Ch. 7 ~ States of Consciousness

What does our attentional system do?

• filters out all the unnecessary things that happen so we aren’t overwhelmed, allowing us to focus on the tasks at hand

What is the filter theory?

• created by Donald Broadbent

  • filter only allows certain information through further processing

  • e.g. question: you’re watching the lecture but the TV is playing in the background, what is allowing you to acknowledge it but not be attentive to it: aware of it, but not meaningful

How does the Cocktail part effect defy the statements of the filter theory?

• even in background noise, you hear your name called

• filter would say all meaningful things would be blocked, so why does hearing your name in all the noise alert you

What is the attenuation theory?

• Developed by Ann Treisman (1967)

• the things in the background aren’t blocked, just weakened

What is subliminal advertising?

• uses sensory stimuli (like quick flashes of images or quiet audio) that fall below the threshold of conscious awareness.

What was the faulty of subliminal advertising?

• wasn’t really effective

• had little influence

What is implicit priming?

• view a list of words with no explicit instruction to remember the words

• later given a word-stem completion task

• most likely to fill with a word you’ve previously seen

What is inattentional blindness?

• we attend to what we expect to see

• unexpected events go unnoticed

Why is listening to music with lyrics while trying to read sometimes distracting?

• our brain is divided into two halves, some tasks are more dependent to process in one hemisphere than the other

  • language is heavily on the left side

  • so lyrics and reading will interfere

What is the purpose of split-brain surgery?

• involves the complete severing of the corpus callosum

• separates the left hemisphere from the right

• done in those with severe epilepsy

What is spatial attention?

• how we process the space around us

• lots of it operates at the unconscious level

• majority of our estimates are slightly to the left

Spatial neglect

• left side of the brain is unaware of

• crossing lines out example

What are the two broad pathways that we process signals?

• Dorsal

  • travels to parietal lobe

  • allows us to identify WHERE/HOW of the object

• Ventral

  • travels to temporal lobe

  • allows us to identify WHAT we’re seeing

*reaching out to a cup

What are some examples of the ventral and dorsal pathways?

• Just judging (ventral) doesn’t affect grasping and grabbing the lines (dorsal)

  • dorsal wants us to not think too hard on a motor task

What is consciousness?

• associated with brain activity

• occur naturally but can be manipulated

What is the Global Workplace Model?

What are some ways that consciousness can be altered?

• Traumatic Brain Injury

  • effect ranging from mild to severe and that depends on the degree of arousal and awareness

What are the two factors that determine the severity of brain injury?

• Arousal: the fact that they person is awake

• Aware: how aware is the person of the things going on around them

What is unresponsive wakefulness syndrome?

• results from extensive brain damage

• formerly known as persistent vegetative state

• Terri Schiavo

What is a locked-in syndrome?

• as a psychological state, has been compared to being buried alive

  • full conscious awareness

What is hypnosis?

• a state between sleep and wakefulness in which a person becomes highly suggestable

What are the two theories about how hypnosis works?

• Neodissociation Theory

  • person is actually in this state but don’t do things that are out of character for them

• Sociocognitive

  • fancy way of saying it’s not real, conforming to social expectation of what they feel a hypnotized person should feel like

How does mediation alter consciousness?

• concentrative meditation: very relaxed state, focusing on one thing; person shuts out a lot of things around them

• Mindfulness: lets their thoughts flow freely but don’t react to them

What is your circadian rhythm

• 24hr clock

• biological, produced in our brains and body

• visual signals traveling from eyes to hypothalamus and allow light to influence rhythmic activity of the SCN

How does melatonin contribute to our sleep?

• gets signals from SCN to pineal gland influencing it’s production

• when enters our bloodstream, we feel drowsy

• when it gets dark outside we start to feel sleepy

What are the three ways of measuring sleep?

• EEG: brain-wave activity

• EMG: persons muscle tone and how much they can move their body

• EOG: eye movements change, entering REM sleep eye movement can inc

What can the two stages of sleep be divided into?

• REM; reached after two hrs, brain is really aware

• non-REM

*kinda like you have to earn your way into it, the longer you sleep it’s easier to go into REM sleep

What is REM rebound?

• catching up on REM sleep one was deprived of

• the next night one goes into that stage faster and stays there longer

What is the diff between REM dreams and non-REM dreams?

• REM are more vivid areas linked to motivation, emotion and vision are active in this time

• prefrontal cortex (reasoning) is inhibited so it can be very crazy

• Atonia

What is atonia?

*signals sent from brain stem to diff parts of brain and spinal cord

• lack of muscle tone in the body, people are essentially paralyzed during REM sleep

What is sleepwalking?

• very little conscious awareness of what is going on around them

What are night terrors?

• usually happen in childhood, grow out of it

• seeing scary things in dreams

What is insomia?

• Onset: very hard to fall asleep

• Maintenance: can fall asleep but hard to stay asleep

• Terminal: can fall asleep and stay asleep but wake up and can’t fall back asleep

What is narcolepsy?

• Cateplexy: all lose of muscle control

• Orexin neurons in hypothalamus

Waking up allows signaling in which areas of the brain?

• forebrain and spinal cord

• RAS is a mixture of nuclei and fibers in the brainstem

What are benzodiazepines?

• treating anxiety (anti-anxiety)

• minor tranquilizers, calm them down

What are barbiturates and Alcohol

• produce sedation (a sedative) and can induce sleep

What is MSMA (Ecstasy)

*a stimulant

• slow to act because it’s in pill form

• Lasts up to 4 hours

• strong sense of euphoria and heightened sense of awareness

• Acts on serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine

What are opioids effect?

• they are addictive since their effects are pleasurable

• Naturally derived from seeds of opium poppies for thousands of years.

What is morphine?

*an opioid

• synthesized from the active ingredient found in opium

• Named after “Morpheus” a Greek god of dreams

What is heroin?

*an opioid

• first used to treat bad coughs

• synthesized from morphine in late 1800’s

• very potent paid reliever but highly addictive, too much can slow respiratory action down and cause failure

What is fetanyl?

• a slow release drug

• about 80 times that of morphine

What are hallucinogens?

• alter sensory perception and produce vivid hallucinations

• a type is LSD

• first discovered by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann

What are some experiences with the usage of hallucinogens?

• some have a very pleasurable experience (euphoric)

• some have very frightening

*was criminalized

What could LSD be a good thing for now that researchers are looking at it again?

• think they may be beneficial in palliative care

• addition rates are actually quite low