Conciousness

Question 1

What is consciousness?

Answer 1

An awareness of ourselves and our environment. It includes the sensations, thoughts and feelings on which one of focused on at a given moment

Question 2

The history of the study of consciousness?

Answer 2

1. Psychology began as the study of consciousness (structuralism and functionalism)
2. With the surge of behaviorism it was abandoned
3. Cognitive revolution (1960): Psychologists refocused their empirical attention on consciousness

Question 3

What does evolutionary psychology say about consciousness?

Answer 3

1. It helped us survive: Enables us to act on our interests and consider long term consequences for our actions ( long term goals over instant gratification)
2. It enhanced our socializing: We can better anticipate who could be harmful or useful

Question 4

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 4

Studies how brain activity is linked to concoiusness and cognition

Localized view: States that specific neural activity is responsible for conciousness

Holistic view: Consciousness arises from synchronized brain activity

Question 5

What does dual processing believe in?

Answer 5

The editable of two minds:
1. Conscious mind: responsible for conscious, deliberate but slower info processing. Allows us to excerpt voluntary control over our mind and body.
2. Un unconscious mind: Resposible for fast automatic processing of info outside our concious awareness.

Question 6

What is selective attention?

Answer 6

States that we have limited psychological energy to process our experiences, we can only focus our conscious awareness on a limited amount of them.

Question 7

What si the cocktail party effect?

Answer 7

Example of selective attention, the ability to attend to one stimulus amongst many

Question 8

What is selective innatention?

Answer 8

Stimuli can pass unnoticed
- Inattentional blindness: Failing to see visual objects when out attention is directed elsewhere
- Change blindness: Failing to notice changes in the environment

Question 9

What does evolutionary psychology say about coinsciousness?

Answer 9

We evolved to possess consciousness because it gives us an evolutionary advantage

1. Helped us survive: enables us to act on our interests and consider the long term consequences of our actions
2. Enhanced socializing: we can better anticipate who could be harmful or beneficial

Question 10

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 10

Studies how brain activity is linked to mental consciousness and cognition

Localized view: specific neural activity is responsible for consciousness

Holistic view: consciousness arrises from synchronized activity in the brain

Question 11

Name the types of attention processes

Answer 11

Selective attention

Selective inattention

Question 12

What is selective attention?

Answer 12

We have a limited psychological energy to process our experiences, we focus our awareness on a limited amount of them.

Question 13

What is the cocktail party effect?

Answer 13

Proof of selective attention, the ability to attend to one stimuli in the presence of many

Question 14

What is selective inattention?

Answer 14

Stimuli can pass unnoticed

In attentional blindness: Failing to see visual objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

Change blindness: failing to perceive changes in our environment

Question 15

Is our consciousness fully shut down during sleep?

Answer 15

No, our brain still processes sensory information outside of conscious awareness

Question 16

What is the circadian rhythm?

Answer 16

Our bodies synchronize to a 24 hour cycle of waking and sleeping. It has 5 stages:
1. Stage 1: Characterized by fantastical imagery resembling hallucinations
2. Stage 2: the stage we spend most time in, characterized by rapid and rhythmical brain activity
3. Stage 3: a transitional sleep stage
4. Stage 4: Characterized by slow, large delta waves
5. REM sleep: We spend 10 minutes in it, crucial for good quality sleep. Characterized by irregular breathing, increased heart rate, back and forth darting of the eyes and it’s when most dreams occur

The cycle usually goes: 1,2,3,4,3,2,REM sleep

Question 17

What are some of the costs of sleep loss?

Answer 17

1. General dissatisfaction with personal life
2. Decreased immune function
3. Impaired creativity, memeory and communication
4. Slower performance
5. Increased risk of obesity and diabetes

Question 18

Why do we sleep?

Answer 18

1. Restores brain tissue
2. Restores and rebuilds memories
3. Facilitates creative thinking
4. Facilitates growth

Question 19

What are dreams and how are their contents categorized?

Answer 19

Dreams are the hallucinations of the sleeping mind

Freud categorized them in two contents

1. Manifest content: the dream as how the person remembers it
2. Latent content: The true meaning of the dream, often sexual desires and wishes that are repressed and disguise themselves as manifest content

The process of converting latent to manifest content is called dreamwork

Dream interpretation reveals the true latent content of dreams

Question 20

What are the functions of dreams?

Answer 20

1. Wish fulfillment: allows pent up energy to be released
2. Info processing: processing our experiences from previous day
3. Brain stimulation: some suggest the brain need constant stimulation which is provided by the arrousal of REM
4. Activation synthesis theory: Make sense of the activity from the brain stem to the cerebral cortex
5. Cognitive development