U07 - Consciousness Flashcards
1
Q
Consciousness
A
- moment-by-moment awareness of ongoing experiences occurring internally (e.g., thoughts, emotions) and externally in the world around us
- subjective, central to the experience of being “you”
- the conscious mind can step in and take control of behavior when the unconscious mind makes mistakes or encounters something threatening
- Consciousness is difficult to study because it is inherently private. You cannot observe or experience another person’s consciousness, nor they yours. How can we study something so unobservable?
2
Q
Synesthesia
A
- is a condition where one sense triggers another. For example, a person might “see” colors when they hear music or “taste” words.
- when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously
- it highlights the subjective nature of individual experiences. Since consciousness is inherently private, researchers cannot directly observe how one person experiences synesthetic perceptions—they can only rely on self-reports, which may be difficult to verify or quantify. This subjectivity underscores the broader difficulty of understanding and objectively measuring conscious experiences across individuals.
3
Q
Arousal
A
- level of wakefulness or alertness
- refers to the overall state of alertness (or wakefulness)
- arousal is indicated by the opening of the eyes, and awareness is inferred by the ability to follow commands
4
Q
Awareness
A
- focus on and recognition of some experience
- awareness refers to the subjective experience, such as perceiving a blue triangle versus a red circle
- arousal is indicated by the opening of the eyes, and awareness is inferred by the ability to follow commands
5
Q
Self-awareness
A
- focus on and awareness of oneself as a distinct entity from other aspects of the environment
6
Q
Spotlight effect
A
- conviction that others are paying more attention to oneself than they actually are
- we tend to over-estimate how much attention is on us
Study:
- Gilovich et al., 2000
- wear embarrassing shirt into a room full of people
- only 25% of ppl remembered the embarrassing shirt
7
Q
Selective attention
A
- act of focusing one’s awareness onto a particular aspect of one’s experience while ignoring irrelevant stimuli
- awareness is very limited, needs to be rationed
- People can hold only so many things in their awareness at any given time, so they tend to prioritize their awareness to whatever is relevant to their goals, to the exclusion of everything else. This state of heightened yet focused awareness is called selective attention.
8
Q
Inattentional blindness
A
- failure to perceive information outside the focus of one’s attention
- recall invisible Gorilla study, 50% of participants fail to see gorilla
9
Q
Change blindness
A
- form of inattentional blindness in which a person fails to observe a change in a visual stimulus
10
Q
Perceptual decoupling
A
- shift in attention from external environmental stimuli to internal stimuli or thoughts
11
Q
Mind-wandering
A
- spontaneous, “stimulus-independent” thought (also referred to as daydreaming)
- eg. fantasizing, remembering the past, thinking about the future
cons:
- studies show that ppl are less happy when mind-wandering, regardless of activity
- unhappier when thinking about neutral or unpleasant topics vs current activity, no happier when thinking about pleasant topics vs current activity
- content of thoughts better predictor of happiness than current activity
pros:
- can be used as a strategy for escaping a boring situation
- help us with creative thinking, problem solving, organizing and structuring plans, allows us to plan for the future
12
Q
Automaticity
A
- ability to perform a task without conscious awareness or attention
- Complex activities like driving or reading can become automatic with practice
- Allows us to focus our attention elsewhere
13
Q
The unconscious mind: the freudian perspective, and him vs modern psychology
A
- Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939
- Neurologist working with patients with hysteria (outdated term for conditions characterized by physical symptoms without known physical cause)
- Speculated that the mind comprised several elements and that hysteria stemmed from repressed emotions and traumatic experiences buried in the unconscious level of the mind
- proposed that the mind is composed of several components, conscious, preconscious, and dynamic unconscious
- Postulated that dynamic unconscious actively influences thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (even though individuals may lack awareness of it)
- repressed thoughts and memories may manifest through dreams, slips of the tongue, etc
- there’s an ongoing conflict with the conscious mind
- modern psychology: unconscious mental processes influence behavior, but views unconscious mind as collaborator vs. competitor of the conscious mind
14
Q
Conscious (three levels, Freud)
A
- focus of current awareness
15
Q
Preconscious (three levels, Freud)
A
- thoughts, feelings, and memories that are not in current awareness but are consciously accessible
16
Q
Dynamic unconscious (three levels, Freud)
A
- Inaccessible memories, instincts, and desires
17
Q
Cocktail party phenomenon
A
- ability to pick important information (e.g., someone saying your name) while focusing on other information (e.g., conversation with someone at a party)
- suggests that information is being unconsciously processed on another channel
- study example: dichotic listening task
18
Q
Dichotic listening task (cocktail party phenomenon)
A
- Participants wear headphones
- Presented with different messages to each ear
- Asked to shadow (repeat) one message
- Appear to be unaware of message in unattended ear, BUT
- Pay attention to salient information (e.g., one’s own name)
- Slower to repeat words from attended ear if words in unattended ear are synonyms
