PSYCH Exam #3 Flashcards
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Consciousness
personal awareness of mental activities, internal sensations, and external environment. (William James described as stream or river)
What is waking Consciousness
-aware and awake of your conscious thoughts feelings and perceptions, from internal events and the surrounding environment.
What is attention
the capacity to selectively focus awareness on particular stimuli in your external environment or on your internal thoughts or sensations
limitations of attention affect human thought and behavior?
-Attention has limited capacity: we cannot pay attention to every sound, sight, and other sensations in the external environment.
Attention is selective: “cocktail party effect” being able to focus your attention on a particular stimulus.
Attention can be blind: missing obvious stimuli in our field of vision or hearing.
Inattentional Blindness
Simply not noticing a significant object or event that occurs in our clear field of vision. Commonly exploited by magicians
Change blindness
Also very common. Refers to not noticing when something changes, such as when a friend gets a haircut or shaves his beard.
What really happens when we think we are multitasking?
The myth of multi-tasking refers to the division of attention during such events. Attention is divided up among each task receiving less attention than it normally would.
Circadian Rhythm
a roughly 24-hour cycle of fluctuations in biological and psychological processes.
Env Cues: Bright light regulates sleep cycle.
Bio cues: light, signals CNS and hypothalamus
Infradian Rhythm
A period longer than the Circadian rhythm. Seasonal: hibernation, migration, menstruation cycle
Ultradian Rhythm
Shorter than Circadian. Sleep stages as we cycle through a night’s sleep. (Regular oscillating)
suprachiasmatic nucleus
(Bodies master clock) regulates most circadian rhythms in the body. Located in a tiny region of the hypothalamus. t interprets light information, translates it into physiological signals
Relation between your eyes, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the pineal gland, the hormone melatonin and your circadian rhythm.
- Eyes detect lack of light
- decreased available light is detected by the hypothalamus
- triggers the production of melatonin by the pineal gland
What effect does daylight saving time and/or travel across multiple time zones have on your circadian
rhythm?
Disruption of the biological clock can cause physical and mental fatigue, confusion problems concentrating, depression, or irritability.
What is the mechanism by which we study brain activity while subjects are sleeping?
Electroencephalograph (EEG). Interment that uses electrodes placed on the scalp to measure and record the brain’s rythmic electrical activity.
In what order does the sleep cycle
NREM 1,2,3, REM -> NREM 2,3, REM
REM vs NREM sleep cycles
REM sleep: rapid eye movement typically where dreaming occurs and voluntary muscle movement is suppressed.
NREM: non rapid eye movement, typically quiet and dreamless, (divided into 3 stages)
NREM 1
alpha->theta waves, Hypnogogic Hallucinations, Myoclonic jerks, (simple dreams)
NREM 2
Theta waves (beginning of delta waves), Sleep spindles, K complexes,(less vivid short intense dreams)
NREM 3
Delta Waves (large slow), deep sleep (sleep talking, walking, eating, etc.). (Few to no sleep)
REM
Beta waves (fast active), dreaming stage, physio arousal, no voluntary muscle movement, sleep mentation
Theta wave
NREM 1,2 (light sleep)
Beta wave
REM,occur during most awake activities,
Delta Wave
NREM 3 deep sleep
Sleep Spindles
Editing memory of the day (NREM 2), sharp peaks in quick seccession.
K Complexes
Save memory into long term(NREM 2), low to very high peak
alpha wave
NREM 1, (relaxed and sleepy)
sleep mentation
All thoughts, feelings, and brain activity during sleep or mental activity consists of vivid, hallucinatory visual content that is often bizarre or has irregular narratives (REM)
Sleep Depravation Causes…
Disruption in mood, mental abilities, reaction time, perceptual skills, and complex motor skills.
Activation Synthesis model of dreaming
The brainstem produces signals for dream images (activation), the the higher regions of the brain (visual, motor, auditory pathways, hippocampus, and amygdala) impose meaning on the dream images forming stories.
neurocognitive model of dreaming
Contrasts ASM of dreaming, claims dreams reflect our interests, personality, and individual worries (mirroring our waking concerns). Explains all forms of spontaneous thought
Lucid Dreaming
Being aware you are dreaming while you are sleep, dreams feel vivid and real.
-Caused by activation in the prefrontal cortex; responsible for self-awareness and reflection
psychoanalytic theory of dreams
Freud believed that the latent content of a dream is often related to unconscious desires, wishes, and conflicts.
These are thoughts and feelings that are so troubling or unacceptable that the conscious mind represses them.
dyssomnias
Affect duration and quality of sleep
parasomnias
undesirable physical arousal, behaviors, or events during sleep, (sleepwalking, sleep terrors, sleep sex, and eating disorders)
insomnia
inability to regularly fall asleep, stay asleep, or feel rested