Chapter 8: Consciousness Flashcards
Cartesian theatre
A mental screen or stage on which things appear to be presented for viewing by the mind’s eye.
Hard problem of consciousness
The difficulty of explaining how subjective experience could ever arise.
Phenomenology
How things actually seem in the state of consciousness in terms of the quality of experience.
Homunculus problem
Difficulty of explaining the experience of consciousness by advocating another internal self.
Problem of other minds
The fundamental difficulty we have in perceiving the consciousness of others.
Qualia
Subjective experiences we have as part of our mental life.
Materialism
Philosophical position that mental states are a product of physical process alone.
Anthropomorphism
The tendency to attribute human qualities to nonhuman things.
Mind-body problem
The issue of how the mind is related to the brain and body.
Choice blindness
When people are unaware of their decision-making processes and justify a choice as if it were already decided.
Change blindness
When people are unaware of significant event changes that happen in full view.
Dichotic listening
A task in which people wearing headphones hear different messages presented to each ear.
Cocktail party phenomenon
People tune in to one message even while they filter out others nearby.
Minimal consciousness
A low level of awareness that occurs when the mind inputs sensations and may output behavior.
Full consciousness
Consciousness in which you know and are able to report your mental state.
Self-consciousness
A distinct level of consciousness in which the person’s attention is drawn to the self as an object.
Daydreaming
A state of consciousness in which a seemingly purposeless flow of thoughts comes to mind.
Mental control
The attempt to change conscious states of mind.
Thought suppression
The conscious avoidance of a thought.
Rebound effect of thought suppression
The tendency of a thought to return to consciousness with greater frequency following suppression.
Ironic processes of mental control
Mental processes that can produce ironic errors because monitoring for errors can itself produce them.
Dynamic unconscious
An active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces.
Repression
A mental process that removes unacceptable thoughts and memories from consciousness and keeps them in the unconscious.
Cognitive unconscious
The mental processes that are not experienced by the person but give rise to the person’s thoughts, choices, emotions and behavior.
Subliminal perception
A thought or behavior that is influenced by stimuli that a person cannot consciously report perceiving.
Selective attention
The process whereby we focus mental processing on a limited range of events.
Information bottleneck
When the channel of information processing has limited capacity.
Early filter model
Selective attention model that proposes that information is discarded early in the steam of processing.
Attenuation model
Selective attention model that proposes that information is not entirely discarded in the steam of processing but is suppressed relative to other important signals.
Response selection model
Selective attention model that proposes that selection occurs late in the steam of processing before a response has been made.
Load model
Attentional model that explains early and late selection as a consequence of the task difficulty.
Unilateral visual neglect
A condition where patients fail to notice or attend to stimuli that appear on the side of space opposite the site of a hemispheric lesion.
Balint’s syndrome
An attentional disorder where the patient loses the ability to voluntarily shift visual attention to new locations, which is associated with damage to both sides of the brain.
Blindsight
Residual visual capability supported by subcortical mechanisms following removal or damage to cortical visual areas.
Altered states of consciousness
Forms of experience that depart from the normal subjective experience of the world and the mind.
Circadian rhythm
A naturally occuring 24-hour cycle.
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep
A stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements and a high level of brain activity. Sometimes known as ‘paradoxical sleep’.
Electrooculography (EOG)
A device that measures eye movements.
Thermoregulation
Biological processes that maintain optimal body heat during different states of wakefulness.
Immune system
Biological defence system for combating potential disease from both internal and external invaders.
Metabolism
Biological processes that convert stored resources into energy.
Insomnia
Difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep.
Sleep apnea
A disorder in which the person stops breathing for brief periods while asleep.
Somnambulism (sleepwalking)
Occurs when the person arise and walks around while asleep.
Narcolepsy
A disorder in which sudden sleep attacks occur in the middle of walking activities.
Sleep paralysis
The experience of waking up unable to move.
Night terrors (or sleep terrors)
Abrupt awakenings with panic and intense emotional arousal.
Manifest content
A dream’s apparent topic or superficial meaning.
Latent content
A dream’s true underlying meaning.
Activation-synthesis model
The theory that dreams are produced when the brain attempts to make sense of neural activations that occur randomly during sleep.
Psychoactive drug
A chemical that influences consciousness or behavior by altering the brain’s chemical message system.
Hallucinogenes
Drugs that alter sensation and perception and often cause visual and auditory hallucinations.
Cannabis
Drugs derived from the hemp plant.
Hypnosis
A social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) makes suggestions that lead to a change in another person’s (the subject’s) subjective experience of the world.
Behavioral compliance
Doing what you are told or expected to do.
Posthypnotic amnesia
The failure to retrieve memories following hypnotic suggestions to forget.
Hypnotic analgesia
The reduction of pain through hypnosis in people who are susceptible to hypnosis.
Meditation
The practice of intentional contemplation.
