Chpt 1: Consciousness enters the lab Flashcards
How was it proposed that the 12 dots illusion could be used to study consciousness?
During the experiment with the twelve dots, for instance, we can record the discharges of neurons from different places in the brain during moments in which the dots are seen, and compare these recordings with those made during moments in which the dots are not seen.
Why did Crick and Koch single out vision as a domain ripe for such investigations? (2)
Because we are beginning to understand in great detail the neural pathways that carry visual information from the retina to the cortex, but also because there are myriad. visual illusions that can be used to contrast visible and invisible stimuli
What three features of this research program suddenly put conscious perception within experimental reach?
First, the illusions did not require an elaborate notion of consciousness—just the simple act of seeing or not seeing, what I have called conscious access.
Second, a great many illusions were available for study—as we shall see, cognitive scientists have invented dozens of techniques to make words, pictures, sounds, and even gorillas disappear at will.
And third, such illusions are eminently subjective—only you can tell when and where the dots disappear in your mind. Yet the results are reproducible: anyone who watches the figure reports having the same kind of experience.
WHat is meant by conscious access?
At any given time, a massive flow of sensory stimulation reaches our senses, but our conscious mind seems to gain access to only a very small amount of it.
Conscious access is, at once, extraordinarily open and inordinately selective. Its potential repertoire is vast. (Can switch attention to become conscious of conscious of a color, a scent, self etc). At any moment, however, the actual repertoire of consciousness is dramatically limited.
In what way is the actual repertoire of consciousness is dramatically limited?
We are fundamentally reduced to just about one conscious thought at a time (although a single thought can be a substantial “chunk” with several subcomponents, as when we ponder the meaning of a sentence). Because of its limited capacity, consciousness must withdraw from one item in order to gain access to another.
WHat is meant by the term preconscious?
Stop reading for a second, and notice the position of your legs; perhaps you feel a pressure here or a pain there. This perception is now conscious. But a second earlier it was preconscious— accessible but not accessed, it lay dormant amid the vast repository of unconscious states.
It did not necessarily remain unprocessed: you constantly adjust your posture unconsciously in response to such bodily signals. However, conscious access made it available to your mind—all at once, it became accessible to your language system and to many other processes of memory, attention, intention, and planning.
Distinguish conscious access from mere attention
Out of countless potential thoughts, what reaches our conscious mind is the outcome of the very complex sieve that we call attention. Attention’s
sieve operates largely unconsciously—attention is dissociable from conscious access.
In everyday life, our environment is often clogged with stimulating information, and we have to give it enough attention to select
which item we are going to access. Thus attention often serves as the gateway for consciousness.
Give another word for vigilance and how it is separate from conscious access
“intransitive consciousness”: Here consciousness refers to a state with many gradations. In this sense, consciousness is a general faculty that we lose during sleep, when we faint, or when we undergo general anesthesia. To avoid confusion, scientists often refer to this sense of consciousness as “wakefulness” or “vigilance.” wakefulness refers primarily to the sleep-wake cycle, which arises from subcortical mechanisms, whereas vigilance refers to the level of excitement in the cortical and thalamic networks that support conscious states.
What is the relationship between Wakefulness, vigilance, attention and conscious access?
Wakefulness, vigilance, and attention are just enabling conditions for conscious access. They are necessary but not always sufficient to make us aware of a specific piece of information.
Comment on the link between conscious perception and self-knowledge
Science had considered the sticker test in certain animals as an indication of them having consciousness (due to the assumption of this meaning they have a self concept).
