Week 9: Consciousness and Sleep

Question 1

Conscious Experience

Answer 1

the first-person persepctive 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

Question 2

Awareness

Answer 2

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

Question 3

First-person perspective

Answer 3

Observations made by individuals about their own conscious experiences, also known as introspection or a subjective point of view; phenomenology refers to the description/investigation of such observations

Question 4

Contemplative Science

Answer 4

A research area concerned w understanding how contemplative practices like mediation can affect individuals, including changes in their behaviour, their emotional reactivity, their cognitive abilities, and their brains.

Also seeks insights into conscious experience that can be gained from first-person observations by individuals who have gained extraordinary expertise in introspection

Question 5

Third-Person Perspectives

Answer 5

“the view from nowhere; from no particular perspective”

observations made by individuals in a way that can be independently confirmed by other individuals so as to lead to general, objective understanding; makes use of behavioural and neural measures related to conscious experiences

Question 6

Consciousness

Answer 6

awareness of ourselves and our environment

Question 7

Cues

Answer 7

stimulus that has a particular significance to the perceiver (ex. sight or sound that has special relevance to person who saw/heard it)

Question 8

Priming

Answer 8

Activation of certain thoughts or feelings that make them easier to think of and act upon

ex. seeing a brand name all the time will make u choose that brand to purchase from them later on

Question 9

Implicit Associations Test (IAT)

Answer 9

computer reaction time test that measures a person’s automatic associations w concepts; ex. IAT could be used to measure how quickly a person makes positive/negative evaluations of members of various ethnic groups

Question 10

Mindfulness

Answer 10

process that reflects a nonjudgmental, yet attentive, mental state

Question 11

Flexible Correction Model

Answer 11

ability for people to correct/change their beliefs and evaluations if they believe these judgments have been biased; ex. if someone realizes they only thought their day was great because it was sunny, they might revise evaluation of day to account for “biasing” influence of weather

Question 12

Hypnosis

Answer 12

state of consciousness whereby a person is highly responsive to the suggestions of another; usually involves a dissociation w one’s environment and intense focus on a single stimulus, which is usually accompanied by a sense of relaxation

Question 13

Dissociation

Answer 13

heightened focus on one stimulus or thought such that many other things around you are ignored; a disconnect between one’s awareness of their environment and the one object the person is focusing on

Question 14

Hypnotherapy

Answer 14

use of hypnotic techniques like relaxation and suggestion to help engineer desirable change such as lower pain or quitting smoking

Question 15

Trance States

Answer 15

state of consciousness characterized by experience of “out-of-body possession” or an acute dissociation between one’s self and the current/physical environment surrounding them

Question 16

Melatonin

Answer 16

hormone associated w increased drowsiness and sleep

Question 17

Circadian Rhythm

Answer 17

the physiological sleep-wake cycle; influenced by exposure to sunlight as well as daily schedule/activity; biologically it includes changes in body temp, blood pressure, blood sugar

Question 18

Jet Lag

Answer 18

state of being fatigued and/or having difficulty adjusting to a new time zone after traveling a long distance (across multiple time zones)

Question 19

Hallucinogens

Answer 19

substances that when ingested alter a person’s perceptions, often by creating hallucinations that aren’t real or distorting perceptions of time

Question 20

Euphoria

Answer 20

intense feeling of pleasure, excitement, happiness

Question 21

Depressants

Answer 21

class of drugs that slow down body’s physiological and mental processes

Question 22

Blood Alcohol Content (BAC)

Answer 22

measure of percentage of alcohol found in a person’s blood; this measure is typically the standard used to determine the extent to which a person is intoxicated, as in the case of being too impaired to drive a vehicle

Question 23

Stimulants

Answer 23

class of drugs that speed up the body’s physiological and mental processes