Units Flashcards
Phenomenology
How things seem to the conscious person
Consciousness
A persons subjective experience of the world and the mind includes being awake and vivd dreaming
Problem of other minds
The fundamental difficulty we have in perceiving the consciousness of others
How are minds judged?
Agency and experience
Agency
The ability to plan or have self control
Experience
Ability to feel pain and pleasure
Mind/body problem
The issue of how the mind is related to the brain
Where did Descartes think that the mind was connected to the brain? A.hypothalamus B.pituitary gland C.pineal gland D. Hippocampus
C but this is false because the pineal gland has no nerve function (part of endocrine system) today psychologists believe “the mind is what the brain does”
What are the 4 basic properties of consciousness?
- Intentionality (being directed towards an object) ex. Painting of people on bridge
- unity(resistance of division) attending to two tasks at once produces higher error
- selectivity(the capacity to include some objects but not others) focus on one this tune everything else out
- transience(the tendency to change) ->stream of consciousness ex. Cube that changes direction
Minimal consciousness
A low level kind of sensory awareness and responsiveness that occurs when the mind inputs sensations and may output behaviour (when someone pokes you during sleep and you roll over)
Full consciousness
Consciousness in which you know and are able to report your mental state
Self consciousness
A distinct level of consciousness in which the persons attention is drawn to the self as an object (brings a tendency to evaluate yourself and notice your short comings)
->recognition of self in mirrors by humans and other animals
Think aloud
In which people are asked what’s on their mind in order to find out their conscious content
Experience sampling technique
In which people are asked to report their conscious experiences at particular times(ex. Participants asked to record current thoughts at random times throughout the day)
Current concerns
What a person is thinking about repeatedly
Mental control
The attempt to change conscious states of mind
Thought suppression
The conscious avoidance of a thought
Rebound effect of thought suppression
The tendency of a thought to return to consciousness with greater frequency following suppression
Daydreaming
A state of consciousness in which a seemingly purposeless flow of thoughts comes to mind (fMRI research shows a widespread of brain activation known as the default network)
Ironic processes of mental control
Mental processes that can produce ironic errors because monitoring for errors can produce errors itself( if you distract someone while trying to relax it makes them more anxious than when they are not trying to relax)
Dynamic consciousness
An active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the persons deepest instincts and desires and the persons inner struggle to control these forces
Repression
A mental process that removes unacceptable thoughts and memories from consciousness
Freudian slips
Errors in speech or lapse of consciousness that Freud believed gave evidence of the unconscious mind
Cognitive unconsciousness
The mental processes that give rise to a persons thoughts, choices, emotions and behaviours even though they are not experienced by the person
Subliminal perception
Thought or behaviour that is influenced by stimuli that a person cannot consciously report perceiving; controversial
Subliminal persuasion
1957 James vicary tried flashing eat popcorn and drink coke signs on movie screens( was a hoax did not increase sales)
According to Freud was unconsciousness intelligent?
Yes he thought that it harbours complex motives and inner complexes that it expresses through emotions and psych disorders -> modern psychologists disagree -> not understand word pairs
Altered state of consciousness
Forms of experience that depart from the normal subjective experience of the world and the mind
Hypnagogic state
Presleep consciousness
Hypnic jerk
A sudden quiver or sense of dropping when falling asleep
Hypnopompic state
Post sleep consciousness
Circadian rhythm
A naturally occurring 24 hour cycle of rest and activity (humans have a 25.1 hour cycle)
Circannual rhythm
Internal mechanism that operates on a annual cycle
What are the stages of sleep and what are their waves
Awake beta, relaxed alpha, stage 1 theata, stage 2 spindles and k complexes, stage 3/4 delta activity, REM saw tooth waves
EEG
Electroencephalogram
Electroculograph
Measures eye movement
Insomnia
Difficultly in falling asleep or staying asleep
What did Nathanial Kleitmas discover?
REM sleep
Sleep apea
A disorder in which a person stops breathing for a brief period while sleeping
Somnambulism
Sleepwalking eyes open with a glassy stare
Narcolepsy
A disorder in which sudden sleep attacks occur in the middle of waking activities
Kleine-Levin syndrome
Unable to be woken up for long periods followed by possible personality changes
5 major characteristics of dream consciousness
Intensely feel emotion, illogical, sensations fully formed and meaningful,uncritical acceptance, difficulty in memory
ARTSE acceptance, remembering, thought (illogical), sensations, emotions
Manifest content
A dreams apparent or superficial meaning
Latent content
A dream underlying meaning
Sleep spindles are caused by interactions between
Interaction between thalamus and cortex
Activation-synthesis model
Hobson and mcCarley 1977 dreams are produced when the brain trying to make sense of activations that occur randomly during sleep
What parts of the brain are active during REM sleep?
Visual association areas, brain stem, amygdala and the motor cortex. The prefrontal cortex is inhibited
What did Jovez discover?
Paradoxical sleep in animals (same as REM but little eye movement)
What inhibits the expression of motor activation?
The spinal neurons running through the brain stem
Agonist
Enhances
Antagonist
Inhibits
Psychoactive
Chemicals that influence consciousness or behaviour by altering the brains chemical messaging system
Depressants
Substances that reduce activity in the CNS
- have a calming effect
- alcohol increases activity of GABA
Alcohol myopia theory
Alcohol hampers attention leading people to respond in simple ways to complex situations
Stimulants
- substances that excite the CNS, heightening arousal and activity levels
- caffeine
- nicotine addiction more motivated by withdrawal symptoms the pleasantness of the use
Narcotics or opiates
Highly addictive drugs that are derived from opium that relieve pain and induce a feeling of well being
Mimic edorphrins-> reduction of natural endorphorin producers
Hallucinogens
Drugs that alter sensation and perception and often cause visual and auditory hallucinations
Marijuana
The leaves and buds of hemp plant contains THC
Hypnosis
An altered state of consciousness character by suggestibility and the feeling that ones actions are occurring involuntary
Hypnotic analgesia
The reduction of pain through hypnosis
Meditation
The practice of intentional contemplation creates-> alpha waves-> low levels of activity in posterior superior partial lobe
Ecstatic religious experiences
Same brain activity that occurs in epilepsy, right anterior temporal lobe
Memory
The ability to store and retrieve info over time
Elaborative encoding
The process of actively relating new info to knowledge that is already in memory
Visual imagery encoding
Mind palace
Sensory memory
Type of storage that holds sensory info for a few I seconds or less
Short term memory
Holds non-sensory information for more than a few seconds but less than a minute
Rehearsal
The process of keeping info in short term memory by repeating it most people can keep approximately 7 things
Chunking
Combining small pieces of info into larger clusters more easily held in short term memory
Iconic memory
A fast decaying store of visual info
Echoinc memory
A fast decaying store of auditory information
Waking Memory
Active maintaince of info in the STM
Long term memory
A type of storage that holds info for hours,days,weeks years
Eric kindal
Used sea slug to study long term storage and neurons
Long term potential
A process by which communication across the synapse between neurons strengthens the connection making further communication easier
NMDA receptor
Influences the flow of info between neurons by controlling the intiation of LTP in most hippocampus pathways
Antegrade amnesia
The inability to transfer info from short term to long term ->HM
Retrograde amnesia
The inability to retrieve info that was acquired before a particular event ->Clive warings
Encoding specificity principle
Retrieval cues can serve as a reminder when it helps recreate the specific way in which the info was encoded
State dependant retrieval
The tendency for info to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval
Explicit memory
When people consciously or intentionally recall past experiences
Implicit memory
The influence of past experiences on later beharivor without effort of remembering or awareness
Procedural memory
The gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice
Priming
An enhanced ability to think of a stimulus as a result of being exposed to the stimulus
Perceptual priming
Reflects the implicit memory for sensory features of an item
Semantic memory
A network of associated facts that make up your general knowledge of the world(hippocampus is not required to acquire news semantic memories)
Episodic memory
The collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place
KC
An amnesia patient who could recall specific episodes from his past but when asked to imagine the future reported a complete blank (hippocampal amnesia)
Hermann ebbinghaus
Sharp than slow decline of memory with time
Seven sins of memory
Transience(forgetting what occurred with a passage of time), absentmindedness(a lapse in attention that results in memory failure)blocking(failure to retrieve info even though it is available to you), missattribution(assigning an idea to the wrong source), suggestibility(tendency to incorporate info from external sources),bias(distorting influences of present knowledge on recollection of previous experiences),persistence
ms bat bp
Retrospective interference
Later learning impars memory of info acquired
