PSY120- UCSB Midterm 2

Insight problems

Seems impossible until sudden solution appears; light bulb, "aha” moment

\
Unconscious processes contribute to solution

Non-insight problems

Analytical problem solved through gradual solutions

Differences between insight and non-insight problems

Metacognition during problem solving: participants warmth ratings grow as solution approaches for non-insight problems, but not insight problems, shows the gradualness of non-insight but suddenness for insight problems

Incubation- Poincare and Fuchsian functions

Crucial idea came to him as he was about to get onto a bus (non-euclidean geometry)idea for the laser beam dawned upon the physicist Charles Townes, while he was sitting on a park bench in Washington DC, admiring the azaleas. He suddenly realized how light could be configured into a very pure form.

Incubation- Mullis and DNA replication

Suddenly struck him while driving to his weekend cabin (idea of in vitro)

Incubation- Townes’ invention of the laser

Idea for the laser beam dawned upon him while he was sitting on a park bench in Washington DC, admiring the azaleas. He suddenly realized how light could be configured into a very pure form.

Incubation- Benefits

1) Get problem (uses for a brick)

2) Break

3) Get problem again

\
Incubation interval facilitates performance due to unconscious problem solving

Semantic priming- Subliminal Perception

How what is outside consciousness might affect our consciousness without us realizing it

\
Early priming is based on meaning and relatedness is better than knowing

Semantic priming- Unconscious Priming

Automatic priming from one object to the next

* Priming: Presentation of a priming object just before another object leads to facilitated processing of the second object if they are related..

Mere exposure

Items that are presented subliminally are liked better than one’s that have never been “seen” before

Works for

* Faces
* Turkish words
* Chinese characters

Subliminal effects>Conscious

Mere Exposure- Objective vs Subjective Threshold

Priming observed with primes below subjective threshold but not objective threshold 

* Objective Threshold draws on unconscious processes too

Objective threshold

Four alternative forced choice

Did you see: a) red b) blue c) green d) yellow

Subjective threshold

Did you see a color word?

Implicit Grammar

Participants learn sets of letter trigrams and are told some are grammatical and some are not.

Complex rule that they can never articulate underlies which ones are grammatical

Nevertheless participants learn to correctly classify new trigrams

* But cant explain why

Model for intuition

* the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.

Three Levels of Consciousness (Schooler Trends in Cognitive Science, 2001)

Non-conscious

* Information that is below the surface of awareness

Experiential conscious

* On going experience

Meta-conscious/meta-awareness

* Ones explicitly understanding of the current contents of experience

Illustrated by the Example of Mind Wandering While Reading

Non-conscious- The activation of associates of read words 

Experiential conscious- What one is mind wandering about 

Meta-conscious- The recognition that one has been mind wandering instead of reading

Schooler 2001 model

Non-conscious= Tacit monitoring (Continuous)

Conscious= Basic consciousness (Continuous)

and meta-consciousness (Intermittent)

Components of model of meta-awareness

Unconscious tacit monitoring of cognitions

* occur continuously
* Example- eye movements during reading track word frequency

Basic Conscious experience

* continues continuously through waking hours

Meta-awareness only occurs intermittently

* Noticing lapses,
* request of self-report,
* natural introspection

Disassociations of meta-awareness (Temporal)

Experience in the absence of meta-awareness

* occur when an individual, who previously lacked meta-awareness about the contents of consciousness, directs meta-awareness towards those contents

Disassociations of meta-awareness (Translational)

Meta-conscious appraisals that misrepresent the actual contents of consciousness

* Occur when, in the process or re-representing consciousness, individuals embellish, distort, or neglect aspects of their experience

Mind wandering while reading (Temporal Dissociation)

Intuitively clear that the content of mind wandering are conscious

Difficult to explain why people would continue reading if they realize that they were not attending to the text.

Self-caught vs probe caught mind wandering (Temporal Dissociation)

Self-caught

* Reported mind wandering every time they noticed it "Mind wandering with meta-awareness

Probe-caught (experience sampling)

* Mind wandering w/out meta-awareness "Periodically pinged and asked “just now were you mind wandering”

Frequency of probe-caught mind wandering predictive of reading comprehension

* Suggests mind wandering without meta-awareness is especially disruptive

Effects of alcohol (Temporal Dissociation)

Alcohol consumption

* Increased unaware mind-wandering
* Doubled the frequency of probe-caught mind wandering 
* Reduced meta-awareness
* Less self-caught mind wandering

Alcohol packs a one two punch

* Increases lapses
* Reduces awareness of them

Sources of Translation Dissociations

Non-verbalizability

* Many experiences are represented in a fundamentally non-verbalizable form which makes their translation into a verbal representation difficult

Motivation

* People may be disinclined to accurately assess their mental states
* Repressors

Analyzing reasons as a source translation dissociations of meta-awareness

Participants analyzed whether or not why they felt the way they did about jams

Analyzing disrupted their ability to appraise it

* Reduced correlation with expert judgments (Wilson & Schooler, 1991)

Analyzed or not why they felt the way they did about posters 

* Reduced post-choice satisfaction (Wilson, Lisle, Schooler, Hodges, Klaaren, & Lafleur; 1993).


* Analyzing reasons may cause people to temporarily “lose touch” with their feelings

Motivation as a source of translation dissociations

Repressors (low anxiety, high defensive (e.g. Asendorpf & Scherer, 1983; Lambie & Marcel, 2002)

* report less anxiety to stressful situations
* show increased stress response on non-self report measures
* heartbeat, facial expressions (suggest not just a presentational)

Homophobes

* Homophobes show greater arousal response to depictions of male intercourse (Adams et al. 1996)

Problem

* “How…does someone manage to feel sexually turned off when his or her body is exhibiting a strong positive arousal?” Baumeister et al (1998)

Resolution

* Arousal colors conscious experience, but meta-consciousness interprets it in a way that is not threatening.

The Self- everyday conceptions

Center of everything we are aware of

Inner agent who carries out actions

Unique personality

Source of desires

Collection of memories

Whole body

Single continuous agent who has experiences

Dualist & substance dualist theories

Consciousness and matter are two wholly different things

\
Descartes argues that there are two kinds of foundation: mental and physical. This philosophy states that the mental can exist outside of the body, and the body cannot think, different kinds of stuff

Philosophy/religion

Cartesian dualism= extended stuff (matter) and unextended stuff (thought)

Immortal soul

Reincarnating spirits

Ego theories of self (James)

Me – self as known, experienced, past tense, story 

I – self as knower, experiencer, present tense, story teller

Ego theories of self (Gazzaniga)

Interpreter 

* Left hemisphere fabricates ongoing narrative
* Right is less sophisticated and mute

Ego theories of self (Klein)

Epistemological self

* Collections of diverse neural components 
* material

Ontological self

* subjective, unified awareness, a point of view in the first person
* Immaterial
* One cannot be reduced to the other, meta-physically distinct

Bundle theories of self (Hume)

Argued that all we perceive are bundle of features like shape, color, and texture. There is nothing over and above this bundle that makes an object. We are just a bundle of sensations, thoughts, and feelings, there is no “self” or “ego” above these things.

Bundles of theories of self (Characteristics)

Denies the existence of a continuous self

So-called self is a continuously changing collection of impressions sensations etc

Self is an illusion

* Tenet of Buddhism
* the doctrine of anatta or ‘no self’

Strawson’s Pearl view

“Many mental selves exist, one at a time and one after another, like pearls on a string”

No underlying self just a series of selves one dissolving into the next that launch every time he looks

Fugue

Changed personality with amnesia for prior personality or autobiographical information

DID

Examples of individuals fluctuating between distinct personalities

Characteristics

* Each personality has different traits, memories
* Amnesia between personalities
* Differs from one personality to the next

DID evidence

* Simulators showed no memory on any test
* DID patients showed memory with fragment(Implicit) but not stem

Split brain patients

Cutting the corpus callosum allows seizures to not spread

Putting anesthesia in one hemisphere=right hemisphere knows but lacks verbal

Two hemispheres don’t always cooperate

Sperry= multiple independent selves

Parfitt and Dennett= multiple streams of consciousness

Hidden observer

Highly hypnotizable subjects appear to be amnesic for the target stimulus when required to report via normal methods, but when given the hidden observer cue their reports are akin to those they give in conditions of hypnosis without amnesia

\
Interpretation

* Pain is
* ‘diverted from the normal open consciousness, but is processed by a hidden consciousness’ (Knox et al. 1974,).  
* Hidden observer reveals
* ‘a division of consciousness into multiple, simultaneous streams of mental activity’, (Kihlstrom 1985,)

Parfitt’s Transporter Thought Experiment

Duplicated in both places

Transporter can create multiple replicas

Ego theorist interpretation of Parfitt’s experiment

Don’t go because you will end and an imposter you will take your place

Bundle theorist interpretation of Parfitt’s experiment

Go because you ”die” and are recreated anew every moment anyway 

The you on the deck will think it worked out fine, just like you do every moment

Proto-self

Neural patterns that map the state of the organism over time 

Registers basic sensations- perception, pain

Core self

Basic consciousness

* ‘a transient entity, ceaselessly re-created for each and every object with which the brain interacts’.
* Registers emotions- fear

Autobiographical self

Extends self over time relying on personal memories

Dennett’s narrative selfhood

We create a narrative story of a self

Creates a “center of narrative gravity”

* No singular location in the brain
* The dominant story that is being told in the brain at any time 

Wherever the narrative is that is what the self is

* Right hemisphere never creates a center of narrative gravity

Binding problem

Different processes in the brain occur in different locations and at different times

* Auditory faster than vision
* Color faster than motion

How does the brain combine information?

How does it bind features that are processed separately?

Visual Binding

Features migrate and recombine under cognitive load (holding 7 digits in mind

* Suggests that attention is involved in binding
* However binding also involved in unconscious object perception

Crick and Koch (binding by synchrony)

First step to understanding consciousness is learning what brain activity underpins consciousness (neural correlates of consciousness)

\
What is the difference in brain states of conscious vs unconscious processes

* Two kinds
* Location
* Thalamo-cortical loop
* Process
* Synchronization of nerves at 40hz

\

Claustrum is a critical hub (conductor) of consciousness

Engel and Singer’s temporal binding model (binding by synchrony)

Assemblies of neurons attend to different features

Each feature associated with different temporal rhythm

Gamma waves

Time illusions (phi phenomenon)

Physical

* Blue light followed by red light

Experience

* shift in color as the light moves
* Before “seeing” the second light

Order of subjective events out of sequence

Brain integrates information

* creates sensible inference

Flash Lag Illusions

When a flash and moving object are shown in the same position they appear to be displaced from each other.

* Here the flash appears to lag behind the moving ring.
* Experience is postdictive
* Happens after the fact
* the percept attributed to the time of the flash is a function of events that happen in the \~80 ms following the flash

Orwellian model of consciousness

Proposed explanation by Dennett to the phi illusion

\
Participant changes their memory in the light of the second light

Stalinesque model of consciousness

Proposed explanation by Dennett to the phi illusion

\
Show trial, with the events reconciled prior to entering consciousness

Dualism (explanation for unity of experience)

Unity of the mind occurs because the mind is not the brain

\
Eccles- mind molds neural activity into a unified whole according to its interests

\
Libet-Conscious mental field

* Mind connected by a field that does not require neural pathways
* Empirical hint
* Some evidence- transmission between brain regions occurs faster than neural signals can travel

Global Workspace Theory (Bernard Baars)

Unconscious processors compete for conscious access 

Conscious spotlight broadcast selected items to the unconscious audience

Provides global workspace for interaction between unconscious systems

40hz theory

Gamma waves that may provide bind concepts

\
Synchronization in consciousness

Temporal Binding (Singer)

Assemblies of neurons attend to different features

Each feature associated with different temporal rhythm

Integrated Information theory (Tononi)

Consciousness corresponds to integrated information

\
The amount of information generated by a complex of elements, above and beyond the information generated by its parts.

\
Fundamental, Computers, Singular, Mathematical

Zeki’s Multiple Consciousness

Micro-consciousness- consciousness of elementary attributes

* Color, Motion

Macro-consciousness- binding between attributes

Unitary consciousness- experience of the self

McGurk Effect

Seeing moving lips influences what one hears 

Phenomenon

* Hear Ba
* See Fa
* Experience Fa

Synesthesia

Stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway

Examples

* Letters have colors
* Numbers have colors
* Sounds with colors

Evidence

* Visual pop out
* Synaesthetes experience difficulty-to distinguish numbers popping out.

Wheatley Study

Participants adjusted sliders to mimic different emotions

* Both with Music and Movement

Similar patterns

* Modality doesn’t matter
* Objects and music invoked same settings
* Westerners and isolated cultures agreed

Bouba and Kiki

95% agreement

Shown with two year olds

Suggests cross modal relationships may underpin language development

Nested Observer Window

Consciousness corresponds to hierarchically organized information processing modules that are integrated through nested rhythms, lower levels faster

\
* Synchrony: formation of an observer window, the unit of information integration (refresh rate)
* Coherence: lateral transfer of information between observer windows at the same level
* Cross-frequency coupling: bottom-up and top-down information integration between nested observer windows at different levels

Global Emergentism

Consciousness only arises at the highest level of the information processing system.

Consistent with global workspace theory (e.g. Dehaene, Baars)

Intermediate Emergentism

There are a multiplicity of conscious streams consistent with Zeki (2003)

\
However, it assumes consciousness does not exist at the level of individual neurons or proteins.

Panpsychism

Assumes that consciousness potentially goes all the way down to the lowest levels of matter

Consistent with General Resonance Theory (Hunt) and Information Integration Theory (Tononi and Koch)

* Avoids the challenges of emergence
* Opportunity to equate consciousness with fundamental properties of information integration

Flicker Fusion

It is defined as the frequency at which an intermittent light stimulus appears to be completely steady to the average human observer.

Dorsal Pathway (back)

Where/how

Ventral Pathway (Front)

What

\
Damage causes blindsight

Binocular Rivalry

Perception alternates between the different images presented to the two eyes

Reversible Images

Necker cube

* Interpretation of cube flips

Vases

* Face or vase

Top-down shifting (cognitive or explanatory)

Attention, decision-making, learning

\
Experience integrates with knowledge

\
Knowledge shapes experience

\
FAVORED

Bottom-up shifting (sensory)

Sensory adaptation, inhibition between early processing areas

\
Stimulus shapes perception

\
Realism-we see the world as it is

Ambiguous stimuli

Involves both visual regions and higher-order frontoparietal and temporal regions.

Unambiguous stimuli

Localized mainly to posterior visual regions

Visual content

Change Blindness

Failure to detect a change in an object or a scene

* Top down processes interfere with noticing change in details

Inattentional Blindness

Fail to notice when an unexpected but completely visible object suddenly appears

\
Basketball and chicken dance study

Involuntary attention

Attention that is not associated with the experience of conscious control

\
Saccades- eye movements

* Sometimes directed
* Often not
* Smooth pursuit cannot be done voluntarily

Perceptual pop out

* Objects grab attention without being directed

Voluntary attention

When attention is associated with the experience of direct control

Example

* Covert attention scanning
* Looking at one place but deliberately attending to another
* Attending to multiple locations

Divided Attention

Attempting to pay attention to several different things at the same time

\
Multi-tasking (hard to do and causes 20% reduction in RT when driving and texting)

Dichotic listening

One message presented to left ear and a different message presented to right ear

Shadow one of the messages

People notice very little about the unattended message.

What is missed from the unattended channel?

* same message, different times
* changed language

What is maintained?

* physical characteristics
* tone of voice

Evidence of semantic processing

Cocktail party phenomenon

* People notice name in unattended channel

Subjects follow the meaning in the unattended channel

Demonstrate meaning is processed in unattended channel

Can mix up message from both ears

Unattended ear influences what they said they heard in attended ear

Unconscious processing

Cost of attention

Attending to some information reduces experience of other things 

* Figure ground illusions (vase vs face)

Attentional blink

* If a sequence of letters is rapidly shown there is a brief period after each correct identification during which the following letters are less likely to be seen

Half second delay in consciousness

Benjamin libet

* Low level electrical stimulation of somatosensory cortex must exceed 500 msec to be experienced
* Possible to block experiences after the fact
* Stimulated ski
* Stimulated cortex within 200-500 ms
* No sensation

Physical Pain

Sgnals pass along specialized thin, unmyelinated, neurons called C-fibres to the spinal cord

\
Then to the brain stem, thalamus, and various parts of the cortex including prefrontal cortex, Anterior Cingulate cortex, Posterior cingulate cortex

Expected Physical Pain

Thalamus

Unexpected Physical Pain

Thalamus and cortex (especially Anterior Cingulate Cortex, also activated with social pain)

Acetaminophen

Helps both Psychological and Physical Pain

* DeWall et al examined brain activation during exclusion task with or w/out Acetaminophen
* Acetaminophen reduced subjective pain
* Reduced activation in ACC
* Suggests taking Tylenol for heartbreak

Anesthesia

Global suppression of cortical functioning,

No evidence of any specific ‘consciousness circuits

Subsequent research

* Propofol may work by blocking at the level of the thalamus, or in thalamocortical reverberant loops

Phantom limb syndrome

Pain in missing limbs, treated with mirror box where patient experiences opening of phantom han

Rubber hand illusion

Botvinick & Cohen

* People experience brushing of artificial hand when their hand and rubber hands are simultaneously brushed

Illustrates that experience of limbs is a projection

* Like feeling an extension to the end of a cane

Crick and Koch

First step to understanding consciousness is learning what brain activity underpins consciousness

Electrophysiology (Brain waves)

Gamma waves (30-100Hz)

* Coordination of information across brain regions
* 40hz may provide bind concepts
* Insight solutions

Beta waves (12.5-30Hz)

* Normal waking consciousness
*  Eyes open 

Alpha waves (8-12.5Hz)

* Calm but awake
* Eyes closed
* Meditation 

Theta waves (4-7Hz)

* Deep sleep
* Some meditation

Delta waves (.5-3Hz)

* Deep dreamless sleep
* Meditative states of very experienced meditators

Triune brain

Reptilian brain

* Basal ganglia and other deep brain structures
* Mating rituals, aggression , territoriality

Paleomammalian brain

* Limbic system and cingulate cortex
* Responsible for emotions

Neomamalian brain

* Occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal lobes
* More complex thought

Thalamo-cortical system

Set of neural pathways that connect the thalamus to the cortex

Thalamus

* Relay between subcortical and cortical regions

Dynamic core hypothesis (Edelman)

* Consciousness arises from reentrant neural activity in the thalmo-cortical system

Anesthetics and sleep reduce activity in thalamus and activity between cortex and thalamus

Claustrum

Sheet of neurons beneath the inner surface of the cortex near insula 

Crick & Koch suggest it may be a critical hub (conductor) of consciousness

Controversial

* Unilateral ablation does not have major effects
* Bilateral might

Awareness versus wakefulness

Persistent vegetative state

* State of partial arousal rather than true awareness

Minimally conscious state

* Some awareness but unable to communicate reliably

Locked in syndrome

* Complete awareness but unable to move or communicate