cognitive and biological psychology lecture 2

Question 1

what is sensation

Answer 1

the physical stimulation of the sensory apparatus e.g. effect of light on retina, vibrations on ear drum, surface pressure on skin

Question 2

what is perception

Answer 2

“the faculty of perceiving’ – the ability of the mind to refer sensory info to an external object and its cause. The experiential (consciousness) component (what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell).

Question 3

the 5 sensesn (sense, p.r. and simtulus)

Answer 3

vision - eye - light

audition - ear - changes in air pressure

somatory sensory - skin - mechanical pressure/deformations of the skin, changes on temperature

gustation - Tongue - chemcial substances dissolved in saliva

olfaction - nose - airbourne substances dissolved in mucus lining

Question 4

What is vision

Answer 4

dominant sense in humans

1) sensory info captured
2) converted to electrical energy
3) carried along specialised routes
4) processed in multiple locations for different purposes
5) we experience a coherent whole

Question 5

What does perception do

Answer 5

accesses and captures outside world, transforming and representing it in the brain. sensory info transformed from q kind of energy to electric brain activity which the brain makes sense of.

Question 6

what is perception about

Answer 6

making sense of world - cohesive whole

Question 7

Perception match reality - Matlin and Foley

Answer 7

Perception is adequate becuase:

1) Physical stimuli rich in info

2) Human sensory system is good at gathering info

3) concepts shape our perception

Question 8

what is cognition

Answer 8

State of awareness of own existence, of sensations, of own thoughts + surroundings. Contrasts with being unconcsious

Question 9

What is difficult about consciousness?

Answer 9

its hard to measure consciousness and to say exactly what it is, where it comes from and why we have it

Question 10

Bor and Seth (2012) - consciousness level and content

Answer 10

Consciousness level - scale of awareness from zero contents to fully aware

Consciousness content: moment to moment, here and now xp

Question 11

Baumiester & Masicampo (2010) difference between levels of content experience:

Answer 11

Low level - basic here and now (all animals) awareness

High level - reasoning, self reflecting ‘I am X’, ‘When I’m older I want to be Y’ (humans only)

Question 12

What is easy problem consciousness

Answer 12

where does it come from - brain activity. activity in brain for stimuli process both with and without awareness and can respond to, different but present

Question 13

what is hard problem consciousness

Answer 13

How, where, why

How does brain activity become conscious awareness? Where does experience come from? Why are we conscious at all?

Question 14

limits of perception, consciousness and awareness

Answer 14

consciousness and attention aren’t the same thing (Koch & Tsuchiya 2007; Lamme, 2003. They are related but involve different areas and brain processes.

Merikle (2001) – measuring when are we conscious?

Question 15

limits of perception, consciousness and awareness (subjective threshold)

Answer 15

point which individual can/can’t report awareness of a stimulus

Question 16

limits of perception, consciousness and awareness (objective threshold)

Answer 16

point which an indivdual can/cna’t make accurate forced chocie decisions about stimulus or adjust a stimulus

Question 17

The binding problem (consciousness)

Answer 17

consciousness feels unitary but isn’t

binding problem: if info extracted and broken down to be processed in multiple locations in the brain, but how put back together

Question 18

Feldman (2013): multiple difficulties

Answer 18

if info been broken down, how is it that we see a cohesive whole - how put it back together.

• global workspace model
• synchrony
• weak structural func
• selective attention
• Gestalt - Pragnanz

Question 19

Feldman (2013): global workspace model

Answer 19

some of it isn’t broken down and at uncounsicous level it doesn’t matter (global workspace model)

Question 20

Feldman (2013): synchrony

Answer 20

precise synchrony - use timing of single cell firing to step info (problem - computationally expensive

general synchrony - general pattern of dell firing used to bind

Consciousness may come from synchrony and coordination

Question 21

Feldman (2013): weak structural func

Answer 21

some cells do multiple tasks
same region of brian might do more than one job

Question 22

Feldman (2013): selective attention

Answer 22

attentional clusters

we attend thing/events together, so they are bound together in brain

Question 23

Feldman (2013): Gestalt - Pragnanz

Answer 23

laws for putting info together in coherent way

proximity - similar things close together

Question 24

Feldman (2013): good continuation

Answer 24

when objects intersect you assume the intersected object continues

Question 25

Why are we conscious?

Answer 25

Perceptual – perceiving your environment may help you better interact with it

Action control – Free will, control and agency

Social communication -

understanding and interacting witj others (theory of mind)
(other animals?)

Info integration –
- just organised “info
- Reflect on own experience
- Allows you to integrate experiences as you have them

Question 26

The global workspace model

Answer 26

chekc screenshot under week 2 cog and bio

Question 27

Where does consciousness come from?

Answer 27

Consciousness comes from synchronised and integrated activity across multiple brain regions ( PFC, ant gy and parts of parietal lobe)

Question 28

Supporting evidence for consciousness: Gaaillard et al. (2009); Lamy et al., (2009); Melloni. (2007); Rees (2007):

Answer 28

fMRI + ERP evidence for differential brain activity for objects (words) that are below conscious (subjective) perception

beh results suggest unconscious processing is may be up to + including semantic level (response affected by ‘meaning’ of the target even though you don’t ‘see/hear’ it)

Diff patterns of activity seem to occur around to different points of the suggested network

Question 29

Problems of consciousness

Answer 29

Zero level of consciousness is tricky to define and probably impossible to measure anyway (Lamme, 2003)

Vegetative states and sleep
* Even patients with limited brain
activity appear to have some
level of awareness
* We respond to stimuli, and
might even be able to learn in
our sleep

– No explanation of how or why
we are conscious