Chapter 5: Consciousness

consciousness

The moment-by-moment awareness of the external environment as well as one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

1. This stream of consciousness allows us to think about the past, present, or future

2. Difficult to study because it is a private and personal experience

3. We cannot observe another person’s consciousness

4. Awareness of the internal and external world

Introspection

• The process of examining one’s own internal thoughts and feelings

1. Involves self-report, which has limitations 

2. People may choose not to reveal their thoughts accurately or honestly

3. People may be unable to translate their conscious experience into words

arousal

A person’s level of wakefulness or alertness

awareness

• Consciously being able to recognize something

1. Can be very sharp and clear when we are awake, and fuzzy when we are tired 

2. Is limited

selective attention

The act of focusing one’s awareness onto a particular aspect of one’s experience, to the exclusion of everything else

Inattentional blindness

• A failure to perceive information that is outside the focus of one’s attention 

1. This phenomenon is likely a cause of traffic accidents because people may not notice hazards

change blindness

A form of inattentive blindness, in which a person fails to notice changes in a visual stimulus

Mind-wandering

• can reduce the ability to perform important tasks

1. People are less happy when their minds are wandering

2. People reported pleasant (42.5%), unpleasant when mind-wandering (31%) topics when mind-wandering

automaticity

• The ability to perform a task without conscious awareness or attention

1. Complex activities, such as brushing your teeth, driving, and texting, can become automatic with practice

2. Automaticity allows us to focus attention elsewhere

dynamic unconsciousness

1. Inaccessible memories, instincts, and desires

• Freud argued that the dynamic unconscious is often in conflict with the conscious mind

1. Modern psychologists see the unconscious mind working with the conscious mind as a collaborator with it

preconscious

Includes thoughts and emotions you aren’t currently aware of, but could easily bring to mind

cognitive unconscious

• The various mental processes that support everyday functioning without conscious awareness or control

1. Can influence conscious behavior without our being aware of i

subliminal perception

A form of perception that occurs without conscious awareness

default mode network

An interconnected system of brain regions that are active when the mind is alert and aware, but not focused on a particular task, such as during mind wandering

global workspace hypothesis

• The hypothesis that conscious awareness arises from synchronized activity across various brain regions that is integrated into coherent representations of an experience

1. When different brain regions associated with an experience become active at the same time, they are more likely to be bound together in conscious awareness

2. Attention may be the key to this binding of experiences

3. May also explain why people’s conscious awareness temporarily disappears during sleep or under anesthesia for surgery

Circadian rhythm

A regular, 24-hour pattern of bodily arousal (Biological rhythm or biological clock)

diurnal

Arousal is highest during the day

nocturnal

Arousal is highest at night

suprachiasmatic (SCN)

brain structure in the hypothalamus that helps regulate sleep and alertness

sleep

A regularly occurring state of altered consciousness that happens when arousal is very low

1. build, repair, and restore itself

2. constructs, repairs, and restores

beta waves

 High-frequency, low-amplitude electrical waves in the brain (measured by EEG) that occur in a rhythmic pattern and are associated with being awake and actively thinking

alpha waves

Low-frequency, high-amplitude electrical waves in the brain (measured by EEG) that occur in a rhythmic pattern and are associated with being awake yet relaxed, with the eyes closed

Delta waves

Very low frequency, high-amplitude electrical waves in the brain (measured by EEG) that occur in a rhythmic pattern and are associated with deep, stage 3 sleep

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep

• A stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements, brain activity similar to wakefulness, faster heart and breathing rates, inability to move the skeletal muscles, and dreams

1. People awakened from REM sleep are far more likely to report having been dreaming than if awakened during other stages

2. Sometimes referred to as paradoxical sleep, because despite the heightened activity in the brain’s motor cortex, the muscles of the body are completely relaxed 

3. Brainstem actively blocks signals from the motor cortex to the rest of the body, producing a kind of paralysis

4. Explains why horses and other animals can sleep in standing and sitting postures

Insomnia

• Sleep disorder involving chronic difficulties falling or staying asleep

1. College students are prone to insomnia

2. Insomnia can be treated by practicing good sleep hygiene

Sleep apnea

•  A Sleep disorder in which a person’s breathing is interrupted because of obstructions in the airway or problems with the brain’s control of breathing

1. People who suffer from sleep apnea can stop breathing for as long as 10 seconds and possibly a minute or more

Dream content REM behavior disorder (RBD)

Sleep disorder that involves acting out one’s dreams because the paralysis that normally occurs during REM sleep is absent or incomplete

sleepwalking

• A Sleep disorder that involves walking or performing other behaviors while in deep sleep

1. More common in children 

2. Takes place during stage 3 sleep

night terrors

• Sleep disorder occurring during deep sleep that involves dramatic expressions of fear, with accelerated heart rate and respiration

1. Occurs near the beginning of stage 3 sleep

narcolepsy

• A Sleep disorder in which a person falls asleep suddenly and uncontrollably

1. Cataplexy

dreams

• Sequences of images, emotions, and thoughts, sometimes vivid and storylike, that are experienced during sleep

1. May involve vivid hallucinations

2. Dreams are about what is familiar and relevant, and sometimes they incorporate the residue of very recent events

dream report

• A study technique involving waking up a participant and having them describe what they were dreaming about 

1. Dreaming is most strongly associated with REM sleep

2. People can report dreaming in all stages of sleep, although it is much more likely in REM sleep

REM rebound

The tendency to spend more time in REM sleep if deprived of it on previous nights

manifest content

According to Sigmund Freud’s theory, the visible, surface content of a dream or behavior that disguises the hidden, latent content

latent content

According to Sigmund Freud’s theory, the hidden drives and wishes that are expressed in dreams and behavior, but in a disguised form (manifest content)

activate-synthesis hypothesis

The hypothesis that dreams result from the brain’s attempt to organize the chaotic patterns of brain activity during sleep into a semicoherent narrative

Psychoactive drugs

• Chemical substances that alter a person’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviors by influencing the activity of neurotransmitters in the nervous system 

• Different categories of drugs can alter consciousness in different ways

drug tolerance

The diminished response to a drug that results from prolonged use, leading the drug user to require larger doses to achieve the same original effect

withdrawal

Unpleasant physical symptoms that result when a person is physically dependent on a drug and its effect wears off

physical dependence

The person now needs a drug for their body to function more or less normally

psychological dependence

A strong desire to use a drug again, after withdrawal symptoms have faded

drug addiction

• An uncontrolled compulsion to use a substance even though that substance damages the user’s health and everyday functioning

1. Estimated that 10% of all Americans experience a problem with drug addiction at some point in their lives

depressants

• Drugs that decrease activity levels in the nervous system

1. Effects can include lowering levels of arousal, making people feel calm and sleepy

2. Insomnia is often treated with depressants 

3. Repeated use may lead to drug tolerance

4. Higher doses can decrease the nervous system activity enough to impair thinking, induce a coma, or even stop breathing

alcohol poisoning

When alcohol starts shutting down the deep regions of the brain, like breathing, heart rate, and body temperature

binge drinking

Imbibing five or more drinks at one time in one month

alcohol myopia

• A phenomenon whereby alcohol intoxication leads to a narrowing of attention and impairment of the ability to exert top-down control over impulses 

1. People are most likely to act according to a single piece of information and not take into account other information

stimulants

 Drugs that increase activity levels in the nervous system

caffeine

• The most commonly used psychoactive substance in the world 

1. Associated with improved mental alertness, concentration, and athletic performance

2. Moderate consumption is not associated with any health risks

Nicotine

•  Increases heart rate and blood pressure, suppresses appetite, increases alertness, and can release neurotransmitters that calm anxiety and reduce sensitivity to pain

1. Highly addictive 

2. Withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, irritability, and insomnia

Amphetamines

Can be used to treat specific psychological disorders, including narcolepsy and ADHD

Methamphetamine

• Shares some chemical properties with amphetamines; it leads to a rush of euphoria and energy that lasts hours

1. Reduces the brain’s baseline levels of dopamine, leaving the user with permanently depressed functioning and dramatic declines and well-being 

2. Chronic usage alters the brain and impairs social functioning, leading to isolation, depression, and aggressiveness

Cocaine

1. Derived from the coca plant, which grows in South America 

2. Produces a short-lasting high that wears off in 15 to 30 minutes

3. Leaves the user’s brain exhausted of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine 

4. Frequent usage can lead to emotional disturbances, muscle tics, paranoia, and in some cases, cardiac arrest and respiratory failure

psychedelics

Drugs that distort perception and trigger hallucinations (sensations without any sensory input), changes in moods, thoughts, sense of self, and feelings of insight

LSD

• Lysergic acid diethylamide

1. The synthetic drug was invented by a chemist in 1938

2. Other psychedelics include mescaline, psilocybin, and PCP

Chemically similar to the neurotransmitter serotonin, and can both facilitate and block its transmission in the brain

Ecstasy

• MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine)

1. Chemically resembles both mesacline and methamphetamine

2. Both psychedelic and stimulant properties

3. Produces relatively mild hallucinations and feelings of elation, empathy, and closeness to others

4. Use comes with risks of heart and kidney failure, stroke, and coma

THC

• Tetrahydrocannabinol

1. The main active ingredient in marijuana

2. Acts as a mild psychedelic and may also cause euphoria, and heightened sensations of color, smell, sound, and taste

3. Does not produce drug tolerance or severe withdrawal symptoms, but users can still develop addictions

Hypnosis

A relaxed state of mind in which a person is especially receptive to suggestions made by a hypnotist and feels her actions and thoughts are happening to her rather than being produced voluntarily

Hypnotic analgesia

• A reduction in pain perception caused by a hypnotic suggestion

Dissociation

• A splitting of conscious awareness. In the case of hypnosis, one stream of awareness stays connected to the hypnotist’s suggestions, whereas another stream observes the person’s experiences in a disconnected way

1. May explain why hypnotized subjects become highly responsive to suggestions

2. The subject becomes focused on what they are being told and neglects why they are being asked to do so

3. Some people are more hypnotizable than others