Lecture 1: Intro & Consciousness

Question 1

What is consciousness?

Answer 1

The state or quality of awareness of our thoughts, perceptions, memories, and feelings

Question 2

How do psychologists research consciousness?

Answer 2

Asking people with brain damage about how they perceive the world

Question 3

How does brain damage impact consciousness?

Answer 3

Brain damage can significantly disrupt consciousness without people even noticing

Question 4

What is a frontal lobotomy?

Answer 4

The nerve pathways in the frontal lobe are surgically severed from those in other areas

Question 5

When were frontal lobotomies popular?

Answer 5

1940s

Question 6

What do frontal lobotomies treat?

Answer 6

Psychosis, depression, and anxiety

Question 7

Result of frontal lobotomy

Answer 7

people become more calm, apathetic, and child-like

Question 8

Problem with frontal lobotomies

Answer 8

caregivers of people with mental illnesses requested this procedure on the behalf of the person with the mental illness

Question 9

How are split-brain operations performed?

Answer 9

Cutting the corpus callosum to separate the left and right sides of the brain

Question 10

What is the corpus callosum?

Answer 10

The bundle of nerve fibres that connect the left and right sides of the cerebral cortex. Allows the two hemispheres of the brain to share information so that

Question 11

What are split-brain operations designed to treat?

Answer 11

seizure disorder (epilepsy)

Question 12

Functions of the cerebral cortex

Answer 12

• processing sensory information

- ability to consciously move our body in space

Question 13

Function of the left cerebral hemisphere

Answer 13

movement of the right side of the body

Question 14

Function of the right cerebral hemisphere

Answer 14

movement of the left side of the body

Question 15

functions of lower brain areas

Answer 15

coordinating body movements

Question 16

History of split-brain patients

Answer 16

• 26 patients received split-brain surgery in NY around 1940 and the doctor claimed it helped with seizures
• an independent group of scientists reexamined and found that patients’ improvements were short-lived and cutting the corpus callosum didn’t do much
• Sperry at Caltech found cognitive peculiarities in split-brain patients in the 1960s

Question 17

Result of split-brain surgeries

Answer 17

split-brain patients are unconsious of any stimuli directed exclusively to their right brain

Question 18

language in the brain

Answer 18

located in the left cerebral hemisphere

Question 19

When split-brain patients see an object with their right eye they…

Answer 19

can say what they saw

Question 20

When split-brain patients see an object with their left eye they…

Answer 20

can’t remember what they saw

Question 21

interpreter theory (Gazzaniga)

Answer 21

• Our behaviour is controlled by unconscious processes, and the consciousness of our left brain simply creates narratives to make sense of the world.
• Free will is an illusion and consciousness is just storytelling

Question 22

determinism

Answer 22

everything is rooted in the laws of physics and humans cannot interfere with this

Question 23

mind-body dualism

Answer 23

the mind and body are fundamentally different kinds of substances

Question 24

cartesian doubt/ hyperbolic skepticism

Answer 24

questioning and doubting everything as a result of the scientific revolution

Question 25

cartesian impasse

Answer 25

if the movement of all atoms can be well explained by physical laws, how can our immaterial souls control our material bodies?

Question 26

function of neural networks

Answer 26

controlling movement

Question 27

how does the brain gain control over its dynamics

Answer 27

telling stories