Consciousness

Consciousness

• Awareness and person experiences of oneself and one’s surrounding

• Constantly changing

Self-consciousness

The process of thinking about oneself, that is, thinking about one’s own experiences and how one appears to others

Mirror self-recognition test

A method to assess an animal’s capacity to recognize itself in which researchers determine whether the animal looking at itself in a mirror behaves in a manner indicating its recognition of a mark made on its body

Mental time travel

The ability to project yourself backward or forward in time in your mind

Conscious “high” track

Our minds take deliberate actions we know we are doing

Examples: problem solving, naming an object, defining a word

Unconscious “low” track

Our minds perform automatic actions, often without being unaware of them

Examples: walking, acquiring phobias, processing sensory details into perceptions and memories

Parallel processing

• Processing multiple things at once

• Talking on a cell phone while driving increases the risk of a fatal car accident 4x

• Texting while driving increases risk by 23x

Sequential processing

Processing one aspect of a problem at a time, giving more attention to each part

Dualism

• Idea that the mind and body are two separate entities, with consciousness being a property of the nonphysical mind

• Brain does not produce consciousness; consciousness is product of nonphysical mind

Mysterianism

• Theoretical idea that human beings lack the mental capacity to ever figure out how brain mechanisms produce conscious experience; it will always remain a mystery

Wundt: Consciousness

• Researched consciousness in first psychology lab

• Studied flow of thoughts and feelings comprising person’s conscious experiences

Watson: Behaviorism

• Contended consciousness could not be scientific observed and measured—therefore, it should not be topic in psychology

Newell and Simon (1961): Information-processing

• Asserted that thinking processes could be understood by drawing analogies between human thinking and information processing in computers

• Proposed that computer analogy did not support study of consciousness

Necker Cube

• The Necker Cube does not change

• Dennett’s theory of consciousness would explain that your brain creates successive “drafts” of the information it receives

Evolutionary advantage of consciousness

• Decision-making: Organisms w/ consciousness act in more complex ways

• Survival: Combining information promotes survival

Origins of consciousness

• Research on lizards suggests consciousness dates back 300 million years

Integrated activity

No brain structure independently produces consciousness

Thalamo-cortical connections

Back-and-forth connections between thalamus and cortex integrates activity in multiple brain regions and facilitates consciousness

REM (rapid eye movement) sleep

Sleep stage during which there is a rapid eye movement, frequent dreams, and brain activity resembling that of waking periods

non-REM sleep

Sleep stage in which brain activity differs from that of waking states, and breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature are relatively low

Sleep lab experiment: Circadian rhythm

• Shifts in environmental cues did not affect bodily rhythms

• Body’s internal clock maintains a 24-hour cycle

Narcolepsy

Sleep disorder in which people experience sudden, extreme feelings of sleepiness during the day even with adequate sleep; sometimes accompanied by “microsleeps”

Sleep apnea

Disorder in which people suffer from brief pauses in breathing while they are asleep, causing them to wake up

Insomnia

Sleep disorder involving prolonged difficulty in falling or staying asleep

Wish fulfillment theory (Freud)

Dreams release unconscious mental energy through wish fulfillment; weak scientific evidence

Activation-synthesis theory of dreams

Dreams are brain’s attempt to make sense of random signals generated by the pons

Preparation for threat

Threats in dreams serve as mental simulation of and better preparation for threats in everyday life

Hypnosis

• An altered state of consciousness characterized by the subject’s unusual characterized by the subject’s unusual responsiveness to suggestions made by the hypnotis

Hallucinogens

• Primarily act on serotonin

• Regulation of mood, sleep, pain, emotion & appetite

• Synesthesia:

  • Transposing of sensory modes or sensory crossover; sight may cause user to perceive a sound

Alcohol

• Ethyl alcohol: active ingredient

• Important neurotransmitter: GABA

Sedative Hypnotic drugs

• Anxiolytic: Reduces anxiety

• Barbiturates: Earliest classification

• Benzodiazepines

Opioids

• Include natural (opium, heroin, morphine, codeine) and synthetic (methadone) blended drugs

  • Referred to as “narcotics”

• Endorphins: Neurotransmitters to relieve pain/tension

• Heroin: surge of euphoria; alternately wakeful and drowsy states and cloudy mental functioning

Stimulants

• Cocaine:

  • Dopamine, norepinephrine, & serotonin

  • Overdose suicide, seizures, heart problems/attacks

• Amphetamines

  • Produced in labs

  • Methamphetamine: Form of amphetamine

  • Dopamine, norepinephrine, & serotonin

Cannabis

• Mixed responses: hallucinations, depressant, stimulant

• Memory/cognitive impairments