Week 4 (college)

Question 1

Tellegen absorption scale

Answer 1

Measures hyponotic suggestibilty, proness to spiritual and self-transcendent experience. The items measure vividness of visual imagery.

Question 2

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Answer 2

Language affects thoughts and might affect perception. The way we perceive the world is determined by the language we speak. (ex: the variety of words naming different colours / different kinds of rain).

Question 3

Language of thought hypothesis

Answer 3

Your inner-voice helps us think. And our thoughts rely on this inner-speech. Our thinking is linguistic. Theory of mind: thinking is the manipulation of symbolic representations.

Question 4

Experience-sampling methods

Answer 4

Giving people a que to report what they are doing/thinking at that time. People engage in inner-speech most of the day.

Question 5

Functions of inner speech

Answer 5

Problem solving, reasoning, planning etc.

Question 6

Mental imagery

Answer 6

When we think of a concept, we capture that image in our mind. The same brain regions are active during mental imagery as in real imagery.

Question 7

Selective attention

Answer 7

We have a spotlight in our attention. Attention works like a bottleneck.

Question 8

Attentional blink paradigm

Answer 8

If the second target is presented right after the first, you have a gap in your attention.

Question 9

Global workspace theory

Answer 9

Attention is the same thing as consciousness. The conscious spotlight determines what we focus on. It’s an interaction between 3 items:
1. Backstage: unconscious processes.
2. Stage: working memory.
3. Spotlight: attention.
Information becomes conscious when it becomes globally available in the brain (fame in the brain).

–> Doesn’t solve the hard problem and sees consciousness as a all-or-nothing phenomenon.

Question 10

Masking

Answer 10

Flashing words on the screen and representing a mask after that. On half of them you will be conscious of the word and on the other half not.

Question 11

Fast forward Sweep

Answer 11

Only when there is recurrect information processed in feedback loops, we will become conscious of it.

Question 12

Homunculus / catesian theathre

Answer 12

We have a homunculus in our brain that processes the information and decides for us. It’s our consciousness.

Question 13

Multiple drafts theory

Answer 13

We only become conscious of things when it’s written down in our working memory. These ‘drafts’ compete for attention, and when it’s written down it becomes conscious. This means that our experience of reality is not a passive perception, but an active constructions by our brains. We have an active role in shaping our perception of the world.

Question 14

Predictive processing theory

Answer 14

Prior expectations shape sensory experiences. We build a generative hierarchial model to predict top-down experiences. These models are updated by bottom-up information (prediction errors). The way we perceive things are controlled hallucinations and the brain determines what we experience.

Question 15

Free energy principle

Answer 15

Thebrain tries to reduce surprise or uncertainty by making predictions about the world by internal models and updating them by using sensory imput. This caused entropy to decrease and order to increase. Minimizing surprize is minimizng free energy and maximizing the chance that our conceptualization of the world is correct.

Question 16

Complex systems approaches

Answer 16

In order to understand the system we need to take into account factors like: chaos, non-linearity, feedback loops, adaptation, resilience, emergence.

Question 17

Emergence

Answer 17

Complexity arises form the interaction of many simple things. Ex: liquidity of water is an emergent phenomenon from individual water molecules.

Question 18

Emergence theory of consciousness

Answer 18

Consciousness is a novel structure that arises form complex self-organizing systems.
Weak emergence theories: reduction is possible (like a flock of birds).
Strong emergence: is non-reductionist.

Question 19

Quantum mechanics

Answer 19

Consciousness arises from quantum interaction in a probabalistic way. Quantum vibration are orchestrated bi microtubules. (But this theory is highly speculative).

Question 20

Bistable perception

Answer 20

Your interpretation of a phenomenom can change. (Like seeing a cube from above or form the side).

Question 21

Binocular rivalry

Answer 21

Presenting 2 different pictures to 2 different eyes. The interpretation differs and you can see which brain areas become active. We always miss a lot (mooney image, change blindness, inattentional blindness).

Question 22

Blindsight

Answer 22

Seeing without vision. They don’t have subjective visual experience, but they’re still able to report what they see. The signal to their brain which translates vision is preserved/ damaged.

Question 23

Synaesthesia

Answer 23

Activation in one sensory area leads to co-activation in the same or different areas. (Ex: seeing a colour with a number).

Question 24

The binding problem

Answer 24

How do we receive the world in an integrated way? To bind together all the features of one object (integration), while seperating them from features of other objects (segregation). The brain solves the binding problem by the synchronization of neuronal firing (increased gamma activity in the brain).

Question 25

Empiricism

Answer 25

We can only gain kwowledge through our senses

Question 26

Rationalism

Answer 26

We can only gain knowledge through thinking.

Question 27

Phenomenalism

Answer 27

We can only gain knowledge of the sensory impression. We don’t have access to the world as it it, but only to our impressions of the world.