Consciousness 2

Question 1

How is inattentional blindness related to consciousness?

Answer 1

This shows that selective attention is needed to be aware. We are not aware of what we don’t attend to.

Attention is necessary for consciousness but that doesn’t mean it’s sufficient.

Question 2

What is the difference between necessary and sufficient?

Answer 2

Attention is necessary for awareness, but it’s not sufficient. This implies other things are needed to be conscious. You can attend to something without being conscious.

Question 3

How did Kentridge show that attention can happen without consciousness?

Answer 3

People with blindsight can respond by showing spatial cueing to stimulus in their blind spot, despite claiming they can’t see it.

Question 4

How do you study consciousness?

Answer 4

Use the contrastive approach. Look for neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) or psychological correlates of consciousness (PCC).

NCC portions of the brain related to consciousness.
PCC cognitive processes and stimulus awareness

Question 5

Is selective attention a correlate of consciousness?

Answer 5

The general view is that selective attention is a correlate of consciousness. There is some doubt on this as it is unclear if unattended stimuli are unconscious. In some experiments participants can recover awareness of change with later cues.

Question 6

What is the relationship between semantic memory and consciousness?

Answer 6

According to the explicit and implicit memory framework, semantic memory is explicit. However, it has been shown that it can happen unconsciously.

Question 7

What did Blaxon show with her experiments on semantic memory?

Answer 7

Blaxton Showed participants a list of words and gave them a general knowledge test.

Explicit –> participants were told that the words would be useful to complete the general knowledge test.

Implicit –> The test was conducted without telling participants that the words presented to them would be helpful during the general knowledge test. She also didn’t refer to the study material when testing them.

Results –> Participants who were shown the words in the first part answered the questions better. They got semantic priming, not just repetition priming. So implicit semantic memory exists.

Question 8

Does unconscious semantic memory exist? what does this say about consciousness?

Answer 8

Yes, implicit/unconscious semantic memory exists. This suggests that semantic memory is not a correlate of consciousness.

Question 9

Why would one think that episodic memory is conscious?

Answer 9

Because we can’t connect items in time unconsciously.

Question 10

What is time based conditioning?

Answer 10

Conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are presented at different times.

Wong et al. presented unconscious stimuli and then presented conditioned stimuli later. Tests showed that participants associated unconscious stimulus with conditioned stimulus.

Question 11

What is the overall consensus of episodic memory as a correlate of consciousness?

Answer 11

It’s still debated whether or not episodic memory is a correlate of consciousness. There is more and more research suggesting that episodic memory is possible without consciousness.

Question 12

Explain Reber’s classic paradigm related to implicit memory as a correlate of consciousness.

Answer 12

Learning is supposed to require awareness. Reber designed an experiment to see if we can learn unconsciously.
- Invented an artificial grammar with rules of what is allowed.
- They came up with non-words that followed the rules of what is allowed
- They told people that they would be tested later
The explicit group was told that they could try to figure out the grammar, while the implicit group was just told to copy the non-words
- Both groups were told about the grammar and were given new words that do or don’t follow the grammar. They were told to decide if the words followed the rules.
Results: Both groups performed above chance, and the explicit group had no advantage over the implicit group. These results show that there is implicit memory. However, people argue over the meaning of the results over whether or not they are concrete or abstract learning.

Question 13

What would be the implications of Reber’s results showing abstract learning?

Answer 13

Abstract learning would imply that meaning is involved as opposed to concrete learning in which a more superficial level of processing is involved. If the results showed abstract learning it could mean that learning could be unconscious.

Question 14

What are the 3 main ideas for possible correlates of consciousness?

Answer 14

Selective attention, some types of memory and cognitive control.

Question 15

What are implicit attitudes?

Answer 15

Attitudes are associations between a concept and an evaluation (i.e., good or bad). Attitudes can happen unconsciously, but when you ask someone about their attitude, that makes it conscious.

Question 16

What is the implicit association test?

Answer 16

The IAT measures attitudes or beliefs that people might be unaware of or unwilling to share.
Method:
- Participants were told to associate good vs bad adjectives with various racial/ ethnic/gender photos.
- People were asked to group white with good and black with bad and then they were asked to reverse this.
- Reaction time was measured
- Implicit bias was calculated
Results: White people were quicker to make a positive association with white people. They also associated males with STEM and females with liberal arts.

This shows implicit biases, which may have something to do with familiarity

Question 17

Are attitudes a correlate of consciousness?

Answer 17

No, because they can happen unconsciously.

Question 18

What is cognitive control?

Answer 18

Rapid, flexible behavioral adaptations that are voluntary behavior. It’s the idea that we decide how to respond. The question is if we need to be aware to control our response.

Question 19

What was Jacoby’s hypothesis in the process dissociation procedure?

Answer 19

All memory has both controlled and automatic aspects.
Fundamental hypothesis: if memory/perception is conscious, we should be able to control our response.

Question 20

Explain inclusion vs exclusion performance.

Answer 20

Inclusion instructions: participants were told to use previously presented words to fill in word stems. They told people that if they can’t remember then they should fill in the first word that comes to mind.
Conscious + unconscious

Exclusion instructions: Told participants to fill in the word stems without using the previously presented words. They were told, again, that if they can’t remember, they should use the first word that comes to mind. This is where you get unconscious influence.
Only unconscious because if you consciously remember the words, then you won’t use them.

Findings: exclusion performance is low, but it’s above the baseline (what would happen due to chance). This is a demonstration that unconscious memory exists and can’t be controlled, which proves Jacoby’s hypothesis.

Question 21

Is there unconscious strategic control?

Answer 21

Recent evidence shows that cognitive control can be done unconsciously.

Question 22

Is cognitive control a correlate of consciousness?

Answer 22

Not clear, despite Jacoby’s certainty that consciousness is needed to exert cognitive control, there is some evidence suggesting it can be done unconsciously. We can’t control our response to all conscious stimuli (E.g., PTSD –> thoughts that people can’t get rid of (control)).
Maybe consciousness is necessary but not sufficient for cognitive control.

Question 23

What is response inhibition, and what are some limitations to it?

Answer 23

Response inhibition is a classic example of a process that requires cognitive control.
Go - no/go task
Responding or not responding based on the stimuli. Studies using subliminal stimuli: Subliminal no-go responses are slower than go responses. We can produce exclusion-like behavior even when we are not conscious. This means that at least some cognitive control is unconscious.

Question 24

What is the difference between attention as a correlate of consciousness and other psychological processes as correlates of consciousness?

Answer 24

The question for attention was: is attention needed for consciousness, whereas the question for other psychological processes is: is consciousness needed to do X?

Question 25

Are implicit attitudes a correlate of consciousness?

Answer 25

No, we have attitudes unconsciously or implicitly.

Question 26

What is Jacoby’s basic equation?

Answer 26

I-E=C
Inclusive condition (C & U) - Exclusive (U) = Conscious memory

Overall, performance has both conscious and unconscious memory, but if you use the equation, you can get percentages of each.

Question 27

What is exclusion failure?

Answer 27

A term describes that in the exclusive condition, you perform above baseline. Because you fail to exclude information.

Question 28

What are some limitations to unconscious cognitive control?

Answer 28

Perhaps consciousness is needed to control responses over long periods. Maybe unconscious cognitive control is only useful for quick responses.

All examples of unconscious cognitive control are instructed. Perhaps we need conscious cognitive control to initiate the behaviors (decide for ourselves).