Task 1 - Consciousness Flashcards
What is 1st person data?
- ONLY inner experience (e.g. experience of colour)
- any experience you have
Can you express 1st person data?
- cannot be fully expressed as 3rd person data (formalism–> always dependent on language)
- hard to be expressed verbally (words are too limited)
Can you express 1st person data emotions?
-emotions are particularly hard to express, especially if the person had not experienced them before
What is 3rd person data?
- data about brain processes, behaviour, environmental interaction& the like (Chalmers)
- fMRI, EEG; verbal report
What is the science of consciousness about?
…is all about relating third-person data - about brain processes, behavior, environmental interaction, and the like - to first-person data about conscious –> experience
What is consciousness according to Naccache?
ability to report one’s own mental state is the fundamental property of consciousness
What are the psychological attributes of conscious processing according to Naccache?
(i) active maintenance of mental representations; (ii) strategical processing; and (iii) spontaneous intentional behavior & ability to report ones own mental state
What is the neural correlate of consciousness (=NCC)?
smth physical but not necessarily a brain part
Can we measure C directly?
No, that’s why we engage in philosophical reasoning
What is the rational reconstruction of the search for the NCC?
- C =Global availability (Bridging principle)
- Global availability = neural process N (empirical work)
so - C= neural process N (conclusion)
What are the conclusions of the rational reconstruction?
- NCC -> Mechanism of global availability
- It will explain global availability in the brain; it will isolate the processes that underlie C itself
- Many NCC because many mechanisms of global availability
- C module -> doesn’t need to be physical but if it will be a functional area responsible for integrating information in the brain
- where NCC of visual C will be, depends on area most directly implicated in global availability
- Primary criterion for C –> its FUNCTIONAL property
What is a pre-experimental bridging principle?
- Principle of which you judge if a person is conscious e.g. global availability
- before starting experiment and cannot be tested
What is the principle of global availability?
when info is available to cognitive system & you are aware of the info, then its globally available
What is the principle of verbal report?
- extension of global availability
- when information is directly available for verbal report, it is conscious
If you find NCC, will it explain C?
No, there’s never an independent test because the principle of global availability in it
What is a vegetative state?
- neurological categorization of patients who emerge from coma, appear to be awake, but show no signs of awareness of self or environment
- no purposeful behaviour in response to external stimuli
Explain Owen et al’s study.
- What did they measure?
- What were the results?
- Claim she is conscious
- measured neural activity to sentences that were spoken (imagine playing tennis and imagine walking in your house) vs noise -> to see if she could distinguish -> brain activity like healthy people
- processing in brain same as healthy people –> she might actually be conscious
What is Owen’s bridging principle?
Responding to task/ command with brain activity
What does Naccache say about Owen’s study?
-You shouldn’t generalize -> she only had small lesions
-If conscious, and not lesioned in motor pathway why can’t she move?
-No long- term integration!
-She meets one of those psychological attributes of conscious processing, but that does NOT mean she is conscious
==> She is NOT conscious
What does Burton say about Owen’s study?
Findings are dangerous -> ethical dilemmas
Does being awake means being aware?
Owen just showed that specific processes are still preserved but that doesn’t mean they’re conscious
Chinese study: brain areas related to language processing can sill be activated
She was not conscious, but she still had those unconscious processing; her responses can also be unconscious
Compared to Owen’s study but that’s not legitimate; responding to your name is not the same thing as what Owen et al did
What was Monti’s study’s results?
- 5 were able to willfully modulate their brain activity
- In 3 of these patients, additional bedside testing revealed some sign of awareness, but in the other 2 patients, no voluntary behavior could be detected by means of clinical assessment
- 1 patient was able to use our technique to answer yes or no to questions during functional MRI
What was the method of Monti?
- fMRI; 54 patients
- imagery task -> motor imagery task: hitting ball in tennis and spatial imagery task( walking in city or in own house); before imagery task: yes or no questions (spatial or imagery) -> could decide which one is yes and which one is no
- 5 were able to do motor task
- among 5, 4 could show spatial imagery task; of those 1 one could do yes/no task
What is Monti’s conclusion?
- What is said about Owen’s study?
- What is said about the rest of the participants?
- What is believed about the patients that could do the task?
- there is a difference between vegetative and minimally conscious state (unconscious, but reproducible signs of awareness)
- we should not trust Owen
- doesn’t mean the rest of the participants is unconscious, maybe deficits in language might be too big
- maybe they have residual cognitive functions
What is Monti’s bridging principle?
Use of motor or spatial imagery to answer yes or no (willful modulation of brain activity)
- answering questions
- double purposeful
What is Owen et al’s research question?
- islands of preserved brain function may exist in a small percentage of patients who have been diagnosed as vegetative -> this technique also may provide a means for detecting conscious awareness in patients who are assumed to be vegetative yet retain cognitive abilities that have evaded detection using standard clinical methods
