LSU PSYC 3030 Knapp - Ch 15: Conscious Thought, Unconscious Thought

Wilhelm Wundt (1879)

Established the first lab to explore psychological issues

Wundt interested in "atoms" of consciousness

understand conscious thoughts by breaking process down into components. Breaking down conscious thoughts into steps through introspection.

introspection

the process of looking inward and examining your own thoughts, feelings, and mental experiences

Recent research has made advances in understanding

what consciousness is, how it functions, and how the brain makes consciousness possible.

Consciousness

state of awareness of sensations or ideas.

The Cognitive Unconscious

broad set of mental activities outside of awareness that make ordinary interactions with the world possible.

mental processes that happen outside of your awareness but still influence your thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Ex: priming

unconscious processing

frees up our conscious awareness to focus on making decisions, solving problems, interacting with others, etc., with much less effort.

unconscious processing can sometimes interfere with

our conscious goals

We are generally aware of the ______ of cognition but unaware of the ______.

products (our beliefs, conclusions, etc), processes

Your conscious recollection of dinner you had last night is a

mental product

Unaware of process that brought you this knowledge - no way of telling which bits supplied by memory retrieval, which bits rest on inference or assumption.

memory errors are often

undetectable

The Effects of Feedback Study

- Ps viewed a videotaped crime then attempted to pick the perpetrator's picture out of a lineup.

- Later, Ps received either confirming feedback for their choice ("Good, you identified the actual suspect"), disconfirming feedback ("Actually the suspect was...") or no feedback.

- Then, Ps were asked further questions about the video

- Feedback altered Ps memory for earlier events.

- Ps who got confirming feedback recalled that they'd gotten a better view of the crime, even though all Ps had the same view.

- They recalled ID had been fast and easy, even though their IDs had been no faster than anyone else's

Interpretation and Interference Study

- study involving electric shock demonstrated unconscious causal reasoning about somatic symptoms. Participants were tested to see how much of an electric shock they could endure

unconscious causal reasoning

when your mind automatically tries to figure out the cause of something without you being aware of the reasoning process.

somatic symptoms

physical symptoms that come from or are strongly connected to mental/emotional processes, like stress, anxiety, or unconscious thoughts.

After-the-Fact Reconstructions

explanations we create after something happens to make our behavior or feelings seem logical.

an assumption, rather than a review of our cognitive processes, meaning it has the potential to be wrong.

Ex: You meet someone and immediately dislike them. Later, someone asks why, and you say:

“I don’t know, they just seemed rude.”

But the real reason might be unconscious — maybe their voice reminded you of someone you had a bad experience with. Since you do not know the true cause, your mind creates a reasonable explanation afterward.

problem-solving set

unconscious thought like our assumptions and definitions that guide our problem-solving.

the habit or tendency to solve a new problem using a method that worked before.

problem-solving sets are often useful, as they keep us focused while trying to solve a problem

but they can also keep us from developing alternative ideas.

as we are typically unaware of these sets, we cannot argue against them.

Language understanding provides another example in which

conscious experience is guided by unconscious processes

Brain damage also provides evidence for

unconscious processing

Indirect tests of memory indicate that patients with amnesia are influenced by

memories of which they are unaware

Amnesia can impair explicit memory

but not implicit memory

"memory without awareness"

Blind sight

when a person with damage to the visual cortex says they cannot consciously see something, but they can still respond to it correctly.

observed in patients with damage to the primary visual cortex.

no visual awareness: insist they cannot see visual stimuli, and do not react to them

They can correctly "guess" locations of objects, reach for them, and generally describe them.

How can those with blind sight "see"?

May be "islands" of intact tissue.

Damage may not affect all pathways from eyes to brain.

"islands" of intact tissue

means that even though a person has damage to part of their visual cortex, small areas of visual brain tissue may still be undamaged and working.

Subliminal Perception

unconscious processing of information you are not aware you perceived.

people can be influenced by visual inputs they did not consciously percieve.

Evidence for subliminal perspection comes from

studies of the N400 brain wave

N400 brain wave

shows that your brain noticed something is meaningfully unexpected or hard to fit with the context.

Ex: "The boy spread his warm bread with socks."

brain signal for "that meaning doesn't fit."

larger when unexpected, smaller when expected

N400 Brain wave study

The N400 was larger still if the first (and also subliminal) word in the series was "very"—so that the trio was an absurd sequence of "very happy war." In this setting, the (unconscious) prime made the (conscious) presentation of "war" unexpected, leading to the larger N400.

Results were different if the first word in the series was "not".

Unconscious priming of "not happy" made (conscious) presentation of "war" less surprising, resulting in a smaller N400

The inferences you make in perception and memory are

automatic and unconscious

not something you can "turn off"

We can perform tasks unconsciously if we

arrive at that task with an established routine that can be guided by habit.

these routines are efficient, but inflexible

Action slips

cases in which you do something differently than intended

mistakes that happen when you intend to do one thing, but accidentally do another familiar or automatic action instead.

Unconscious processes serve as "mental reflexes."

rooted in biology

guided by circumstances

generally inflexible

Unconscious actions take place without

executive control

executive control is required for

the direction of mental processes

Metacognitive skills

your ability to think about and monitor your own thinking.

skills in monitoring / controlling one's own mental processes.

Ex: After reading a chapter, you ask yourself, "Do I actually understand this, or did I just recognize the words?" That is metacognition.

Metamemory

your awareness and understanding of your own memory.

knowledge / beliefs about awareness of control over one's own memory.

Ex: "I don't think I'll remember this later. I should come up with a mnemonic."

Neural correlates of consciousness or neural signatures of consciousness

the specific patterns of brain activity that are linked to conscious awareness.

events in the nervous system that occur at the same time as and may be the biological basis of a specific mental event or state.

Ex: If a word flashes on a screen and you consciously notice it, certain brain areas or brain-wave patterns may become active. If the word flashes but you do not consciously notice it, the brain response may look different.

Neuroimaging techniques to track activity

fMRI

EEG

PET Scan

fMRI

Shows which brain areas are more active by tracking blood flow.

Example: If someone consciously sees a word, fMRI can show increased activity in visual and language areas.

EEG

Measures electrical activity from the brain using sensors on the scalp.

Example: EEG can detect brain waves like the N400, which shows when meaning does not fit the context.

PET scan

Tracks brain activity using a radioactive tracer to show areas using more energy.

Many brain areas are crucial for consciousness

Thalamus

Cerebral cortex

Prefrontal cortex

Parietal cortex

Reticular activating system / brainstem arousal systems

No specific part in the brain as a "non-consciousness center"

2 broad categories of sites: overall alertness and content

overall alterness or sensitivity

your general level of wakefulness, readiness, and ability to notice information in the environment.

how ready your brain is.

range from being sleepy and dimly aware to fully awake, highly alert, and totally focused.

Compromised when someone suffers damage to certain sites in either the thalamus or reticular activating system: controls arousal level of forebrain

Executive control needs

1. An "output "side: things it can do, actions it can initiate

2. A way to represent goals / subgoals to serve as guides to action, as well as a plan or "agenda"

3. An "input" side" what info is coming in? Can it be integrated? Is there any conflict?

4. To know how smoothly current processes are unfolding. Do adjustments need to be made?

unconscious allows enormous efficiency

but at the cost of flexibility or control

keeps you from being distracted by details of mental processes, but can be a cost to not knowing these processes.

content of consciousness

various contents rely on different brain regions.

Cortical structures in visual system are especially active when consciously aware of sights in front of eyes (or aware of a visual that you've created).

the specific information you are aware of at a given moment.

neuronal workspace hypothesis

consciousness happens when information becomes globally available across the brain.

claim about how brain makes conscious experience possible.

Workspace neurons glue these bits together, creating a unified experience and promoting exchange of info from one module to the next.

Information carried by workspace neurons is governed by

competition

The workspace provides a plausible neural basis for executive functioning.

Enables integration across neural systems

Integration enables new combinations of ideas and operations.

The workspace also supports goal-directed behavior.

Can shift processing to overcome detected conflicts.

The workspace

• allows comparisons across processing streams.

• supports sustained neural activity.

• can amplify certain types of activity.

Access consciousness

information you are aware of and can use for thinking, reporting, and decision-making.

one's sensitivity and access to certain types of info

Phenomenal consciousness

the raw, subjective experience of something — what it feels like from the inside.

a robot would have access consciousness without phenomenal consciousness

Qualia

one's subjective experiences that cannot be conveyed as a first-person experience to someone else. (Pain of headache, taste of chocolate).

Processing fluency

how easy or smooth it feels for your brain to process information.

Processing fluency makes stimulus seem

special

parts of conscious experience

often interpreted as familiarity or accuracy of memories

mind-body problem

the question of how mental experiences relate to the physical brain and body.

Mind is a different sort of entity from the physical body, yet each can influence the other.

Cognitive Psychology and Health: "Vegetative States"

vegetative states show why consciousness is difficult to measure, because being awake is not the same thing as being aware.