the brain tries to make sense of random brain activity that occurs during sleep by synthesising the activity with stored memories
Conscious experience of most dreams is fairly similar to waking life, with some intriguing differences. What are they?
Includes:
Lack of self awareness
Reduced attention and voluntary control
Increased emotionality
Poor memory
Why is it difficult to research about dreams?
Because people often do not remember their dreams
Finding of study on dreams and brain activity
Found that the brain activity associated with the content of the dream was similar to brain activity observed when people were looking at the related pictures
Some dolphins have unihemispherical sleep. What does that mean?
The cerebral hemispheres take turns sleeping
Research suggests sleep is adaptive for three functions:
Restoration
Avoiding danger at certain times of the day
Facilitation of learning
Restorative theory
Sleep allows the body, incline the brain to rest and repair itself
Evidence for restorative theory based on sports
After people engage in vigorous physical activity, such as running a marathon, they generally sleep longer than usual
Evidence for restorative theory based on growth
Growth hormone, released primarily during deep sleep, facilities the rear of damaged tissue
New research on the benefit of sleep for the restorative theory
Researchers have demonstrated that sleep may help the brain clear out metabolic by products of neural acuity, which can be toxic if they build up
These by products are cleared by interstitial space - fluid filled space between the cells of the brain
Effect of 2 or 3 days of sleep deprivation surprising results
It has little effect on strength, athletic ability, or the performance of complex tasks
Negative effects of short sleep deprivation
People find it more difficult to perform quiet tasks such as reading
Find it impossible to do mundane tasks
Effects of long sleep deprivation
Causes mood problems and decreases cognitive performance
Symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation patients
Experiences of attention lapses and reduced short term memory
Reason of symptoms of chronic deprivation patients?
Perhaps in part because of the accumulation of metabolic by products of neural activity
Why is sleep deprivation also dangerous?
Makes people prone to micro sleeps, in which they fall asleep during the day for period ranging from a few seconds to a minute
Sleep deprivation possible benefit
When people are suffering from depression, depriving them of sleep sometimes alleviates their depression
This effect appears to occur because sleep deprivation leads to increased activation of serotonin receptors, as do drugs used to treat depression
Circadian rhythm theory
Proposes that sleep has evolved to keep animals quiet and inactive during times of the day when there is the greatest danger, usually when it is dark
Finding of learning during sleep study
Those who then slept for 90 minutes performed better on the maze afterward than the sleepless competitors did
Those who dreamed about the maze, however, performed the best
Findings of the effect of sleep deprivation on memory
Sleep deprived students also showed poorer memory at subsequent testing
According to the investigators, there is substantial evidence that sleep not only consolidates mores but also seems to prepare the brain for tis more needs for the next day
Insomnia
A disorder characterised by an inability to sleep that causes significant problems in daily living
What is the estimate of people with insomnia
An estimated 12 to 20 percent of adults have insomnia
More common in women than in men and in older adults
Why is it difficult to estimate how many people have insomnia?
Many people who believe they are poor sleepers overstimate how long it takes them to fall asleep and often understate how much sleep they get on a typical night
Pseudoinsomnia
People dream they are not sleeping
What is a major cause of insomnia
People worrying about sleep
What is the most successful treatment for insomnia?
Combines drug therapy with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Obstructive sleep apnea
A disorder in which people, while asleep, stop breathing because their throat closes
The condition results in frequent awakening during the night
Effect of chronic apnea
Poor sleep which leads to daytime fatigue and problems such as an inability to concentrate while driving
Associated with cardiovascular problems and stroke
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP)
During sleep, this device blows air into the persons’s nose or nose and mouth
Narcolepsy
A sleep disorder in which people experience excessive sleepiness during normal waking hours, sometimes going limp and collapsing
Evidence suggests that people with narcolepsy have
Low levels of a neurochemical that regulates wakefulness and REM sleep and that genetic may play a role in the development of narcolepsy
REM behaviour disorder
Roughly the opposite of narcolepsy
The normal paralysis that accompanies REM sleep is disabled
How to get a good night’s sleep?
Plan
Know your priorities
Stick to the plan
Practice saying no
How to get a good night’s sleep when in bed
Establish a regular routine
Avoid alcohol and caffeine just before going to bed
Exercise regularly
Remember, your bed is for sleeping
Relax
Do not try to catch up on sleep
Avoid electronic devices late at night
Effect of brain injury and drugs on conscious experience
Changes in brain structure through injury and changes in brain chemistry through drugs can profoundly change conscious experience
Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
Impairments in mental functioning caused by a blow to or very sharp movement of the head
What is TBI responsible for?
30% of all injury deaths
Substantial cause of disabilities that can last from days to decades
Can impair thinking, memory, emotions, and personality
The greater the severity father injury…
The greater the chance that TBI is to be permanent
Concussion
Include mental confusion, dizziness, a dazed look, memory problems, and sometimes the temporary loss of consciousness
How many sport related concussions occur in the US every year?
Between 1.7 and 3 million
Consciousness when in a coma
In this state, they have sleep/wake cycles - they open their eyes and appear to be awake
What are some people during their comas
Some people in comas are conscious of what is happening around them
What happens when people appear to have emerged from a coma?
They do not respond to external stimuli for more than a month, they are in a condition called unresponsive wakefulness syndrome
Minimally conscious state
Some people who emerge from a coma are able to make deliberate movements, such as following an object with their eyes
They may even try to communicate
What have researchers found on comas and consciousness?
Found that measuring brain metabolism via positron emission tomography imaging can identify which patients in unresponsive states are likely to regain consciousness
Brain death
Irreversible loss of brain function
Unlike patients with unresponsive wakefulness, they show no activity in any region of the brain
Psychoactive drugs
Causes changes in mood, awareness thoughts, feelings, or behaviour
How do psychoactive drugs cause change to the brain’s neurochemistry?
By activating neurotransmitter systems
Either by imitating the brain’s natural
Or change the activity of particular neurotransmitter receptors
Stimulants
Drugs that increase behavioural and mental activity
Stimulate or heighten activity of the central nervous system
Depressants
Have the opposite effect of stimulants
Reduce behavioural and mental activity by depressing the central nervous system
Opioids also known as narcotics
These drugs, derived from the opium poppy, bind with a special type of receptor in the brain and, in doing so, mimic the action of the neurotransmitter endorphins to help relieve pain
Opioids also provide intense feelings of pleasure, relaxation, and euphoria
How does cocaine produce its stimulating effects?
By increasing the concentration of dopamine in the synapse
What does amphetamines do?
They are stimulants that increase dopamine in the synapse
Effects of amphetamines?
Their primary effect is to reduce fatigue
Amphetamines have a long history of use for weight loss and for staying awake
Negative effects of amphetamines
Insomnia
Anxiety
Potential addiction
How does methamphetamines work?
By blocking the reuptake of dopamine and increasing its release, methamphetamine produces high levels of dopamine in the synapse
Also stays longer in the body than most drugs
Why can opioids be highly addictive?
Because they have dual physical effects
They increase pleasure by binding with mu opioid receptors and increase wanting of the drug by indirectly activating dopamine receptors
What does marijuana do?
Like depressants, marijuana decreases reaction times and impairs motor coordination, memory formation, and the recall of recently learned information
How long does THC stay in the body?
Up to 1 month unlike alcohol
What is MDMA associated with?
Compared with amphetamines, MDMA is associated with less dopamine activity and more serotonin activity.
The serotonin release may explain ecstasy’s hallucinogenic properties
Potential benefits of MDMA
Growing evidence suggests that MDMA may have potential benefits for use in the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder
Also may help those with autism cope with social anxiety
What does alcohol do?
Inhibits neural activity by activating GABA receptors
GABA reception may also be the primary mechanism by which alcohol interferes with motor coordination and results in slowed reaction time
