Unit 3: States Of Consciousness Flashcards
What is an Altered State of Consciousness?
An altered state of consciousness is any state of consciousness that deviates from normal waking consciousness, in terms of marked differences in level of awareness, perceptions, memories, thinking, emotion, behaviours and one’s sense of time, place and self-control. It can be deliberately induced or occur naturally.
What is attention?
Attention relates to the information that you are actively processing, either consciously or outside our conscious awareness. Attention can be focused on events that are taking place in the environment (external) or inside our minds (internal) and shift consciously or unconsciously.
What is an automatic process?
Automatic processes are processes that require very little awareness or mental effort to be performed well and generally don’t interfere with other automatic or controlled processes. Automatic processes require little attention and can allow you to do two things at once
What is Cognition?
Cognition is a broad term that relates to mental activities such as thinking, problem-solving, language, reasoning and so forth. It entails our knowledge, beliefs, thoughts and ideas that we have about ourselves and our environment.
What is Consciousness?
Consciousness is our awareness of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions (internal events) and our surroundings (external stimuli) at any given moment.
What is the Continuum of Awareness?
The continuum of awareness is the levels of awareness that can be experienced, from deep unconsciousness to heightened awareness, on a continuous scale including normal waking consciousness and altered states of consciousness.
What is an Alcohol-induced State of Consciousness?
Alcohol-induced state of consciousness is an altered state of consciousness due to the consumption of alcohol, a depressant drug.
What is a Controlled Process?
Controlled processes are process that require mental effort to focus attention on the required task. You are unable to complete another controlled process at the same time as they both require your full attention and therefore will interfere with each other.
What are Daydreams?
Daydreams are our private thoughts, feelings and imagined scenarios that occur when we shift our attention internally while ignoring the external world. Daydreams tend to be visualised thoughts that are usually positive and pleasurable. They occur naturally and often and mostly considered to be an altered state of consciousness.
What is Divided Attention?
Divided attention refers to our capacity to perform two or more activities at the same time. This is generally only possible if the tasks can be performed with very little mental effort.
What is Normal Waking Consciousness?
Normal waking consciousness is the states of consciousness we experiences when we are awake and aware of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions from internal events and the surrounding environment. During normal waking consciousness, we experience a real sense of time and place. Our experiences during normal waking consciousness creates or reality and a baseline to judge all other states of consciousness
What is Perception?
Perception is the process involving the way the brain organises and interprets sensory information
What are Psychoactive Drugs?
Psychoactive drugs are chemical substances that affect the nervous system and brain activity. As a result, they impact on our consciousness by altering thoughts, feelings, perceptions and behaviours
What is Selective Attention?
Selective attention refers to the limitations placed on how much we can focus on at any given moment. It is usually difficult to attend to more than one event at the same time, especially if this requires a great deal of mental effort
What is a state of consciousness?
States of consciousness refer to an individual’s level or awareness of internal events (thoughts, feelings and perceptions) and external surroundings. An individual experiences a range of different states of consciousness thoughtout the day
