Consciousness Flashcards
Consciousness
•moment-by-moment subjective experience of world
-external + internal world (thoughts)
The Brain
- Left + right hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum
* Corpus callosotomy (severing of the corpus callosum): surgery treat patients suffering from epilepsy/chronic seizures
Split Brain, Split Mind
•corpus callosum is severed=2 half brains, each with its own perceptions, thoughts, + consciousness
•Images from left visual field to the right hemisphere + vice versa
-left hemisphere controls right hand + vice versa
Split Brain, Split Mind
- left hemisphere vocal hemisphere: control over speech
* right hemisphere: spatial relations
Split Brain, Split Mind
•Interpreter: left-hemisphere attempts to make sense out of events
–Creates a comprehensible story
–Tries to find patterns, relationships
•Explanation based on info we have
•Only has access to what is given to the hemisphere
Fusiform face area (FFA)
- Area of brain active when ppl look at faces (some evidence that “expertise” area, not just for faces)
- intersection of occipital + temporal cortices, usually larger on the right side
“left-brained” or “right-brained
-right+left hemispheres each specialized for diff tasks
•“right brained”/“left brained” exaggerated in popular media
“left-brained” or “right-brained
under extreme circumstances, 1 side can learn to perform many of the functions generally done by the other side
•If you lose hemisphere, other half can compensate
oVery plastic, adaptive
–Children with Rasmussen’s syndrome who undergo hemispherectomies
stage 1 sleep
-Resting, relaxing - before sleep alpha waves
•Cycle through over night (90 min)
-Light sleep, easily awoken
-theta waves
stage 2 sleep
- Sleep spindles: Takes work to keep yourself asleep, maintain sleep
- k-waves
- Genuine sleep
stage 3 + 4 sleep
-Deep sleep, slow-wave sleep
-Delta waves: big slow waves
•Lacking conscious awareness, but has a sense
Global Workspace Model
-Diff parts of brain responsible for diff functions
–No single area of the brain responsible for “awareness”
REM sleep
-rapid eye movements, dreaming + paralysis of motor systems
•Dreams bizarre, illogical, emotional
•activation of emotion, motivation, reward + visual centres of brain.
•paralysis stop you from moving/flailing around during bizarre dreams
•Alert: beta waves
•Non rem dreams: boring dreams
adaptiveness of sleep
–Restorative theory
–Circadian rhythm theory
–Facilitation of learning theory
Restorative theory
- need to repair ourselves
- recover
Circadian rhythm theory
-evolve to sleep where best time to be inactive
oWe cant do anything useful, most dangerous at night so we don’t move
Facilitation of learning theory
at night, strengthening new connections/synapses
•Consolidates
•Help you learn material
•REM sleep: children spend more time in REM, learning ton of info everyday
•Helpful to dream about it, likely to better learn material
Hypnosis
•social interaction person, responding to suggestions, experiences changes in memory, perception, and/or voluntary action
- Depends more on hypnotized than on skills of hypnotist
- highly suggestible
Hypnosis
–ability to get “lost in activities”/absorbed, block out distractions
activity/absorbed easily
•Altered state of consciousness: hypnotized ppl told they are seeing nonsense syllable, no trouble with stroop test
•Brain activity: black + white photos, tell you it’s coloured, colour processing areas of brain are active
Concentrative meditation
Focus all of your attention on one particular thing
Mindfulness meditation
Let thoughts flow freely, paying attention to them, but not reacting to them
–Long term practice can decrease the reactivity of your autonomic nervous system to stressful events
Limits of Consciousness
-brain is capable of processing & acting on info not consciously aware of
•Blindsight patients/subliminal messages
Subliminal Perception
presented outside of conscious awareness
–Very brief flashes of words/images
–priming tasks activate concepts in someone’s mind, without their awareness
Subliminal Perception
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Subliminal Perception
Much behaviour occurs without awareness/intention
•unconscious mind smart
•Overthinking can result in bad decisions
Verbal overshadowing
ppl rank based on taste do good job without any thought
•When explain it, no idea how to describe it, we end up listening to ourselves bullshitting, based on dumb descriptions, words overshadows, biased ratings
Derren Brown:
The Remarkable Effects of Priming!
takes ad agents, gives them task of making an ad for taxidermy within 30 min
blindsight
-brain damage, no conscious awareness of seeing anything, will better than chance level of correctly guessing
oeven if not visually aware, brain still processing of info even without conscious awareness of seeing anything
oaccess to some visual info not consciously aware of it
Influence by the Unknown: Strahan, Spencer, & Zanna (2002)
- Independent variables: Thirst + type of prime
- Dependent variable: Amount of Kool-Aid consumed
- Priming can persuade people to drink more – only if they want to drink in the first place
- No one can make you do something if you aren’t already motivated to do it
Drugs
-MJ: relaxed mental state, uplifted mood, perceptual + cognitive distortions
•Cocaine: wave of confidence, feel good, alert, energetic, sociable, wide awake
•Meth: Blocks reuptake of dopamine, increases release of dope
Drugs
- MDMA/Ecstasy: energizing effect + slight hallucinations
- less dopamine release + more serotonin release
- Opiates: increase dopamine activation in nucleus accumbens + binding with opiate receptors = relaxation, analgesia, euphoria
- heroin: like orgasm, rush of intense pleasure, evolving into pleasant, relaxed stupor
Qualia
-properties of subjective experiences
Sensation
- detection of external stimuli, responses + transmission of responses to brain
- processing physical property, convert it into neural impulses
Perception
- processing, organization + interpretation of sensory signals in brain
- internal representation of the stimuli + conscious
Perception
-subjective experience
•Every experience subjective
•Adapted to respond to changes in sensory experience
Sensation & Perception
- Everything is experienced in your brain
- The world constructed by you
- Context + Change is important
Sensation:
Going from the world, to your brain
Stimuli need to be translated into chemical/electrical signals for brain to understand Most info (not smell) goes to the thalamus, then directed to part of cortex -info then interpreted as sight, smell, taste