PSYC*2650 Chapter 15: Conscious and Unconscious Thought Flashcards
What is consciousness?
A state of awareness of sensations or ideas
What does it mean to be aware of sensations or ideas?
- The person can reflect on them
- The person knows what it “feels like” to experience them
- The person can report their awareness of them to others
What is the cognitive unconscious?
The broad set of mental activities of which people are completely unaware
What are some examples of things made possible by the cognitive unconscious?
Things like thinking, remembering, reasoning, etc.
T of F: The processes that unfold in the cognitive unconscious are sophisticated and powerful.
True
What are mental products?
The beliefs and conclusions an individual has formed
What are mental processes?
The mental work (conscious or unconscious) that leads to mental products
As a general rule, are people aware or unaware of mental products?
Aware
As a general rule, are people aware or unaware of mental processes?
Unaware
T or F: A person’s memory of an event is a mental process and is something they are unaware of.
False. A person’s memory of an event is a mental product and is something they are aware of.
What is the main reason for which people are unable to reject influences or avoid the assumptions that create memory errors?
Because the process of recalling a memory is unconscious
Why are people seeking to introspect on the way they behaved unable to do so accurately?
Because the processes leading to that behaviour were unconscious
When introspecting on their behaviour, what do people rely on?
An after-the-fact reconstruction
How do people create after-the-fact reconstructions about their behaviour?
They draw on broad knowledge about why people generally act in certain ways and make plausible inferences about the reasoning for their own behaviour
What is blind-sight?
A pattern observed in people who are unable to see in parts/all of their field of vision, but can often correctly respond to visual inputs when required to do so
Does blind-sight rely on the dorsal or ventral brain pathway?
Dorsal
Patients with blind-sight often have damage to which brain area?
The visual cortex
What are two potential explanations for blind-sight?
- There are “islands” of intact tissue within the damaged brain area
- Alternate visual pathways enables patients to use visual information but not consciously see it
Information flow through which brain area is thought to be the reason blind-sighted patients can use the visual information they can’t consciously see?
The superior colliculus in the midbrain
What is visual agnosia?
A condition in which the person has little to no conscious awareness of form/shape, despite having intact vision
Why can a patient with visual agnosia slide a card through the slot of a mailbox, but when asked to simply rotate their hand to line up the card with the slot, they are unable to do so?
Because lining up the card with the slot requires conscious awareness of shape and orientation and “mailing it” relies on procedural memory and motor skills
What is subliminal perception?
A pattern in which people perceive and are potentially influenced by inputs they didn’t consciously notice
If the subliminal presentation of words preceding a consciously perceived word caused a violation in expectations, what was observed in the brain?
An N400
What governs unconscious processing?
Habit or setting
Is unconscious processing guided by current plans and desires?
No
What are action slips?
Errors in which a person performs an action that is different from the action they intended to perform
What type of behaviours are usually performed unintentionally during an action slip?
Habitual behaviours
What guides mental reflexes?
Circumstance
Are mental reflexes flexible or inflexible?
Inflexible
What are the two main factors that allow unconscious processing to take place?
- The structure of the nervous system (biology)
- Practice
During a verb-generation task, where was the most brain activity seen when participants were first confronted with the task?
Areas of the left frontal region, such as the prefrontal cortex
As a verb-generation task was practised, how did brain activation change?
Activity in the prefrontal cortex decreased and activity in the insula increased
During a motor-learning maze task, where was the most brain activity seen when participants were first confronted with the task?
The premotor and parietal areas
As a motor-learning maze task was practised, how did brain activation change?
Activation in the premotor and parietal areas decreased and activity in the primary and supplementary motor areas increased
What is needed to explicitly direct mental processes, rise above habit, or avoid responding to prominent cues in surroundings?
Executive control
When is the anterior cingulate cortex particularly active?
When cognitive conflict is detected
What role does the anterior cingulate cortex play in consciousness?
It decides when automatic unconscious behaviour is insufficient and when conscious control from the executive is needed
Where does the executive control process occur?
The prefrontal cortex
What four things are needed for executive control to function?
- An output
- A way to represent goals
- An input
- Knowledge of how current processes are infolding
What is meant by the executive control’s “output”?
The means of launching desired actions and overriding unwanted actions
What is meant by the executive control’s “input”?
Knowledge of the situation
What are metacognitive skills?
Skills that allow people to monitor and control their own mental processes
Which domain of cognition are metacognitive skills especially important?
Memory
What it metamemory?
An individual’s knowledge about, awareness of, and control over their own memory
What are neural correlates of consciousness?
Events in the nervous system that occur at the same time as, and may be the biological basis of, a specific mental event or state
Which three brain areas showed increased activity during changes in awareness (ex. binocular vision tasks)?
- The prefrontal cortex
- The parietal cortex
- The ventral surface of the temporal lobe
T or F: There is no group of neurons or some place in the brain that is the “consciousness centre”
True
What are the two broad categories that correspond to two aspects of consciousness?
- Degree of awareness
- Content of consciousness
What is meant by an individual’s degree of awareness?
The range of being sleepy and dimly aware of a stimulus/idea/memory to being fully awake, highly alert and totally focused on a stimulus/idea/memory
An individual’s degree of awareness is compromised when they suffer damage to either of which two brain areas?
- The thalamus
- The reticular activating system in the brain stem
What does the reticular activating system control?
The overall arousal level in the forebrain and the cycling between sleep and wakefulness
T or F: Various contents of consciousness rely on different brain areas.
True
What is the neuronal workspace?
A specific claim about how the brain makes conscious experience possible
What is the proposal surrounding the neuronal workspace?
“Workspace neurons” link together the activity of various specialized brain areas
What makes the integration and comparison of different types of information possible?
The neuronal workspace
T or F: The process of carrying information back and forth via the workspace neurons is nonselective.
False. The process is selective.
How do workspace neurons select which brain process gets communicated to other brain areas?
They communicate the most active process
What can amplify the activity in a brain area, and shape how competition between processes plays out in the neuronal workspace?
Attention
What provides the biological basis for consciousness?
The integrated activity made possible by workspace neurons
T or F: Workspace neurons carry the content of consciousness.
False. They combine the content of consciousness to create a unified experience.
When asleep and not dreaming, what happens to communication among different parts of the cortex?
Communication breaks down and the brain’s activities aren’t coordinated with one another
How does the neuronal workspace allow the executive to shift processing by adjusting the focus of attention?
The workspace makes it possible to detect conflict between different brain areas
What supports the sustained neural activity that enables the executive to keep its goals and plans in view while working through a problem?
The neuronal workspace
What are qualia?
The subjective conscious experiences/ “raw feelings” of awareness
Why are qualia so hard to study?
Because they are undetectable to anyone other than the person who experiences them
What is phenomenal consciousness?
Consciousness centered around what it feels like to have certain experiences
What is access consciousness?
An individual’s sensitivity to certain types of information and therefore their access to manipulate and utilize it
Research on what topic may provide important insights about how and when people are affected by qualia?
Processing fluency
What is the mind-body problem?
The difficulty in understanding how the mind (a non-physical state) and the body (a physical entity) can influence one another
What may serve as justification for action?
Consciousness
T or F: Motor signals become active before a person is consciously aware of their desire to move.
True
