Lecture 3 extra reading material:

Baars and Gage chapter 8: Attention and consciousness:

• Attention and consciousness:

• Attention determines what enters consciousness, unattended items fade from awareness

• Attention and consciousness are closely intertwined but experimentally separable.

• Selective attention: Focus on a chosen stimulus, enables learning and conscious processing.

Functional networks:

• FPN: Executive attention and task control.

• Posterior cortical regions: Visual, auditory, and sensory content awareness.

• Corticothalamic loops: Integration during consciousness, deactivation during sleep, anaesthesia or coma.

Executive functions:

• Cognitive control over thoughts and actions: Planning, working memory, inhibition, task switching.

• Working memory: Temporary storage and manipulation of information: Relies on dorsolateral PFC.

• Conflict monitoring: Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) detects errors and guides control.

PFC and consciousness:

• PFC activity often reflects reporting, self-monitoring and executive demands rather than consciousness itself.

• Dissociation between voluntary control (PFC) and awareness of errors (ACC) seen in hypnosis studies.

Perception and conscious processing:

• Sensory input is processed across cortical networks.

• Posterior cortical regions encode specific sensory content (e.g. vision touch).

• Cortical integration is necessary for full conscious experience; loss during anaesthesia, sleep, or brain injury results in unconsciousness.

Altered states of consciousness:

• Methods: Drugs, meditation, hypnosis, neurofeedback, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and rituals.

• Epilepsy: Hypersynchronous activity can evoke mystical or altered experiences.

• Psychedelic drugs: Vivid hallucinations, dream-like states; often serotonin-like pathways.

• Psychoses: Involuntary hallucinations/delusions, often distressing and disruptive.

• Out of body experiences (OBEs): stimulation of the right posterior parietal cortex can alter body-space perception.

Meditation and miindfulness:

• Mantra meditation: Silent repetition; reduces metabolism and induces “relaxation response.”

• Mindfulness mediation: Non-judgemental observation of thoughts and sensations; improves attention, reduces depression and suicidal thoughts.

Hypnosis and conversion:

• Hypnotic suggestions can modulate perception, pain and cognitive control.

• May decouple voluntary control (PFC) from error monitoring (ACC).

• Conversion disorders reflect autosuggestion; placebo effects are positive forms or suggestion.