Overige fenomenen en theorie

Question 1

Phantom pain

Answer 1

Phantom pain: When someone feels pain in a body part that he/she no longer has. For example, an amputated arm or leg. This can be a cramp, burning, stinging, tingling.Difficult to treat, because that part of the body cannot be massaged or injected.Solution by: Ramachandran (1998)

Question 2

Predictive Processing Theory

Answer 2

Our brain is a predictive machine. Predictions determine how we see the world. If this is wrong, a prediction error occurs. (Imagine picking up an empty cup when you think it is full). Free will consists of being able to explain and predict expectations. Top down expectations when things go well (you decide), and bottom up expectations about error signals (external cause)

Question 3

Psi phenomena

Answer 3

Assume there is a certain mental quality called Psi. That allows us to haveextrasensory perception and to influence objects at a distance (e.g. psychokinesis).

Question 4

Arguments against Psi

Answer 4

There is no clear causal-mechanistic explanation as to how it would work. How exactly it works is therefore unclear and cannot be explained.- If it really existed, it would have a strong evolutionary advantage. For example, if you can look into the future, this is very beneficial. If it is actually a trait for which selection has taken place at some point in evolution, you would expect it to be much more widespread. It should be more universal and not so much effort should be made to demonstrate it. It should also be much higher than 5-10% better than the average person.- James Randi has $ 1 million for the person who can prove that parapsychological forces exist. No one has yet been able to prove this to him and he always knows that it is a trick.- The CIA has done alot of research intoparapsychologicalpowers in the past,but has stoppedbecause nothingcomes out.- Many of the positivefindings that havebeen found can beinvalidated byexperimenter bias,confirmation bias andpublication bias.- Parapsychologicalstudies are sensitive to subjective decisions in data analysis and reporting

Question 5

Qualia

Answer 5

Defined as the quality or property, like a person sees it. So  how a person takes in all information and how they experience is. “The fundamental building blocks of specifically sensory experience.” Subjective experience is central in this

Question 6

Non-REM sleep

Answer 6

quiet and deep sleep characterized by absence of motor activity or eye movement, slow brain waves, slow breathing and slow heart rate

Question 7

REM sleep

Answer 7

active sleep characterized by rapid eye movements under closed eyes. Associated with dreams

Question 8

Signal Detection Theory

Answer 8

The perception of a stimulus depends on the intensity of the stimulus and the physical and mental state of a person. Provide a tool to find out when someone can consciously perceive a stimulus.Helps with:- Conservative criterion: more likely to say no. Liberal = more likely to say yes.- D’prime: how well a person is able to recognize noise.- Response bias: to what extent the person has a bias to always answer yes or always no

Question 9

Split Brain

• definition
• advantage/disadvantage

Answer 9

Corpus Callosum is cut in half in patients with epilepsy. This was done when the epilepsy could not be treated.- Advantage: no electrical impulses from one hemisphere to the other (this means you get less severe epileptic seizures).- Disadvantage: Little or no communication between the two hemispheres

Question 10

Split brain patient waarnemen sleutel

Answer 10

Research with Split Brain patients shows: if you give them a key that theycan see with both eyes, they can say it is a key. But when they are blindfolded and given a key in their left hand, they cannot say that it is a key. The information of what they feel enters in the right hemisphere and cannot be passed on to the left hemisphere. Because the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for speech, he cannot say that he has a key. The person can then use the key, because the right hemisphere of the brain does have motor areas and without being able to name it understand that it is a key

Question 11

Split-brain patients also have split consciousness

Answer 11

Split-brain patients also have split consciousness:
 the unity of consciousness is split in two because the hemispheres of the brain can no longer communicate with each other. There are five characteristics in split-brain patients that prove this:
1. Your visual field has separate contact with both hemispheres of the brain
.2. Each hemisphere has its own specialties and works independently of each other.
3. Confabulation when a patient is asked to explain actions of his left hand, that does not work. Because it is controlled by the right hemisphereand the left hemisphere does not know why the right hemisphere is doingthis.
4. Each hemisphere seems to have its own attention. Attention and awareness are often linked to each other, hence split awareness.
5. They cannot compare stimuli they see on the right with what they see on the left. So split consciousness.Criticism: By Pinto, de Haan & Lamme (2017)Three of the above are also the case with “healthy people”, 4 can also be due to non-integrated visual processing and 1 is not always the case with split-brain patients.Pinto et al. states themselves: Perception is divided, but consciousness is not

Question 12

Objective definitions ASC

Answer 12

Induce stimulus to create altered consciousness. However, has different feelings/thoughts/experiences per individual.- Physiological and behavioral effect: capturing physical patterns.- Investigate the impact of drugs on the brain

Question 13

2 dimensies om ASC te beschrijven

Answer 13

1. The ability to hallucinate2. The rationality of the experience.

Question 14

3 soorten ASC

Answer 14

Normal consciousness.- Lucid dreams: you can influence dreams with your own thoughts.- REM sleep

Question 15

The binding problem

Answer 15

Consciousness is a whole ‘thing’. It does not consist of many separated things (James). But: how do we explain the visual cortex if this is true?
Because there are separate routes for different visual input. “To bind together all the features of one object (integration), while separating them from features of other objects (segregation).” But how?  Possible solution is that synchronization takes place: the brain solves itfor us

Question 16

The definition of consciousness

Answer 16

While there have been many discoveries over the years about the functioning of the brain, nervous system, and other bodily functions, the workings of consciousness remain a major question mark. There is therefore no real definition for consciousness. One speaks of “spirit”, soul,behavior and thoughts. However, it has been realized that consciousness is a unique perspective. Only you experience things as you experience them. Example: How do you know that the color yellow looks the same to you as it does to anyone else?  You can never know this. So, the world can be viewed in two different ways first, there is the unique, personal experience that you as a person have with, for example, a pen. Second, there is the more general experience in the “real” world. But how do these two worlds relate to each other? What makes the connection? Answers to this question differ. This also depends on how oneviews the world. A distinction can be made here between subjective experiences and the objective world. However, there are also people who do not make this distinction. This all depends on your own vision of consciousness

Question 17

Extended Minders vision on if we can fully understand consciousness

Answer 17

No, this cannot be done - consciousness does not take place in the brain, but the whole human being and the interaction with the outside world makes consciousness. (Noë). (Dualistic, because brain or mind is separated from consciousness

Question 18

The Mirror test (self-recognition)

Answer 18

A series of experiments by biologist Daniel Povinelli tested how children’sself-recognition varies depending on whether they are looking at themselves in a mirror, a photograph, a video recording, or a live video. The child plays an unfamiliar game during which the experimenter praises the child by patting him or her on the head, and puts a big brightly colored sticker there. Two- to three-year-olds had no difficulty recognizing themselves (as ‘me’ or by using their name) in a video recorded three minutes earlier, but only 37% reached up to touch their head and find the sticker. When watching live video feedback, though, 62% reached up, and with a mirror 85% did, while with a photograph only13% did. So, maybe recognizing a ‘present self’ is easier than recognizinga ‘temporally extended self’. And putting it all together can be tricky: one3-year-old said in response to questions, ‘it’s Jennifer’ and ‘it’s a sticker’, but then added, ‘but why is she wearing my shirt?’. Upbringing seems to make a difference too: 15- to 18-month-old infants from Scotland, Zambia,and Turkey, who interact with their mothers with varying amounts of physical or verbal contact, perform differently on tasks involving more or less autonomy: either recognizing themselves in a mirror or recognizing that their body is an obstacle to success in a task. And adults remain susceptible to the rubber-hand and body-swap illusions, and to alterationsof self-recognition in many ‘altered states of consciousness’. So, self-awareness is not all-or-nothing, even in humans. Charles Darwin was the first to report this experiment on animals. He puta mirror in front of two young orangutans at the zoo who, as far as he knew, had never seen a mirror before. He reported that they gazed at their own images in surprise, frequently moving and changing their point of view. They then approached close and protruded their lips towards the image, as if to kiss it. Then they made all sorts of faces, pressed and rubbed the mirror, looked behind it, and finally became cross and refused to look any longer. Sadly, we cannot tell whether these orangutans recognised themselves or not – whether they were looking at their own lips or trying to kiss another orangutan, for example

Question 19

Indications that animals have consciousness

Answer 19

1. Some recognize themselves in the mirror
2. Theory of mind: the ability to attribute mental states to others. Dennettoften refers to the “intentional stance”. In humans, this often happens to explain the behavior of others. A lot of research whether this is possible / possible in animals. Especially a lot of research with chimpanzees. Povinelli does not research ToM. Many others say (in a more natural setting) there is a ToM
   .3. Imitation: Much research has been done to imitate newborn babies quickly. Discovered less often in animals. Often trial and error, coincidence or inventing things based on own experience instead of imitation.
3. Language: The amount of information that we can convey with the helpof language is not reflected in animals

Question 20

The Retro-Selective Theory of Dreams

Answer 20

Dreams are retrospective reconstruction  retro-selective theory of dreams. Links to Dennett’s Multiple draft theory: all kinds of parallel processes in the brain that we are not always aware of. We then integrateelements from different processes that stand out in a specific story. Afterwards reconstruction of various elements that have occurred

Question 21

The sensorimotor theory of O’Regan and Noë

Answer 21

Perception is constituted by mastery of sensorimotor contingencies. Seeing means manipulating the contingencies between action and input, such as moving one’s eyes and getting changed visual input. Meaning: There is no need to store a large amount of information about what the world looks like in your memory. You can use the world yourself as external memory. For example a phone number. You don’t have to remember it, because you can save it in your phone and it will remember it for you

Question 22

Thought Experiments (in philosophy)

Answer 22

Used to make arguments and to identify concepts. 3 popular examples: what is it like being a bat? Mary the color scientist. The philosopher’s zombie.

Question 23

Mary, the color scientist

Answer 23

Mary hasn’t seen color her entire life. She has learnt everything about color and how it works in the visual system in our brain. Once she comes outside, will she be able to identify color? Can she recognize red or yellow? Two anwers: 1. She hasn’t developed her ‘color qualia’, so she will be surprised about colors  qualia exist, physicalism must be false, more dualistic? 2. She can recognize all the colors  physical and physiological description is complete, materialism, functionalism

Question 24

Philosophers’ zombie

Answer 24

This thought experiment was created by Todd Moody. Imagine if there were a duplicate of you that is exactly what you are, both physically and behaviorally. The only difference is that this duplicate has no consciousness. He or she just eats, drinks and moves. How can you ever find out if he or she has consciousness and can you ever find out? If you think it is possible that this duplicate, or zombie, could just live, your view is somewhat that consciousness is an insignificant perk  epiphenomenalism. If you think it is not possible that this zombie can live without consciousness, what is missing, what can this zombie not do whatyou can do?

Question 25

Turing’s 1950 paper

Answer 25

The Retro-Selective Theory of Dreams Dreams are retrospective reconstruction  retro-selective theory of dreams. Links to Dennett’s Multiple draft theory: all kinds of parallel processes in the brain that we are not always aware of. We then integrateelements from different processes that stand out in a specific story. Afterwards reconstruction of various elements that have occurred.

Question 26

William James and the “stream of consciousness”

Answer 26

Monistic approach  the ever-changing and flowing succession of thoughts, ideas, images, and feelings. His psychology was therefore very much an integrated science of mental life. Consciousness was at its heart,but was not divorced either from the results of experiments on attention, memory, and sensation, or from physiological study of the brain and nervous system. He distinguishes three types of the self: material, social and spiritual