Lecture 21- Grand Theories of Consciousness Flashcards
In psychological research, are consciousness and awareness used interchangeably?
Yes.
Is consciousness an umbrella term that covers many areas of experience, such as self awareness.
T/F?
True.
What was one of David Chalmers’ most significant contributions to philosophy of consciousness?
The Easy and The Hard problem of Consciousness.
We are still trying to figure out the Easy Problem.
What is Binocular Rivalry?
When the eyes are presented with two different images, they tend to merge the images, such that you only see one image. Awareness will switch between which image is consciously available.
Think hand experiment.
What is the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) theory of Consciousness?
The idea that there is subset of neural pathways and activity that give rise to consciousness?
The NCC is the minimal set of neuronal events that give rise to a conscious percept.
What is the Sparse Coding theory of consciousness?
That we have neuronal networks that code for our conscious experience, such as the ‘grandmother’ neuron, i.e. we have a cluster of neurons that fire whenever we see our grandmother and that firing is what brings about our conscious experience of our grandmother.
What is the Global Workspace theory of consciousness?
This Theory states that we have spotlight of conciousness that shines of certain information at a given time. The other information not in this spotlight is not accessible to us, just like actors behind the stage of a scene they are not in.
Proposed by Baars in 1980.
I don’t really understand it.
What is backward masking?
Think of the clapping experiment.
Backward masking occurs when a visual stimulus is presented briefly followed by another visual stimulus shortly after. The second stimulus prevents conscious awareness of the first stimulus.
Have experiments shown that in backward masking experiments there is activation in the primary visual cortex even if we do not consciously see the stimuli?
Where is there activation in the brain when we do consciously see the stimulus?
Yes.
When we are consciously aware of the stimulus, there is activation in the prefrontal cortex and other areas of the brain, not just the primary visual cortex.
Are the areas of the brain involved in visual object processing activated even if we are not consciously aware of ‘seeing’ the object?
Yes.
What areas of the brain are activated when we are consciously ‘seeing’ a visual object?
Areas in the parietal and frontal cortex.
What area of the brain appears to be important in conscious awareness when the subject does not need to report on seeing a stimulus, for example?
The parietal cortex.
The frontal cortex appears to important for remembering and performing a task to indicate conscious awaweness of something, but not necessarily the “producer” of consciousness.
