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Psych1001 > Consciousness > Flashcards

Consciousness Flashcards

1
Q

working definition for consciousness

A

awake vs sleep

consciousness is the fundamental basis of mind and behaviour.

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2
Q

If we understand consciousness then:

A

We might know how to fix it when it goes wrong
How to monitor it e.g. during general anaesthesia
Maybe answer fundamental questions like: what is the nature of reality
Basically if we understand consciousness then we understand the brain
Understand how the pain of stubbing, texture of stone etc. is formed by the brain

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3
Q

Astonishing hypothesis

A

who you are etc. are no more than the collective activity of nerve cells. Your mind is what the brain does and that’s who you are. (Monism)

The scientific consensus is that dualism is wrong
There is no you, separate from your body and brain
The mind is what the brain does

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4
Q

Rene Descartes

A

What can be doubted/ what was he sure of
I believe there is a god
I believe I have friends
I believe I have family
The whole thing might just be an illusion
How to be sure tho
‘I think therefore I am’

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5
Q

Dualism

A

Descartes supports the idea that bodies and minds are different
Movies in which characters wake up in a different body
Majority of people on the earth believe that when their bodies die, they won’t
E.g. if we cut off a finger, doesn’t effect who we are

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6
Q

Problem with Dualism

A

It is unscientific: we want to know about mental phenomena
Dualists say it is all just out there, part of the aether
Descartes- physical objects can not do certain things like play chess.
- But now computers can play chess
- So if machines can do complex things then maybe we are like complex machines (brains)

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7
Q

You and your brain

A

If you chop off your hand, it doesn’t really change your consciousness. You can still have conscious experiences of an arm
Brain activity corresponds to your thoughts
- Or your thoughts correspond to your brain activity
What you do with your body can change your mind
- Drinking coffee and brain damage can change your behaviour

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

  • Put you in this scanner
  • Can tell if you are thinking about music, playing tennis or solving a moral dilemma
  • Physical patterns going on in your brain can predict what youre conscious of
  • Your thoughts have a specific physical associations in the brain and every time you have that pattern, you have that thought
  • We can even make you see something that’s not there by stimulating your brain

Having a particular pattern of activity in your particular brain is simply what it feels like to be you

So could a phone become conscious? You have no way of knowing except through its behaviour

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8
Q

Modern day Free will experiments

A

Person lies in a fMRI scanner and sees string of letters on screen. Then decide whether to press left or right button, remembering which letter you saw.
Looking at their brain, we can predict what button they were going to press 6 secs before they did it
Evidence that information for a decision exists in the brain before we feel like we have made a decision
So does that mean we don’t have free will? OR our brain activity is ‘us’ deciding (Monism)

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9
Q

Are we our brain then?

Analogy of TV set:

A

It has content
It can be damaged or distorted
Can stimulate certain parts and see something on screen
But does this mean the TV creates the TV shows

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10
Q

Qualia (from latin)

A

Words used in philosophy and now science to describe qualitative feeling of an experience
E.g. redness of red AND wetness of water
It is impossible to compare your quale and mine
You can never experience what I am experiencing
Some people don’t realise they are colour blind

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11
Q

Why have qualia?

A

The most efficient way of processing information?

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12
Q

A lot of what goes on in our brains bypasses consciousness

A

Reflex action to a bug on foot
Bodies react to fearful sights e.g. spider or gun
High level things like decision making and creativity often happens outside of awareness

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13
Q

Things we are not aware of can effect our behaviour

A

Awareness and action e.g. a room with moving walls
Brain injuries e.g. blindsight
Many ‘zombie’ agents in the brain (without consciousness: autopilot

So why do we need consciousness if we have ‘zombie’ agents? WE DUNNO YET

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14
Q

Problem of 3rd party consciousness

A

I can never be sure that you are conscious
AND you can never be sure that I am conscious
E.g. the colour green (dunno how others perceive green)

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15
Q

Motion induced blindness LOOK AT LECS

A

Illusion of blinking green light and 3 yellow lights

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16
Q

There are enabling factors (what our body needs to get to consciousness)

A

Do u need a blood supply, do u need a oxygen to be conscious? Dunno
Do you need toes and fingers to be conscious of your toes and fingers? No

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17
Q

Search for the NCC (neural correlates of consciousness)

A

Look for the neural patterns etc. that correlates with being conscious

Does not mean the neural activity is causing consciousness but correlates with it?
- Just bc there is correlation doesn’t mean causation

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18
Q

Visual parts of the brain

A

The back half of the brain is dedicated to vision- vision is very reliant on the brain.
So a lot of research first starts off in vision before moving off to other senses.

Eyes
Light comes in through the lens and hits the retina at the back which starts a cascade of neuron activity
Do we need eyes to be conscious? Not rlly
Eyes are not crucial to having a visual conscious experience

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19
Q

Damage to the brain

A

Phineas Gage Frontal lobe damage (a bar went through his frontal lobe of brain)

  • He was still conscious and could read and write
  • But he couldn’t plan, memory was wonky, but he was fully conscious of everything
  • More damage on personality and functioning NOT consciousness
  • This is the firsts step in discovering which parts of brain is doing what

Primary visual cortex, visual area one (V1):

What happens if V1 is damaged?

  • Can’t see some things
  • Lose ability to see half of things

Patients asked to point to the light source even if they could not see it
- They can point to the yellow dot even thought they’re not conscious of it.

Blind sight:
the ability to respond to visual stimuli without consciously perceiving them, a condition which can occur after certain types of brain damage
E.g. put a shape in their blind side and ask them to describe how they feel. They will use words that describes the shape.
So even without V1, some information can still get through
- Does this mean that V1 is not the site for NCC?

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20
Q

Damage to higher level areas

A

Visual neglect
Motion blindness area MT
Akinestpsia (inability to perceive motion)
Color blindness from damage to the cortex
NCC for motion
- Even without higher level visual areas we still perceive, but the experience is incomplete
- BUT without motion area (MT) we can’t perceive motion
- Does that mean MT is the NCC?

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21
Q

Where motion is processed in the brain

A

Stimulating MT causes motion perception
TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation)
So there is strong evidence that MT processes motion

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22
Q

Prosopagnosia or face blindness

A

Damage to or under formed brain area
When that area is not functioning right u get face blindness (LOOK AT PIC ON NOTES)

Imagery of faces and houses O’Craven & Kanwisher, 2000
- Imagining faces and places leads to activity in the FFA and PPA
Is this part of NCC then?

23
Q

Is the brain modular?

A

The idea that each process is done in a particular location
E.g.
MT- motion
FFA- faces
V4- colour (but not as much)
There is some modularity but not a general trend (only sometimes different parts of the brain serve for different purposes)

24
Q

Different NCCs in different places

A

LOOK AT PIC ON NOTES

25
Q

Binding problem

A

The humpty dumpty problem
Once the activity is sent off to separate brain areas, how is it put back together again otherwise you can’t be conscious in a world that makes sense

To try fix problem

  1. Neural synchrony (e.g. 40hz)
    - Everything with the 40 hertz frequency goes together and locks it in
  2. Feedback to a common high resolution area e.g. V1.
    - Info in the eye goes through V1 to back of brain and then back to V1 again. V1 locks it all back together (since its at the front in primary position)
26
Q

How consciousness is created

A

For particular things (faces, motion, colour) occurs in areas in the brain
Billions of neurons- the building blocks of consciousness
It is the activity of neurons which relate to consciousness

27
Q

E.g. Grandmother cell

A

Grandmother cell (where we have a cell for each person we know)–> Problem is: if granny died, u wouldn’t recognize her anymore coz her cells died
- Bill Clinton cell
Activity from neurons in amygdala of an awake human
Record neural response
Show a whole bunch of different pics
They found that there would be one cell that would respond to one person even from different angles, textures etc.

Idea of the grandmother cell has died and people now think about population coding.

28
Q

Population coding

A

Hundred million cells, their activity representing a pattern altogether
A coding of the population together
Each cell is binary, but altogether creates complex images

But there are so many combinations of patterns and level activity so how does the brain choose between them
Think of it as an Election as a metaphor
- Democratic elections serve as a metaphor for neural competition
- A single coalition of neurons (based on their activity) corresponds to the winning aspect of consciousness
- Thresholds for consciousness
Once there is enough activity (goes above the threshold for consciousness) then u are aware of it

An alternate theory depends on pattern of activity and not just the threshold

29
Q

Can fMRI be used to ‘communicate’ with vegetative patients (can’t move, talk)

A

Use fMRI to pick up brain responses to questions
In the experiment, patients could imagine doing the task which shows that they can control their brain enough to imagine the imagery.
People now use fMRI to talk to people

30
Q

Diagnosing consciousness

A

With new tech and combining maths: new methods are emerging that combine both complex pattern and amplitudes

Graph methods
- But hard to visualise the data in a meaningful way

31
Q

Artificial intel

A

Would electronic switches become conscious?
People working in AL are now turning to cognitive neuroscience to find out how the brain does- before designing AL systems
Using ‘deep learning’ so the AL teaches itself using model neurons
gAL (general artifical intel) is the ultimate goal

32
Q

Pathological Hallucinations

A

Charles Bonnet syndrome
Schizophrenia
Parkinson’s disease
(scintillating scotomas/migraine auras, bereavement, fever, blindness, macular degeneration etc.
BUT people have hallucinations in ordinary life as well

Hallucinations are hard to study bc they can come and go quickly

33
Q

Stimulated hallucination

A

Flicker induced hallucinations

  • Changing shape of light stimulus to become predictable
  • And then you can do cognitive tests on it just like anything else
34
Q

Sleep

A

Cyclical Activity in Sleep LOOK AT PIC IN NOTES

What happens in REM sleep (rapid eye movement) –> content of dreams

35
Q

Dreams

A

Strange state, normal laws don’t apply, you can fly etc.
When you are dreaming you are conscious.
In other stages of sleep where you don’t dream, that’s considered unconscious

But reality testing doesn’t work either bc you aren’t surprised that you can fly
- Similar beliefs when awake are problematic e.g. shocked that you’re flying

Episodic memory fails (you don’t rmbr your dreams)
- This is useful so you don’t get dreams confused with reality

36
Q

Dream interpretation

A

Great history of interpreting dreams

Many cultures do this in some form or another

37
Q

Dreaming about things we did during the day

A

Stickgold et al., 2000
Play tetris a lot
Go to sleep wearing the eeg. Cap. To monitor sleep activity
When people go into REM sleep they
- Wake them up
- ‘what are u dreaming about’
- The people talk about things similar to in the tetris game. E.g. bricks are falling etc.

This also works with amnesiacs 
Play tetris 
What have u just been doing --> 'um idk'
Go to sleep wearing eeg. Cap. 
When in REM sleep
- Wake them up
- 'what are u dreaming about 
- The people talk about things similar to in the tetris game. E.g. bricks are falling etc.

This suggests that you don’t have to be consciously aware of things in everyday life. It will still get into your dreams.

38
Q

Imagination

A

Voluntarily create experiences in my mind independent to the outside world.
This is also completely involuntary during dreaming.

39
Q

Mental imagery

A

Ability to imagine the world in the absence of stimulation from the world

40
Q

Measuring mental imagery

A

Is it a state of consciousness?
For the most part, it is part of our everyday experiences
Simulate something to make a prediction to see what we should do next (what might work/not work)
Sensory consciousness on demand as opposed to dreaming and other hallucinations out of our control.

41
Q

Meditation

A

Meditation changes flow of conscious thoughts, brain state, behavioral/cognitive things.
Reduces anxiety etc.
Changes brains anatomy
EGG patterns that look like someone is asleep when they are actually alert and awake
Unless you are in this state already most of the time, meditation is considered a non-ordinary state of consciousness.

42
Q

Hypnosis

A

Doesn’t work for everyone (only about 10% of the population).
Volition changes, more likely to follow suggestions
Hypnotisability varies across a spectrum.
Used in therapy, entertainment and anesthetic (some people use hypnosis instead of needles)
Can unlock information hidden in memory
BUT need to be careful as people under hypnosis are very sensitive to suggestions. Our memories can be changed.

43
Q

fMRI experiment

A

Hypnotize the subject
Put them in the scanner
Tell them that the patterns are black and white
Another is colour
Result: when people are told the colours in hypnosis , the brain reacts more than people who are not hypnosised.

44
Q

Substance induced states of consciousness

A

Everything we ingest changes our conscious experiences e.g. lollies, coffee etc.

45
Q

Depressants

A

Slows down nervous system (heroin, alcohol)
Part of the brain gets turned down
People feel freer as things in brain that usually stop you are slowed down
Alcohol is the most common psychiatric drug taken

46
Q

Stimulants

A

Coffee, tobacco, speed, cocaine etc.
Neurons are more likely to fire
Increase alertness, energy and automatic reactivity
Used to stay awake, aid drivers, soldiers, med students
Very addictive and have bad long-term problems

47
Q

Hallucinogens

A

LSD, PCP, Ecstasy

Used for thousands of yrs in all cultures often in ceremony

48
Q

LSD

A 
Discovered by Hoffman 
LSD had ability to treat things like 
- Alcoholism (50% success) 
- Anxiety disorders (70% success)
- Depression (60%)
- Personality disorder (50%)
- Etc. 
- Modern day fMRI LSD study

Visual cortex has huge difference between placebo brain and LSD brain

49
Q

Psilocybin (magic mushrooms)

A

Derived from a certain type of mushroom
Elementary visual alterations, audio-visual synesthesia, vivid imagery, changed meaning of perceptives

Testing awareness and psilocybin
Carter et al., 2007: Your awareness changes back and forth constantly when looking at two patterns of red and green
Get people to track binocular rivalry after taking psilocybin (see red then green)
People who took the mushrooms had the phases slowing down alterations in visual consciousness

50
Q

Ayahuasca

A

Plant part of rituals and ceremonies
Is now being used in neuro-science and science experiments now
Similar to LSD and magic mushrooms

51
Q

Shamanic rituals

A

Non-drug techniques to get into non-ordinary states of consciousness
Breathing techniques, drumming, music etc.

52
Q

Non-ordinary states and creativity

A

Research in this field is not great
Got people to take a low dosage of LSD and they could solve problems in a way that they never could have done otherwise.
Alcohol and opium lower inhibition and attentional focus both of which have been linked to creativity (Goodwin)
Flip side is also argued that creativity is the result of laborious, deliberate, and methodological problem solving

53
Q

Near death experiences (NDEs)

A

People report seeing from outside of their body
Equal across race, age, education, religion
Many atheists AND religious people report this
Does not correlate with drugs used in surgery
Don’t know much about NDEs (only stories) bc its not the most appropriate place to do research
Documented up to 40 cases

54
Q

Illusory own body experience

A

Scientist stimulate a patients brain in areas
Weak stimulation lead to the experience of ‘sinking into the bed’
Strong stimulation led to the experience of looking down on herself: from a different position to where eyes were
Suggest that there is enough info in brain to put together the conscious experience of seeing something in real time while you’re awake from a different angle to where your eyes are.

Psych1001 (10 decks)

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