constinta

Question 1

what is consciousness

Answer 1

the normal mental condition of the waking state of humans, characterised by the experience of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, awareness of the external world

awareness of things that are happening in our mind and environment

Question 2

key characteristics of consciousness

Answer 2

subjective and private

dynamic - drift in an out of different states of consciousness - things are constantly changing in- and externally

self-reflective - always the subject of your own conscious experience

linked to selective attention - u are conscious of things u pay attention to

Question 3

altered states of consciousness

Answer 3

drugs
sleep
hypnosis

Question 4

drugs

Answer 4

many drugs produce altered states of consciousness

psychedelics - substances that alter a person’s perception

distort conscious sensory experience

LSD - most powerful psychedelic

Question 4

typical effects of LSD

Answer 4

visual illusions
mood changes
subjective slowing of time
colours heard, sounds seen
depersonalisation - feeling disconnected from themselves

Question 5

how do psychedelics affect the brain

Answer 5

affect serotonin system
they stimulate serotonin receptors

serotonin has an effect on mood

Question 5

sleep

Answer 5

wake:
- sensations are vivid and externally generated
- thought is logical
- movement is continuous and voluntary

REM sleep
- conscious experiences can be vivid, internally generated - we can see stuff with our eyes closed
- thoughts are illogically bizarre
-movement is inhibited - u may dream u move but u are stationary

Question 5

when is dreaming most common

Answer 5

in REM sleep

Question 5

what happens in the brain during dreaming

Answer 5

during dreaming some parts are activated and some are deactivated

deactivated- prefrontal cortex and visual cortex - leads to disinhibition - why dreams are illogical

Question 5

are dreams conscious experiences

Answer 5

dreams are a form of consciousness but they are different from full waking consciousness

are we aware in our dreams - do we have self awareness at the time

so dreams lack in self awareness quality

but what about lucid dreams - u seem to have some control abt your dream

Question 5

hypnosis

Answer 5

a state of heightened suggestibility
change in conscious experience
people may experience imagined situations

Question 5

is hypnosis an altered state of consciousness - for yes

Answer 5

state theory

hypnosis is a unique conscious state
hypnosis produces a division of awareness - one stream responds to the hypnotist, the other and the other stream of consciousness which monitors our behaviour remains in the background
this division of awareness produces the change in conscious experience associated with hypnosis

Question 5

is hypnosis an altered state of consciousness - for no

Answer 5

non-state theory

hypnosis is not a unique conscious state

subjects are simply playing a role or faking it

Question 5

does hypnosis change brain activity

Answer 5

evidence that hypnosis is associated with changes in brain activity

changes in areas of the brain that are typically associated with conscious experience

the more relaxed or absorbed the ppt was during hypnosis, the stronger the changes in frontal parts of the brain

Question 5

why research on consciousness has taken off: 1. re-conceptualisation of consciousness by Chalmers

Answer 5

2 types of consciousness problems:

easy - neural correlates of conscious perception

hard -how and why does the brain give rise to conscious subjective experience

progress has been slow bc we are hung up on hard problems

Question 5

2. development of new methods for measuring consciousness have been developed

Answer 5

new behavioural paradigms

new ways of investigating brain activity; fmri , eeg, brain stimulation

Question 6

how do we measure consciousness

Answer 6

most of the research on CS has focused on visual CS

advantage:

+control what is presented
+control if stimuli are consciously perceived - experimentally manipulate CS experience in the visual domain

Question 7

behavioural measures

Answer 7

those involved in behaviour/ verbal responses

presenting visual stimuli to ppts and ppt have to report if they see - if they can see, they are CS aware of it

Question 8

masking paradigm - behavioural measure

Answer 8

used to manipulate visual consciousness

present a masking stimulus which are abstract shapes
that’s followed by a target stimulus, followed again by a masking stimulus

if this sequence happens slowly, the target is consciously perceived
if sequence happens quickly, so that person doesn’t have time to process, target stimulus remains unconscious

see what variables affect the conscious perception of a target

Question 9

post-decision wagering: behavioural measure

Answer 9

rather than saying yes i see target or i dont, ppts also have to place a bet on this decision

ppl have to bet some money some decisions are more reflective of the conscious experience

amount someone bets can reflect the strength of conscious experience they have had

Question 10

post-decision wagering in blindsight

Answer 10

in blindsight, patient has a lesion in visual cortex - part that processes visual information -

and that produces unawareness of parts of the visual field but patients still able to process items in these parts of the visual field - if u show patient an object and say what’s happening they will say idk i cant see anything. if u force them to say if there is something present or absent, they respond accurately

Question 11

study of post-decision wagering in blindsight

Answer 11

decide whether item had been presented in affected visual field and place a bet on this decision

patient correctly detected there was an item present on 70% of the trials

but they placed modest bets on these decisions

they are able to process info revealed through their performance at detecting items but they did not have confidence

Question 12

limitations of behavioural methods

Answer 12

failure to report a CS experience may not mean u do not have it
- could be due to failures of attention or memory

Question 13

neural correlated of consciousness - to measure consciousness

Answer 13

brain imaging -fmri and eeg to look for correlation between brain activity and conscious experience

Question 14

recurrent processing - a neural correlated approach

Answer 14

looks for correlations between the types of brain activity u can observe and whats happening in terms of conscious experience

recurrent processing seems to be associated with consciousness

present a visual stimulus to ppt and look at brain activity
there is initial processing in eyes, and this gets sent to early visual areas that gets sent forward in a uni directional flow through higher visual areas

recurrent feedback: if person is consciously aware of the stimulus u present, u observe higher level interaction between more sophisticated parts of the brain and lower level parts of the brain - not all visual stimuli trigger this recurrent so person is not aware of conscious stimulus

Question 15

recurrent processing can be detected using EEG

Answer 15

observing activation in early visual areas after the visual stimulus is being presented

activity in early visual areas is being triggered by communication coming from higher areas

recurrent activity is correlated with conscious experience of a visual target

showed ppt visual stimuli and detect visual target amongst noisy visual imagery

when ppts detected a visual target, they observed recurrent processing using EEG

Question 16

specific brain regions involved - a neural correlated approach

Answer 16

what parts are active when someone undergoes a change in consciousness

regions involved are different for different types of conscious experience

there is no single consciousness region of the brain

Question 17

parts of the brain in visual consciousness

Answer 17

run masking (unconscious) experiments and compare non-masked (conscious)

masking experiment in fMRI
In masked condition activity in the brain was limited (localised) activity in visual areas

un masked condition where ppts consciously detect the target, they observed widespread patterns of activation

conscious experience is associated with distributed patterns of brain activity

Question 18

explore brain regions involved in consciousness

Answer 18

perform binocular rivalry tasks

presentation of 2 different images to each eye
person’s conscious perception of what they are seeing spontaneously flips throughout a trial between these 2 images

sometimes they consciously perceived left eye image, sometimes right

what changes occur

clustering of activity in frontal regions and parietal regions
pockets of activity elsewhere in the brain
so when brain is undergoing a change in conscious experience you find parietal frontal activation - coupled with widespread activation