Consciousness and Attention Lecture Notes

Vocabulary flashcards covering consciousness, sleep stages, dream theories, sleep disorders, hypnosis, drugs, preconscious processing, and attention models.

Consciousness

The subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment, including all sensations, perceptions, memories, and feelings an individual is aware of at any instant.

Waking Consciousness

Normal, clear, organized, and alert state of awareness characterized by focused attention.

Altered State of Consciousness (ASC)

A state of awareness that is distinctly different from normal waking consciousness, such as hypnosis, drug-induced states, meditation, or hallucinations.

Circadian Rhythm

A $24\text{-hour}$ biological clock marked by periodic fluctuations in physiological functioning, including body temperature, blood pressure, alertness, and hormone levels.

Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)

A nucleus in the hypothalamus containing approximately $20{,}000$ neurons that receives direct input from the eyes to monitor light levels and regulate circadian rhythms.

Electroencephalograph (EEG)

A brain-wave recording machine that amplifies and records electrical activity in the brain.

Beta Waves

Small, fast brain waves associated with alertness and being awake.

Alpha Waves

Larger, slower brain waves associated with relaxation and the period immediately before falling asleep.

Delta Waves

Very large and slow brain waves associated with deep sleep and loss of consciousness.

Stage 1 (NREM-1)

A stage of light sleep characterized by small, irregular brain waves where individuals may or may not realize they were asleep.

Hypnic Jerk

A reflex muscle twitch occurring throughout the body that may happen during NREM-1 sleep.

Stage 2 (NREM-2)

A stage of deeper sleep marked by the appearance of sleep spindles, which are bursts of distinctive brain-wave activity.

Stage 3 (NREM-3)

The deepest level of normal sleep, characterized by very large, slow delta brain waves.

REM Sleep

Rapid Eye Movement sleep (also known as paradoxical sleep), a light sleep stage associated with high brain activity, dreaming, and muscle paralysis.

Sleep Paralysis

The state during REM sleep where the brainstem blocks messages from the motor cortex, keeping the body still.

Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI)

An inherited disorder leading to total inability to sleep that progresses over months and is always fatal.

Manifest Content

The remembered storyline of a dream, according to Sigmund Freud.

Latent Content

The underlying, hidden meaning of a dream, according to Sigmund Freud.

Condensation (Dream Process)

A Freudian dream process in which several people, objects, or events are combined into a single dream image.

Displacement (Dream Process)

A Freudian dream process in which emotions or actions are directed toward safe or unimportant dream images.

Symbolization (Dream Process)

A Freudian dream process involving nonliteral expressions of dream content.

Secondary Elaboration

The mental process of making a dream more logical and complete while remembering it.

Information-Processing Theory

A dream theory proposing that dreams help sort out daily events and consolidate memories.

Neural Activation Theory

A dream theory proposing that REM sleep triggers neural activity evoking random visual memories, which the sleeping brain weaves into stories.

Lucid Dreaming

A state in which a person feels fully awake within a dream and capable of conscious thought and deliberate action.

Insomnia

A sleep disturbance involving difficulty in getting to sleep, staying asleep, or waking too early; classified as chronic if lasting more than $3\text{ weeks}$.

Narcolepsy

A neurological disorder characterized by uncontrollable daytime sleep attacks, sudden entry into REM sleep, and potential cataplexy.

Cataplexy

A sudden loss of muscle strength often experienced by individuals with narcolepsy.

Sleep Apnea

A sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops during sleep, causing frequent awakenings and chronic sleep deprivation.

Night Terrors

Severe sleep disturbances occurring during Stage 3 NREM deep sleep that involve state of total panic and visual hallucinations.

Somnambulism

Sleepwalking; a sleep disturbance that occurs in Stage 3 NREM deep sleep during which an individual carries out waking actions.

Hypnosis

An altered state of consciousness characterized by intensely narrowed attention and increased openness to suggestion.

Hypnotic Susceptibility

A stable, measurable trait describing how easily a person can be hypnotized.

Concentrative Meditation

A mental exercise where attention is strictly directed to a single focal point, object, or thought.

Mindfulness Meditation

A mental exercise based on widening attention to become aware of everything experienced at any given moment.

Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST)

A therapeutic form of sensory deprivation involving a major reduction in the amount and variety of sensory stimulation.

Psychoactive Drug

A chemical substance capable of altering attention, judgment, memory, time sense, self-control, emotion, or perception.

Stimulants

A category of drugs that increases activity in the body and nervous system, including caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine.

Depressants

A category of drugs that decreases activity in the body and nervous system, including alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates.

Amphetamine Psychosis

A loss of contact with reality accompanied by paranoid delusions caused by excessive amphetamine use.

Hallucinogens

Psychoactive drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images without external sensory input, such as LSD and marijuana.

Drug Tolerance

A reduction in the body's physiological response to a drug resulting from repeated use.

Withdrawal Symptoms

Physical illness and discomfort following the cessation of drug use in a dependent individual.

Physical Dependence

Drug addiction based on the development of drug tolerance and physical withdrawal symptoms.

Psychological Dependence

Drug dependence based on emotional or psychological needs to maintain comfort and well-being.

Attention

The cognitive process of actively processing a limited amount of available information from senses, memories, and other mental processes.

Inattentional Blindness

The failure to perceive a visible object or stimulus because attention is focused elsewhere.

Change Blindness

An observer's inability to notice visible changes made to their environment.

Flicker Paradigm

An experimental procedure for testing change blindness that alternates between two photos separated by a brief blank screen.

Person Swap Paradigm

An experiment testing change blindness where an experimenter asking for directions is replaced by another individual during a brief physical interruption.

Preconscious Processing

Cognitive processing of information that lies outside immediate conscious awareness but can be brought into awareness.

Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) Phenomenon

A temporary retrieval failure where a person knows they possess specific knowledge or a word but cannot fully retrieve it.

Blindsight

A condition where a visually impaired individual responds to stimuli in a portion of their visual field without conscious perception of seeing it.

Automatic Processing

Fast, effortless cognitive processing that requires no conscious control, operates in parallel, and consumes minimal attentional resources.

Controlled Processing

Slow, effortful cognitive processing that requires conscious control, operates step-by-step (serially), and consumes attentional resources.

Stroop Task

An experimental task demonstrating cognitive interference when a highly automated task (such as reading words) competes with a less automated task (such as naming ink color).

Feature Search

A visual search process in which a target is distinguished by a single unique feature and detected rapidly in parallel.

Conjunctive Search

A visual search process in which a target is identified by a combination of two or more features, requiring serial step-by-step attention.

Treisman's Feature-Integration Theory

A theory proposing that individual visual features are processed automatically in parallel, whereas combining features requires serial attentional integration.

Illusory Conjunctions

Perceptual errors where visual features from different objects are incorrectly combined by the brain into a single object under conditions of limited attention.

Ponzo Illusion

A visual illusion in which two parallel lines of equal length appear to be of different sizes due to converging background depth cues.