Consciousness

Question 1

Conscious

Answer 1

• To be awake

Question 2

Fully Conscious

Answer 2

• Mentally alert and in a clear state

Question 3

Altered State of Consciousness

Answer 3

• Evident due to changes in mental activity
• > Shifts of attention
• > distorted perceptions
• > shifts in memories

Question 4

Normal Waking Conscious

Answer 4

• Different to ASC:
• > Level of awareness
• > Quality of experiences
• > Intensity of experiences

Question 5

ASC: Sleep

Answer 5

• > Naturally recurring state
• > Characterised by reduced / absent consciousness
• > Relatively suspended sensory activity
• > Inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles

Question 6

ASC: Daydreaming

Answer 6

• > Visionary fantasy

- > Experienced whilst awake

Question 7

ASC: Meditation

Answer 7

• > People train their minds a mode of consciousness to realise some benefit
• > Personal practice

Question 8

ASC: Hypnosis

Answer 8

• > Induction of a state of consciousness
• > Person loses power of voluntary action
• > Highly responsive to suggestion or depiction

Can be used to recover suppressed memories

Question 9

Waking Consciousness

Answer 9

• > Consciousness experienced in everyday life
• > Alert and aware of surroundings

-> Stroop effect: Suggests we are not always in control of what we pay attention to.

Question 10

Waking Consciousness: Pain

Answer 10

Unpleasant feeling associated with damage / irritation to body

-> Treatments are medication, cognitive / behavioural techniques

Question 11

Waking Consciousness: Selective Attention

Answer 11

• > Focus on something & exclude everything else around us
• > Directs attention purposefully

-> High levels and low levels of awareness

Gives priority to some stimuli over others

Question 12

Waking Consciousness: Divided Attention

Answer 12

• > Attention is divided b/w numerous tasks

- > Stimuli demands the same / less attention as each other

Question 13

Waking Consciousness: Habituation

Answer 13

• > Predictable & unchanging stimuli fail to command attention
• > Repetitive stimuli is ignored e.g. fridge humming
• > All of these occur frequently and person learns to block noise

Question 14

Waking Consciousness: Dishabituation

Answer 14

• > Change in events that causes us to become aware of them

- > Change in repetitive stimuli

Question 15

Amplitude

Answer 15

• Size of peaks and troughs from a baseline of no activity

Question 16

Frequency

Answer 16

of brain waves per second

Question 17

Measuring States of Consciousness

Answer 17

Brainwaves: EEG
-> Records amplitude and frequency

-> Frequency decreases as consciousness decreases

Heart Rate

• > Greater heart rate, greater state of arousal
• > Done through taking pulse
• > Exercise, fear / drugs can stimulate heart rate
• > Meditation = decrease

Body Temperature

• > Drugs can increase body temp.
• > Measured through skin of fingers

Galvanic Skin Response

• > Change in electrical conductivity of skin
• > Perspiration inc. electrical conductivity
• > Measured by attaching electrodes to hairless parts of body

Question 18

Distortions of Perception

Answer 18

Stimuli and experiences lead to things being expected

-> these inc. level of attention, level of awareness, subsequent response

Question 19

Perceptual Expectancy

Answer 19

A readiness to respond in a certain way because previous experiences

Question 20

Multi- Lyer Illusion

Answer 20

2 lines of equal length, different shaped ends

• > illusion occurs because eyes look in wrong place
• > Eyes are drawn past the lines w/ feather tails to make line look longer

criticism: eyes dont move in different directions