Psychology Chapter 7 State of Consciousness

Consciousness

Being active and awake

Selective Attention

• Cocktail Party Effect

• Ability to focus on specific stimuli while ignoring others 

• Allows us to tune out unimportant details and focus on what really matters 

Cocktail party effect: Focus on a particular stimulus, while filtering out background noise

Inattentional Blindness

Failure to see something unexpected when our attention is focused on something else

Change Blindness

Fail to notice changes in our environment, even if those changes are surprisingly large

NREM-1

• Hypnagogic sensations

• Period of light sleep that lasts a few minutes

• Slowed heart beat and decreased heart rate 

• Easy to wake 

  • Hypnagogic: sudden muscle jerks or falling sensations

NREM- 2

• Light sleep that lasts a few minutes 

• Half a sleep cycle spent here 

• Short, rapid brain waves 

  • K complexes or sleep spindles

NREM-3

• Deep sleep 

  • 30- 40 minutes

• Low levels of breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate 

• When sleep walking and night terrors occur 

• Delta waves

REM

• Rapid eye movement 

• Blood pressure and heart rate increase 

• Most dreams occur here 

• Similar to beta waves 

• “Paradoxial sleep”

Insomnia

The chronic inability to fall asleep or stay asleep

Sleep Apnea

Is when a sleeper suffers from momentary cessations of breathing that last about ten seconds until the person briefly wakes up, begins breathing, and falls back asleep

• Snoring, unaware of why they are tired the following day

Narcolepsy

A rare disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and chronic sleep attacks (intermittent, uncontrollable episodes of falling asleep during the daytime)

• may fall asleep at any time, in any place, and often at inappropriate times

Sleep Walking

• Often happens early in the night and when the person is in deep sleep

• Walks while asleep and person does not remember

Night Terrors

Abruptly awaken while experiencing increased physiological responses (faster heart rate and rapid breathing) that is terrifying to them

• Happens early in the night during deep sleep (NREM)

• Is difficult to awaken

• They have no memory of what happened

Freud’s Wish-Fulfillment Theory

• Latent vs. Manifest content

Dreaming about something one doesn't pay attention to while awake. 

• Latent: Meaning behind dreams; hidden

• Manifest: What you remember about a dream

Information-Processing Theory

Reflects what the brain is doing (sorting/consolidating info)

Activation-Synthesis Model

The brain tries to analyze an outside factor, that may not have occurred. Thus, leading to dreams.

Hypnosis

A state of heightened suggestibility

Hypnotizability

• the degree to which an individual is responsive to hypnotic suggestions

• this varies among individuals, but those who are more daydream or fantasy-prone may have higher levels of suggestibility (i.e. children more than adults)

Posthypnotic suggestion

the idea that statements made by a hypnotist, while a person is hypnotized, will be able to influence an individual's behavior later

Posthypnotic amnesia

the phenomenon of individuals not being able to remember what transpired while they were hypnotized

Hallucinogens

• Drugs that cause people to hallucinate or see things in an altered version 

• Can heighten senses, and alter what is fake and what is real 

• Can sometimes calm people down or give them energy

Stimulants

• Stimulates CNS

• Increases heartbeat, breathing rate, and blood pressure 

• People are more energetic and aware

Opiates

• Decreases pain, reduces CNS

• Decreases blood pressure and heart rate

Depressants

• Controls our CNS, and calms it down. 

• Decrease arousal and stimulation levels 

• Decreased heartbeat, breathing rate, and blood pressure