Consciousness

Blood Alcohol Content (BAC)

a measure of the percentage of alcohol found in a person’s blood. This measure is typically the standard used to determine the extent to which a person is intoxicated, as in the case of being too impaired to drive a vehicle.

Circadian Rhythm

The physiological sleep-wake cycle. It is influenced by exposure to sunlight as well as daily schedule and activity. Biologically, it includes changes in body temperature, blood pressure and blood sugar.

Consciousness

the awareness or deliberate perception of a stimulus

Cues

a stimulus that has a particular significance to the perceiver (e.g., a sight or a sound that has special relevance to the person who saw or heard it)

Depressants

a class of drugs that slow down the body’s physiological and mental processes.

Dissociation

the heightened focus on one stimulus or thought such that many other things around you are ignored; a disconnect between one’s awareness of their environment and the one object the person is focusing on

Euphoria

an intense feeling of pleasure, excitement or happiness.

Flexible Correction Model

the ability for people to correct or change their beliefs and evaluations if they believe these judgments have been biased (e.g., if someone realizes they only thought their day was great because it was sunny, they may revise their evaluation of the day to account for this “biasing” influence of the weather)

Hallucinogens

substances that, when ingested, alter a person’s perceptions, often by creating 83 States of Consciousness hallucinations that are not real or distorting their perceptions of time.

Hypnosis

the state of consciousness whereby a person is highly responsive to the suggestions of another; this state usually involves a dissociation with one’s environment and an intense focus on a single stimulus, which is usually accompanied by a sense of relaxation

Hypnotherapy

The use of hypnotic techniques such as relaxation and suggestion to help engineer desirable change such as lower pain or quitting smoking.

Implicit Associations Test (IAT)

A computer reaction time test that measures a person’s automatic associations with concepts. For instance, it could be used to measure how quickly a person makes positive or negative evaluations of members of various ethnic groups.

Jet Lag

The state of being fatigued and/or having difficulty adjusting to a new time zone after traveling a long distance (across multiple time zones).

Melatonin

A hormone associated with increased drowsiness and sleep.

Mindfulness

a state of heightened focus on the thoughts passing through one’s head, as well as a more controlled evaluation of those thoughts (e.g., do you reject or support the thoughts you’re having?)

Priming

the activation of certain thoughts or feelings that make them easier to think of and act upon

Stimulants

a class of drugs that speed up the body’s physiological and mental processes.

Trance States

a state of consciousness characterized by the experience of “out-of-body possession,” or an acute dissociation between one’s self and the current, physical environment surrounding them