Week 9 Flashcards
Consciousness
The ability of a person to generate a series of conscious experiences one after another. Includes awareness of the self, bodily sensations, of thoughts and of the environment
Conscious experience
The first-person perspective of a mental event, such as feeling some sensory input, a memory, an idea, an emotion, a mood, or a continuous temporal sequence of happenings
Awareness
a conscious experience or the capability of having conscious experiences, which is distinct from self-awareness, the conscious understanding of one’s own existence and individuality
dualism
Mental and physical are, in essence, different substances. This view can be contrasted with reductionist views that mental phenomena can be explained via descriptions of physical phenomena
First person perspective
Observations made by individuals about their own conscious experiences, also known as introspection or a subjective point of view. Phenomenology refers to the description and investigation of such observations
Contemplative science
A research area concerned with understanding how contemplative practises such as meditation can affect individuals, including changes in their behaviour, their emotional reactivity, their cognitive abilities, and their brains. Contemplative science also seeks insights into conscious experience that can be gained from first-person observations by individuals who have gained extraordinary expertise in introspection
how does our awareness of a visual feature depend on a certain type of reciprocal exchange of information across multiple brain ares
Directly activating your visual motion area with an externally applied magnetic field will make you see moving dots
Activating your visual motion area alone does not let you see motion
Motion induced blindness
Bright discs completely vanish from your awareness in full attention
Why do people with certain types of brain damage lack visual awareness
The reverberating reciprocal exchange of information between higher-level visual areas and primary visual cortex appears to be essential for generating visual awareness
Other areas of the visual cortex may still receive visual input through projections from the brain structures such as the thalamus and superior colliculus, and these networks may mediate some preserved visual abilities that take place without awareness
How does neural synchronization play an important role
It promotes neural communication. A neuron’s excitability varies over time. Communication among neural populations is enhanced when their oscillatory cycles of excitability are synchronized
What is important for generating awareness
Sharing of information among prefrontal, inferior, parietal, and occipital regions of the cerebral cortex
Information integration theory of consciousness
That shared information itself constitutes consciousness. An organism would have minimal consciousness if the structure of shared information is simple, whereas it would have rich conscious experiences if the structure of shared information is complex
Complexity
Defined as the number of intricately interrelated informational units or ideas generated by a web of local and global sharing of information
What would cause the degree of consciousness in an organism to be high
If numerous and diversely interrelated ideas arise
What would cause the degree of consciousness to be low
If only a few ideas arise or if there are numerous ideas, but they are random and unassociated
Computational analyses
Provide additional perspectives on such proposals.
Low levels of neuronal connectivity
All neurons would tend to activate
High levels of neuronal connectivity
If every neuron is connected to every other neuron, all neurons would tend to activate together, generating few distinctive ideas
how to promote rich levels of consciousness
A suitable mixture of short, medium, and long-range neural connections would be needed
Pinnacle of conscious human memory functions
Known as episodic recollection because it allows one to re-experience the past, to virtually relive an earlier event
People who suffer from amnesia due to neurological damage to certain critical brain areas
Have poor memory for events and facts. Their memory deficit disrupts the type of memory termed declarative memory and makes it difficult to consciously remember
Perceptual priming
A type of memory that does not entail the conscious experience of remembering and that is typically preserved in amnesia
What does storing memories for the events we experience everyday rely on
Connections among multiple cortical regions as well as on a brain structure known as the hippocampus
Construction of our body awareness
Appears to be mediated by specific brain mechanisms involving a region of the cortex known as the temporoparietal junction
What happens when there is damage to the temporoparietal junction
Can generate distorted body awareness, such as feeling a substantially elongated torso. Altered neural activity in this region through artificial stimulation can also produce an out-of-body experience, in which you feel like your body is in another location and you have a novel perspective on your body and the world, such as from the ceiling of the room
A social neuroscience theory of consciousness
Ascribes an important role to our ability to localize our own sense of self. Main premise of the theory is that you fare better in a social environment to the extent that you can predict what people are going to do
Primary function of consciousness
To allow us to predict our own behaviour
The two ways we make decisions
Sometimes we carefully analyze and weigh different factors to reach a decision, taking full advantage of the brain’s conscious mode of information processing.
Other times we make a gut decision, trusting the unconscious mode of information processing
When are careful conscious decisions effective
When there are only a few known factors to consider
When are gut decisions effective
When a large number of factors should be considered simultaneously. Can be accurate on occasion, but only if you are well versed in the relevant domain
Belief in free choice
shown to promote moral behaviour, and is the basis of human notions of justice. May be a beneficial trait that became prevalent because it helped us flourish as social beings
Third person perspective
Observations made by indivudals in a way that can be independently confirmed by other individuals so as to lead to general, objective understanding. With respect to consciousness, third-person perspectives make use of behavioural and neural measures related to conscious experiences
Damage to the primary visual cortex
Not able to see anything- a problem termed cortical blindness. Patient might detect moving stimuli via V5 activation, but still have no conscious experiences of the stimuli, because the reverberating reciprocal exchange of information cannot take place between V5 and the damaged primary visual cortex
Blindsight
Refers to blindness due to a neurological cause that preserves abilities to analyze and respond to visual stimuli that are not consciously experienced
Low awareness
Even though you may not be aware of various stimuli in your environment, your brain is paying closer attention than you think. Influenced by subtle factors, saves mental effort
Cues
a stimulus that has a particular significance to the perceiver
Priming
The activation of certain thoughts or feelings that make them easier to think of and act upon
Implicit associations test
A computer reaction time test that measures a person’s automatic associations with concepts. For instance, the IAT could be used to measure how quickly a person makes positive or negative evaluations of members of various ethnic groups
High awareness
Includes effortful attention and careful decision-making. uses mental effort, can overcome some biases
Mindfulness
A state of higher consciousness that includes an awareness of the thoughts passing through one’s head
Flexible correction model
The ability for people to correct or change their beliefs and evaluations if they believe these judgments have been biased
When do humans alternate between low and high thinking states
We shift between focused attention and a less attentive default state, and e have neural networks for both
The less we’re paying attention, the more likely we are to be influenced by non-conscious stimuli
Hypnosis
The state of consciousness whyereby a person is highly responsive to the suggestions of another; this state usually involves a dissociation with one’s environment and an intense focus on a single stimulus, which is usually accompanied by a sense of relaxation
How is hypnosis used therapeutically
Often uses a combination of relaxation, suggestion, motivation, and expectancies to create a desired mental or behaviour state. Some evidence that it can be successful in treating sufferers of acute and chronic pain
Dissociation
The separation of one’s awareness from everything besides what one is centrally focused on
Trance states
a state of consciousness characterized by the experience of “out-of-body possession”, or an acute dissociation between one’s self and the current, physical environment surrounding them
When is trance used
Often occur in religious ceremonies, where the person believes he or she is “possessed” by an otherworldly being or force. People report anecdotal accounts of a “higher consciousness” or communion with a greater power
Sleep
A unique state of consciousness; it lacks full awareness but, the brain is still active. People generally follow a “biological clock” tat impacts when they naturally become drowsy, when they fall asleep, and the time they naturally awaken
Melatonin
A hormone associated with increased drowsiness and sleep
Circadian rhythm
the physiological sleep-wake cycle. It is influenced by exposure to sunlight as well as daily schedule and activity. Biologically, it includes changes in body temperature, blood pressure, and blood sugar
Beta waves
Characterized by being high in frequency but low in intensity. They are the most inconsistent brain wave and this reflects the wide variation in sensory input that a person processes during the day
Alpha waves
These waves reflect brain activity that is less frequent, more consistent and more intense
Stage 1 of sleep
Called NREM 1. The “falling aslep” stage and is marked by theta waves
Stage 2 of sleep
Called NREM 2, is considred a light sleep. There are occasional “sleep spindles”, or very high intensity brain waves. These are thought to be associated with the processing of memories. Makes up 55% of sleep
Stage 3 of sleep
NREM3. Makes up between 20-25% of all sleep and is marked by greater muscle relaxation and the appearance of delta waves
REM sleep
Marked by rapid eye movement. This stage is similar to wakefulness in terms of brain activity. The brain waves occur less intensely than in other stages of sleep. Accounts for 20% of all sleep and is associated with dreaming
Dreams
All humans dream, we dream at every stage of sleep, but dreams during REM sleep are especially vivid
Functions of sleep
To give us a period of mental and physical restoration
Psychoactive drugs
Operate on human physiology in a variety of ways and researchers and medical doctors tend to classify drugs according to their effects
Hallucinogens
Substances that, when ingested, alter a person’s perceptions, often by creating hallucinations that are not real or distorting their perceptions of time. Examples include marijuana, LSD, and MDMA
Euphoria, excessive laughter, rambling thoughts, hunger, perceptual distortion
Depressants
A class of drug that slow down the body’s physiological and mental processes. Examples include opiates, and Alcohol, which is the most widely used depressant.
Reduced inhibition, loss of balance, poor judgment, numbed pain, poor coordination, euphoria
Stimulants
A class of drug that speeds up the body’s physiological and mental processes. Two commonly used are caffeine, and nicotine. Others include cocaine and methamphetamine.
Increased alertness, higher energy, paranoia, increased attention, anger, psychosis
Global neuronal workspace theory
neurons share information from broad sets of brain regions over space and time, converging on a single conscious experience
