2 Psych 1010

what is consciousness (textbook)

moment-to-moment subjective experience of the world

change blindness

a failure to recognize a change in ones environment

Endogenous versus Exogenous Attention (textbook)

endogenous: attention that is directed voluntarily (into choice)

exogenous: attention that is directed involuntarily by a stimulus (away from choice)

Priming

a facilitation in the response to a stimulus due to recent experience with that stimulus or a related stimulus.

Subliminal perception

the processing of information by sensory systems without conscious awareness

what is consciousness (lecture)

complex thought (Donald Hebb), decision making + problem solving

autobiographical memory (Antonio Damasio), memory for subjective events

components of consciousness

self consciousness

autobiographical memory

attention

components of consciousness: self consciousness

awareness of self

Mirror self-recognition task, limitations?

test for consciousness

ability to recognize ourself in mirror

could be a test of understanding mirrors

autobiographical memory, what is it and what two things does it integrate?

memory for events (episodes or experiences) that have happened to us

eg. birthdays, holidays, moments of life

unique to humans

integrates:

1. factual recall of events that happens to us

2. our perspective interpretation and evaluation of the event (experience of event)

can change depending on mood across time, can change with time and experience (reflection)

childhood amnesia

as adults, cant remember events between birth to <4 years

possible causes: language or sense of self, brain not fully developed (hippocampus) but we dont really know

reminiscence bump

better memory for events between 15-25 years

possible causes: teens are very emotionally reactive, hightened memory for moments that are important to sense of self which is forming in this stage

period of recency

better memory for recent events: 40+ years

attention

ability to focus selectively on something and not other things

• directed and focused

limited mental resource, we cant focus on everything in the environment, we have to choose

testing attention: shadowing

Participants will hear different words in each ear

Eg. Birds in one ear, weather in the other

Then ask participants to repeat what they heard.

Participants can only recall info from the ear they were told to attend to

endogenous

conscious control of attention

exogenous

control of attention driven by a stimulus or event

• automatic and unconscious

most often occurs in reaction to a threat

highly adaptive to keeping us alive

four factors influencing attention 4

nature of the stimulus

individuals internal state

personal motivation and interest

personal knowledge/ experience

factors influencing attention: nature of the stimulus

things that are novel, moving, high intensity, repetitive, or that contrast their surroundings

have biological relevance (threats or food) or personal significance

factors influencing attention: Individuals internal state

some things will grab your attention more than others based on how youre feeling

if hungry, very sensitive to food related cues

if tired not as sensitive to any cues except cues for sleep

factors influencing attention: personal motivation and interest

botanist will focus on plants

architect will attend to structures

factors influencing attention: personal knowledge/experience

a friend who loves going to haunted houses will be less startled than one who hates them (may also know where to look for scares so can focus attention and anticipate them more than someone who’s inexperienced)

if youve played video game for a long time, you pick up on hidden rewards quickly

two ways we process information

automatic processing

controlled processing

how we process information: automatic processing

occurs when a task is so well learned that we can do it without much attention or conscious effort (automatic)

test card lets see how the bullet points hold up

• this ones really hard

• easy peasy

• wowza

how we process info: controlled processing

when we have to attend to what we are doing

• slower than automatic

• takes more energy (resources)

divided attention (multitasking)

ability to pay attention to multiple things at once

its useful for our survival to be able to pay attention to multiple things at once

difficult if tasks require similar resources or controlled processing

change (inattentional) blindness (2)

spotlight effect

change blindness

spotlight effect

enhanced processing for things we attend to

• less processing of things we do not attend to

literally like a spotlight

change blindness

when we dont notice large changes in our environment (because we did not attend to them)

result of the spotlight effect

awareness

the ability to know, percieve, feel, or to be conscious of a stimulus or event

do we need awareness for consciousness

you dont have to be paying attention to something to be aware you saw it

awareness for consciousness example 1

individuals in vegetative states (coma)

(Adrian Owen ‘the grey zone’)

• some individuals in comas are still aware of the outside world

• have awareness but no consciousness

we can have awareness without consciousness

awareness for consciousness (how are awareness and consciousness related) example 2

blindsight:

if you have damage to primary visual cortex, you can respond to visual stimuli that you don’t consciously see

• earlier processing in the brain allows one to find the ‘target’ even when later processing superimposes an image which erases the target (two visual systems)

• like split brain patients

• have awareness but no consciousness

we don’t need to be conscious of something to be aware of it

can things we are not conscious of impact our thoughts and behaviour? example 1

priming: when our reponse to a stimulus is influenced by recent experiences or context

priming is a real, well established phenomena

priming is perceptible/ we are aware of it

priming: example 1 Nudges

changes to the environment make us more likely to behave in a particular way

some things that we are unconscious to can influence our behaviour

can things we are not conscious of impact our thoughts and behaviour? example 2 subliminal persepection

subliminal perception: sensory stimuli that are processed but dont reach conscious awareness

can things we are not conscious of impact our thoughts and behaviour? example 3 subliminal messages

Subliminal messages: conveying a message below the threshold of conscious awareness(not perceptible)

people see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear

No evidence that subliminal messages in films or advertisements alter our behaviour

Vokey and Read (1985)

largely been debunked

Vokey and Read (1985)

asked to sort messages played backwards into catagories of meaning

participant accuracy: 19.2% (below random chance)

wanted to know if participants would hear what they were told to hear

85% of participants said they heard what they were told to

82% said they heard it…

activation synthesis hypothesis

dreaming, proposes the brain tries to make sense of random brain activity that occurs during sleep by synthesizing the activity with stored memories