Consciousness

Question 1

What is consciousness?

Answer 1

Our awareness of both external and internal world - the events taking place around us - and the internal world, including awareness of ourselves and our own thoughts and behaviors

Question 2

What are the properties of consciousness?

Answer 2

Properties:
Limited and selective: We do not have the capacity to focus on everything external and internally, we select what is most relevant to our goals
Dynamic: Changes very quickly and dramatically, can focus on past or future

Question 3

What are the component of consciousness?

Answer 3

Involves both arousal & awareness: Wakefulness or alertness, ability to recognize something

Question 4

What are the hard and easy questions that the science of consciousness needs to answer? How can these be studied?

Answer 4

Consciousness is a private experience.
First person data (the “hard” problem - hard to analyze); subjective experience
Third person data (the “easy” problem - brain technologies); behavioral and brain processes

Question 5

What are major sources of stress?

Answer 5

Catasterophic events (hurricane, accident), major live events (divorce, move), daily hassles (forgetting phone, miss your bus)

Question 6

What is meant by a split-brain? What are some of the effects of a split-brain patient?

Answer 6

An object seen in the left visual field will be processed on which side of the brain? How about something seen in the right visual field?
Patients whose corpus callosum has been severed during a brain surgery in order to manage their epilepsy
Left visual field - processed on right hemisphere; right visual field - left hemisphere = info flows due to corpus callosum
Split brain - Right visual can tell you; draw what they saw on left visual

Question 7

What is a primary vs. secondary appraisal?

Answer 7

Our appraisals of an event and our own role in it provides a lens through which we view the event and shape our emotional experience of it

Primary appraisal - Our perception of the demands of a given situation
Secondary appraisal - Your assessment of your ability to deal with demands of a situatio

Question 8

What is the General Adaptation Syndrome?

Answer 8

Three phase model to why our body reacts to stressors

Question 9

Stage 1: Alarm

Answer 9

Sympathetic nervous system is activated due to threat or danger (heart speeds up)

Question 10

Stage 2: Resistance

Answer 10

body attempts to cope with stress while you remain on alert (adrenal glands pumps hormones to bloodstream)

Question 11

Stage 3: Exhaustion - body exhausts if stressor remains intense and ongoing (vulnerable to illness, collapse)