Week 7 Flashcards
Dualism
The philosophical belief that reality consists of two distinct entities: mind and matter
Materialism
Philosophical belief that reality can be known only through an understanding of the physical world of which the mind is part of
Physicalism
The view that everything that exists is no more entensive than its physical properties
Monism
The view that only one kind of substance exists
Operational definition of conciousness
A person is conscious when he/she is able to report his/her own mental state
Measures of conciousness
Remembering a stimulus long enough to report on it
Give a simple verbal report
Neutral correlates
Minimal neuronal mechanisms required to produce a specific conscious precept
Blindsight
A phenomenon in which individuals with damage to the visual cortex or visual pathways report no visual experience, despite being able to still accurately preform some tasks involving vision
Vegetative state
Describes a person who is awake and shows sleep-wake cycles but shows no signs of being aware of himself or his environment. He is unable to interact with others and shows no evidence of reproducible voluntary responses to any kind of external stimuli
Minimally conscious state
Condition of severly altered consciousness where there is minimal evidence of any form of awareness. To be classified as minimally conscious, patentiens have to show some evidence of reproducible and voluntary behaviour, such as responding to simple commands
Brain death
Irreversible unconsciousness with complete loss of brain function
Locked-in syndrome
Condition in which an individual is full conscious, but all the voluntary muscles of the body are completely paralyzed, with the possible exception of the muscles controlling eye movement
Restoration theory
Sleep is essential for revitalizing and restoring the physiological processes that keep the body and mind healthy and functioning properly
Preservation and protection theory
A theory that holds that sleep serves an adaptive function. It protects the animal during that portion of the 24 hour day in which being awake, and hence roaming around, would place the individuals at the greatest risk
Consolidation
Process that serves to maintain, strengthen and modify memories that are already stored in long term memory. Once memories go through consolidation they are thoughtless and stable
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
A test that detecs electrical activity in your brain using small, flat metal discs attached to your scalp
Alpha activity
Neural activity in the range of 8-12Hz
Rapid eye movement
Period of sleep during which dreaming, rapid eye movements and muscular paralysis occur and the EEG shows beta activity
Theta activity
Electrical activity of the brain that is in the 3.5-7.5Hz range
Delta activity
Electrical activity of the brain with a frequency of less than 3.5 cycles per second (deepest sleep)
Slow wave sleep
Sleep other than REM sleep, characterized by regular, slow waves on the EEG
How you go through sleep cycles
1-4-3-2-REM
Beta activity
High frequency neural oscillations in the range of 15-30z or 15-30 cycles per second. This activity characterizes an alert, wakeful state of consciousness
REM atonia
Lack of muscle response during dreams
Parasomnia
Sleep disorder category involving abnormal movements, perceptions or dreams during any stage of sleep
Dichotic listening
Two different auditory stimuli (usually speech) are presented to the participant simultaneously
Shadow
Repeating the content of the message attended to
Filter model of attention
Attention is a filter on incoming sensory information. ONly sensory signal that pass through the filter go on to be processed further
Visual search
Common task of looking for something in a cluttered visual environment
Target
Stimulus that is the subject or goal of the search
Conjunction search
Each item in the visual array must be examined to determine if it is the target stimulus
Singleton searches
All items can be identified at the same time
Feature-integration theory of attention
This theory holds that simple features are processed quickly sorting into features. If combinations of features must be examined, then extra cognition and attention is required, slowing the process
Signal detection theory
The perception of a stimulus is dependent upon boht the judgement of the subject as well as sensory experience
Response bias
A person’s tendency to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when he is not sure whether he detected the stimulus
Satisfaction of search
The finding of one stimulus interferes with the finding or subsequent stimuli
Rapid, Serial, Visual, Presentation
A technique of displaying information rapidly and sequentially for identification of a target object
Change blindness
Failure to detect a change when vision is interrupted by a saccade (rapid eye movement) or artificially produced obstruction
Inattentional blindness
Failure to perceive an event when attention is diverted elsewhere
Functional neuroimaging
A type of brain scan showing the areas of the brain that are active when a subject performs certain tasks
Bistable stimuli
Ambiguous stimuli with more than one possible interpretation
