Lecture 6 Consciousness

Question 1

Medical definition of consciousness

Answer 1

Awareness demonstrated any ability to recall experience.

Question 2

Psychological definition of consciousness

Answer 2

Awareness of the outside world - Awareness of one’s mental processes, thoughts, feelings and perceptions.

Question 3

What is the theatre view of consciousness?

Answer 3

• Consciousness is a single phenomenon

- Supported by the laws of psychophysics

Question 4

What is the ‘mind and brain’ problem?

Answer 4

Whether it falls under dualism (mind and brain are different) or materialism (mind and brain same thing).

Question 5

What is the parallel distributed processing models (PDP)?

Answer 5

Describes the mind as processing many parallel streams of information which interact to create unitary experience of consciousness. Supported by separate functions of different brain regions.

Question 6

What are the 3 central questions of the study of consciousness?

Answer 6

The mind body problem, whether it is a unified phenomenon or several different ones and third is the relationship between conscious and unconscious activities.

Question 7

Who is William James and what is he responsible for?

Answer 7

Founded the first US Psych lab at Harvard Uni. Responsible for the ‘functionalism’ approach which entails the roles of consciousness guiding people’s ability to make decisions , solve problems etc. How the ongoing stream of consciousness help people adapt to their environments.

Question 8

What functions does consciousness serve?

Answer 8

Monitoring mental events (self and environment) - inner and outer world for potentially significant perceptions, thoughts, emotions.

Regulating thoughts and behaviour

Question 9

What is the essence of awareness and attention in conscious experience?

Answer 9

Awareness is a limited capacity.. aware of only a small fraction of stimuli around us.
Attention refers to what we focus our attention on. Acts like a filter to which only important info is processed.

Question 10

What are the different levels of conscious experience?

Answer 10

Conscious level, non-conscious level, preconscious level, unconscious level

Question 11

Difference between non conscious level and unconscious level?

Answer 11

Non conscious level are physiological processes that you cannot be directly aware of existing.
Unconscious refers to mental activities that can alter thoughts, feelings and actions.

Question 12

What does the cognitive unconscious include?

Answer 12

preconscious and unconscious or subconscious

Question 13

Characteristics and roles of Consciousness

Answer 13

Consciousness has a limited capacity, allows flexibility, organiser and director, redistributes activation of various networks active, making choices, integrates information ‘see the big picture’, creates theory of who we are, of our experiences.

Question 14

What does the unconscious entail?

Answer 14

Unwanted thoughts, impulses, drives (Freudian slip), automatic unconscious heuristics, implicit association, intuition

Question 15

What is preconscious

Answer 15

Mental events that can be brought to conscious awareness. e.g if someone asked for your phone number but you weren’t consciously thinking of it beforehand.

Question 16

What is split brain?

Answer 16

Where corpus callosum is severed and two hemispheres of brain function independently.

Question 17

What is prosopagnosia?

Answer 17

Impairment to consciousness - inability to recognise faces, linked to damaged temporal lobes.

Question 18

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 18

Impairment to consciousness, inability to form new memories, linked to damage of the hippocampus e.g can learn new skills but cannot recall doing so.

Question 19

What are the different states of consciousness?

Answer 19

Waking consciousness, altered states of consciousness (sleep, psychoactive drugs, hypnosis).

Question 20

Where is consciousness distributed throughout the brain?

Answer 20

Hindbrain and midbrain most important for arousal and for sleep. Prefrontal cortex for conscious control and info processing

Question 21

What are the elements of sleep, as a conscious state?

Answer 21

Altered state of consciousness - NREM sleep (4 stages) and REM sleep.

Question 22

What are the functions of REM sleep?

Answer 22

• Affects alertness and mood
• Improves neurons’ sensitivity to norepinephrine
• Strengthens nuronal connections
• Solidifies experiences and new skills
• May improve creativity

Question 23

NREM sleep?

Answer 23

Breathign deepens, heartbeat slows and blood pressure drops as the person descends through four stages of sleep characterised by low to high brain waves.
Last two stages called slow wave sleep (difficult to waken).

Question 24

What does sleep deprivation lead to?

Answer 24

Poorer learning, memory, iq scores, compromised immune system, poorer emotional processing, mistakes at work, car accidents.

Question 25

Circadian Rhythm?

Answer 25

Biological clock in thd brain that keeps track of time - in a part of the hypothalamus (suprachiasmatic nucleus) SCN. Regulates melatonin.

Question 26

What happens when you disrupt sleep/wake cycles?

Answer 26

Jet lag - the body wants to sleep at the wrong time for the new locale. Prevalent among travelers who travel eastward (where time is lost).

Question 27

What are dreams?

Answer 27

Brain activity during sleep that is experienced as story like sensations and perceptions.

Question 28

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory?

Answer 28

Disguised manifestations of repressed desires, impulses, feelings.
Manifest content is that which what you see in dream. Latent content refers to the hidden meaning of the content.

Question 29

Hobson’s activation synthesis model

Answer 29

Spontaneous neuronal firings during rem sleep.

- Neurons activated in hindbrain and cortex synthesises meaning out of the information.