PSYC*2650 Chapter 15: Conscious and Unconscious Thought

Question 1

What is consciousness?

Answer 1

A state of awareness of sensations or ideas

Question 2

What does it mean to be aware of sensations or ideas?

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

What is the cognitive unconscious?

Answer 3

The broad set of mental activities of which people are completely unaware

Question 4

What are some examples of things made possible by the cognitive unconscious?

Answer 4

Things like thinking, remembering, reasoning, etc.

Question 5

T of F: The processes that unfold in the cognitive unconscious are sophisticated and powerful.

Answer 5

True

Question 6

What are mental products?

Answer 6

The beliefs and conclusions an individual has formed

Question 7

What are mental processes?

Answer 7

The mental work (conscious or unconscious) that leads to mental products

Question 8

As a general rule, are people aware or unaware of mental products?

Answer 8

Aware

Question 9

As a general rule, are people aware or unaware of mental processes?

Answer 9

Unaware

Question 10

T or F: A person’s memory of an event is a mental process and is something they are unaware of.

Answer 10

False. A person’s memory of an event is a mental product and is something they are aware of.

Question 11

What is the main reason for which people are unable to reject influences or avoid the assumptions that create memory errors?

Answer 11

Because the process of recalling a memory is unconscious

Question 12

Why are people seeking to introspect on the way they behaved unable to do so accurately?

Answer 12

Because the processes leading to that behaviour were unconscious

Question 13

When introspecting on their behaviour, what do people rely on?

Answer 13

An after-the-fact reconstruction

Question 14

How do people create after-the-fact reconstructions about their behaviour?

Answer 14

They draw on broad knowledge about why people generally act in certain ways and make plausible inferences about the reasoning for their own behaviour

Question 15

What is blind-sight?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Does blind-sight rely on the dorsal or ventral brain pathway?

Answer 16

Dorsal

Question 17

Patients with blind-sight often have damage to which brain area?

Answer 17

The visual cortex

Question 18

What are two potential explanations for blind-sight?

Answer 18

• 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

Question 19

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?

Answer 19

The superior colliculus in the midbrain

Question 20

What is visual agnosia?

Answer 20

A condition in which the person has little to no conscious awareness of form/shape, despite having intact vision

Question 21

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?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

What is subliminal perception?

Answer 22

A pattern in which people perceive and are potentially influenced by inputs they didn’t consciously notice

Question 23

If the subliminal presentation of words preceding a consciously perceived word caused a violation in expectations, what was observed in the brain?

Answer 23

An N400

Question 24

What governs unconscious processing?

Answer 24

Habit or setting

Question 25

Is unconscious processing guided by current plans and desires?

Answer 25

No

Question 26

What are action slips?

Answer 26

Errors in which a person performs an action that is different from the action they intended to perform

Question 27

What type of behaviours are usually performed unintentionally during an action slip?

Answer 27

Habitual behaviours

Question 28

What guides mental reflexes?

Answer 28

Circumstance

Question 29

Are mental reflexes flexible or inflexible?

Answer 29

Inflexible

Question 30

What are the two main factors that allow unconscious processing to take place?

Answer 30

- The structure of the nervous system (biology) - Practice

Question 31

During a verb-generation task, where was the most brain activity seen when participants were first confronted with the task?

Answer 31

Areas of the left frontal region, such as the prefrontal cortex

Question 32

As a verb-generation task was practised, how did brain activation change?

Answer 32

Activity in the prefrontal cortex decreased and activity in the insula increased

Question 33

During a motor-learning maze task, where was the most brain activity seen when participants were first confronted with the task?

Answer 33

The premotor and parietal areas

Question 34

As a motor-learning maze task was practised, how did brain activation change?

Answer 34

Activation in the premotor and parietal areas decreased and activity in the primary and supplementary motor areas increased

Question 35

What is needed to explicitly direct mental processes, rise above habit, or avoid responding to prominent cues in surroundings?

Answer 35

Executive control

Question 36

When is the anterior cingulate cortex particularly active?

Answer 36

When cognitive conflict is detected

Question 37

What role does the anterior cingulate cortex play in consciousness?

Answer 37

It decides when automatic unconscious behaviour is insufficient and when conscious control from the executive is needed

Question 38

Where does the executive control process occur?

Answer 38

The prefrontal cortex

Question 39

What four things are needed for executive control to function?

Answer 39

- An output - A way to represent goals - An input - Knowledge of how current processes are infolding

Question 40

What is meant by the executive control's "output"?

Answer 40

The means of launching desired actions and overriding unwanted actions

Question 41

What is meant by the executive control's "input"?

Answer 41

Knowledge of the situation

Question 42

What are metacognitive skills?

Answer 42

Skills that allow people to monitor and control their own mental processes

Question 43

Which domain of cognition are metacognitive skills especially important?

Answer 43

Memory

Question 44

What it metamemory?

Answer 44

An individual's knowledge about, awareness of, and control over their own memory

Question 45

What are neural correlates of consciousness?

Answer 45

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

Question 46

Which three brain areas showed increased activity during changes in awareness (ex. binocular vision tasks)?

Answer 46

- The prefrontal cortex - The parietal cortex - The ventral surface of the temporal lobe

Question 47

T or F: There is no group of neurons or some place in the brain that is the "consciousness centre"

Answer 47

True

Question 48

What are the two broad categories that correspond to two aspects of consciousness?

Answer 48

- Degree of awareness - Content of consciousness

Question 49

What is meant by an individual's degree of awareness?

Answer 49

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

Question 50

An individual's degree of awareness is compromised when they suffer damage to either of which two brain areas?

Answer 50

- The thalamus - The reticular activating system in the brain stem

Question 51

What does the reticular activating system control?

Answer 51

The overall arousal level in the forebrain and the cycling between sleep and wakefulness

Question 52

T or F: Various contents of consciousness rely on different brain areas.

Answer 52

True

Question 53

What is the neuronal workspace?

Answer 53

A specific claim about how the brain makes conscious experience possible

Question 54

What is the proposal surrounding the neuronal workspace?

Answer 54

"Workspace neurons" link together the activity of various specialized brain areas

Question 55

What makes the integration and comparison of different types of information possible?

Answer 55

The neuronal workspace

Question 56

T or F: The process of carrying information back and forth via the workspace neurons is nonselective.

Answer 56

False. The process is selective.

Question 57

How do workspace neurons select which brain process gets communicated to other brain areas?

Answer 57

They communicate the most active process

Question 58

What can amplify the activity in a brain area, and shape how competition between processes plays out in the neuronal workspace?

Answer 58

Attention

Question 59

What provides the biological basis for consciousness?

Answer 59

The integrated activity made possible by workspace neurons

Question 60

T or F: Workspace neurons carry the content of consciousness.

Answer 60

False. They combine the content of consciousness to create a unified experience.

Question 61

When asleep and not dreaming, what happens to communication among different parts of the cortex?

Answer 61

Communication breaks down and the brain's activities aren't coordinated with one another

Question 62

How does the neuronal workspace allow the executive to shift processing by adjusting the focus of attention?

Answer 62

The workspace makes it possible to detect conflict between different brain areas

Question 63

What supports the sustained neural activity that enables the executive to keep its goals and plans in view while working through a problem?

Answer 63

The neuronal workspace

Question 64

What are qualia?

Answer 64

The subjective conscious experiences/ "raw feelings" of awareness

Question 65

Why are qualia so hard to study?

Answer 65

Because they are undetectable to anyone other than the person who experiences them

Question 66

What is phenomenal consciousness?

Answer 66

Consciousness centered around what it feels like to have certain experiences

Question 67

What is access consciousness?

Answer 67

An individual's sensitivity to certain types of information and therefore their access to manipulate and utilize it

Question 68

Research on what topic may provide important insights about how and when people are affected by qualia?

Answer 68

Processing fluency

Question 69

What is the mind-body problem?

Answer 69

The difficulty in understanding how the mind (a non-physical state) and the body (a physical entity) can influence one another

Question 70

What may serve as justification for action?

Answer 70

Consciousness

Question 71

T or F: Motor signals become active before a person is consciously aware of their desire to move.

Answer 71

True