Psychology - Chapter 7

What is Selective Attention?

Ability to select certain stimuli in the environment to process, while ignoring other distracting information in the background

What is Dichotic Listening? (Shadowing)

• Where 2 messages are presented simultaneously to an individual

• One message in each ear

What was Broadbent’s Filter Model?

• Investigation of how selection occurs and what happens to ignored info

• Selection occurs early based on sensory processing

Why can Broadbent’s model not explain the cocktail party effect?

• If you were to fully block out stimuli from one ear, then realistically no info would ever be processed.

• Ex: You tend to hear your own name even if you are deeply engaged in conversation

What is Treisman’s Attenuation Model?

• Carried out dichotic listening experiments, presented two stories to two ears

• Asked people to shadow

• Would Alternate attention by switching stories in ears

• Found that people do attend to unattended info

What level did Treisman suggest selection starts? What happens to the unattended information?

Selection starts at physical or perceptual level after it is filtered

What is the difference between Treisman and Broadbents model

Everything is blocked in one ear, nothing is processed in perceptual level

Things are attenuated and weakened and if necessary we attend to it

What is the Late Selection (Response Selection) Model by Deutsch & Deutsch?

• All information in the attended ear is processed through meaning

• Only info that is relevant to task is processed to conscious awareness

• You don’t have to be aware of message for it to be processed for meaning

• Processed at later stages

• Consistent with idea of subliminal stimuli

What is the difference with Deutsch & Deutsch’s model compared to the other ones?

• Filtering location changes

• Analysis of meaning occurs before the selection occurs

• Filtering happens after meaning analysis

What is the Multimode Model from Johnston and Heinz?

• Believed we can select what we attend to at very early stages

• We do not process the content of unattended message very much

• We have flexibility to change how we deploy our attention depending on what we are trying to accomplish

• Multitasking/selective blocking/either at early or late stages

What is Inattentional Blindness?

• No matter how much we try to attend to things, we might miss parts

• Ex: When fonts in slides change, do we notice?

• Can be bias

• Usually asking: Do I know what to attend to?

• What you’re told is what you focus on

• When looking at a whole, we sometimes cannot recall specifics like, “What was the colour of the floor?”

What is Divided Attention?

• Determine how well individuals can attend to many sources of info at once

What is working memory?

What it implies, memory that works and assesses and processes

What is distracted driving an example of?

Inattentional blindness, lack of awareness

What is the Biological Rhythm?

Occurring cycles of behaviour, helps to regulate

What is the Circadian Rhythm?

Guides daily waking and sleeping cycle in many animals

What is Seasonal Affective Disorder? (SAD)

Depression during the darker winter months than lighter summer months

How is sleep influenced by Ambient Light?

• It is calming

• Ganglion cells in retina send signals to brain area above thalamus

• Suprachiasmatic Nucleus does the circadian pacing

What is the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus?

• Brain area above the thalamus, in hypothalamus

• Acts as a Master Clock for sleep/awakeness

• Body’s primary circadian pacemaker

• Analyzes strength and duration of light stimulus

• Sends signals to pineal gland when ambient light is low

• Pineal gland then secretes melatonin

How is Melatonin Secreted?

• Suprachiasmatic Nucleus analyzes light signals/strength

• Sends signals to pineal gland

• Pineal gland secretes melatonin

• Facilitates onset of sleep

What are the two main stages of sleep?

REM

Non-REM

How many levels of brainwaves are there?

5

What are Beta waves?

• 1st stage of sleep

• Very fast waves when we are awake

What are Alpha waves?

• 2nd stage of sleep

• When we first begin to fall asleep

• Waves get longer

• Drowsiness and relaxed

What is the N1 Stage of sleep?

• 3rd stage of sleep

• Experiencing drowsiness, brain begins to produce theta waves

• Muscle tone is lost

• Awareness of environment is lost

• Some people may experience sudden jerks or twitches

What are Theta waves?

• Stage 3 and 4 of sleep

• After N1 sleep, brain produces slower theta waves

What are Sleep Spindles?

• The 4th stage of sleep

• During N2 stage

• Theta waves with bursts of rapid brain activity

• Important for memory, consolidation, and learning

What is the N2 Stage of sleep?

• Muscular activity further decreased

• Conscious awareness of environment is totally lost

• Theta waves with bursts of rapid brain activity

• Sleep spindles

• Stage 4

• The most common stage that we experience when we sleep

What is the N3 Stage of Sleep?

• 5th stage of sleep

• Slow wave sleep

• Deepest level of sleep

• Increased proportion of delta waves

• Where sleep abnormalities take place such as sleeptalking/walking, nightmares, bedwetting.

• Not as frequent as N2

• Some skeletal muscle tone remains

• Some parts of you might still remain in the N2 stage

What are Delta waves?

• 5th Stage of sleep

• Slow wave sleep

• Deepest level of sleep

• Very slow waves

What is REM sleep? (last stage)

• 6th stage of sleep

• Fast and random

What is Insomnia?

• Persistent difficulty falling or staying asleep

• Can cause impairments of functioning during the day

• Causes anxiety

How do barbiturates & benzodiazepine’s affect sleep?

• They are sedatives

• May interrupt natural sleep stages

• Likely to do more harm than good

• May promote dependence

What are some steps from the Canadian Sleep Society?

• Do not spend time in bed during the day

• Regular bedtime routine/wake schedule

• Do not eat/drink close to bedtime

• Dark, cool, comfy environment

• Avoid disturbing noises

• Consume less caffeine

• Avoid alcohol & nicotine

• Exercise

• Avoid naps

What is Apnea?

Sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing, can last 10 seconds

What is Narcolepsy?

• Disorder of extreme daytime sleepiness with frequent episodes of nodding off

• Move directly into REM after falling asleep

What is Cataplexy?

• Individual loses muscle tone

• Partial or complete collapse

• Move directly into REM

What is Somnambulism?

• Sleepwalking

• More common in childhood and those with ADHD

What are Sleep Terrors?

• Disruptive sleep disorder

• Experienced in childhood

• Loud screams or intense panic

• Cannot wake from sleep even though they are trying to

• Occurs in N3 stage of sleep

What is Bruxism?

• Person grinds their teeth during sleep

What is Restless Leg Syndrome?

• Person feels burning, itching, or uncomfy feeling in legs

• Usually when resting or asleep

• Involuntary movement

• Can be a sign of onset parkinsons disease

What is Periodic Limb Movement Disorder?

• Sudden involuntary movement of the limbs

How many hours of sleep should adults get a night?

Adults should get at least 7-9 hours of sleep per night

What are some affects of sleep deprivation?

Day 1: Difficulty focusing eyes

Day 2: Moodiness, difficulty, focusing eyes

Day 3: Irritability, memory lapses, hallucinations

Day 4: Hallucinations, recognition that they aren’t real

Day 5+: Paranoia

What is the Wish Fulfillment?

Dreaming allows us to act out the desires that we repress during the day

What is the manifest and latent content of dreams?

Manifest Content: Literal action

Latent Content: Hidden psychological meaning of the dream

What is the Activation-Synthesis Theory of Dreaming?

Dreams are the brain’s interpretation of random firing neurons in the brain stem

• Signals from brain stem sent to cortex

• Pathways to skeletal muscles from cortex are disconnected through REM

• Meaning cortex does not know how to interpret signals

• Result: Cortex strings messages together into complete stories we experience as dreams

What is Lucid Dreaming?

• Experience of being consciously aware while still being asleep.

• Pre-frontal lobes are still awake

What is a psychoactive drug?

Chemical that changes our state of consciousness, perceptions, and moods

Found in coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, alcohol, Tylenol, cold/cough meds.

Can be illegal such as sleeping pills, tranquilizers, anti-anxiety, recreational purposes

How do psychoactive drugs affect the CNS?

• Altering the function of neurotransmitters, the brain's chemical messengers

• They can mimic natural neurotransmitters

• Block their reuptake

• Or excessive release

What are agonist drugs? What are antagonist drugs?

Agonist - Acts as drug, reactivates receptors

Antagonist - Block receptors

What are stimulants?

• Substances that speed up body’s physiological and mental processes

• Ex: Caffeine

What are depressants?

Change the consciousness

Thalamus, reticular formation

What are opioids?

Chemicals that increase acitivty in opiod receptor neurons in the brain

What are hallucinogens? 

Similar to serotonin and epinephrine

Mimic these chemicals 

Alter consciousness and cause hallucinations

“psychedelics” alter sensation and perception

Side effects: Impaired judgement, HPPD - (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder)

What happens with Tolerance when it comes to drugs?

Ex: Morphine can cause high tolerance

Level of drug needed that causes you take more

What happens with dependence with drugs?

Physiological or psychological symptom that your body shows you that you are craving

Distinguish diffference by craving

What happens with withdrawals and drugs?

Negative experience after reducation of stopping drug use, including physical pain, etc

What is addiction?

User powerfully craves drug and is driven to seek it out, no matter circumstances.

What is the safety ratio?

Dose that is fatal / normal dose needed to feel effects of drug

Lower ratio drugs are more dangerous because difference between normal and lethal dose is smaller

What is caffeine?

Psychoactive stimulant that boosts alertness, mood, and focus by speeding up the central nervous system

What is nicotine?

Psychoactive stimulant and highly addictive substance that "hijacks" the brain's reward system

What is cocaine?

Addictive drug from leaves of cocoa plant

Was one of the original ingredients in Coca-Cola

What is amphetamine? 

Stimulant that increases wakefulness and focus, decreases fatigue & appetite

Used in prescription medication to treat ADD or ADHD

Can produce high tolerance, high prychological dependence

What are barbiturates?

Depressants that are commonly prescribed as sleeping pills and painkillers

What is opium?

Dried juice of unripe seed copsule of the opium poppy

Morphine

Strogner, more addicted drug derived frmoo opium

Codeine

Weaker analgesic and less addivtive member of opiate family

Heroine

Twice as addictive as morphine, severe tolerance, moderate physical dependece, severe psychological dependence, lowest safety ratio (6) of all the drugs listed

What is the state of Consciousness?

Indicates awareness of self, body sensations, environment.

What is Low Awareness?

Similar to reflex, sensory info will elicit a response even if we don’t consciously perceive it.

Who was Öhman and Soares?

Measured subtle variations in sweating participants with fear of snakes.

• Flashed pictures of different objects, but at high speed so they couldn’t actually tell what the saw.

• When snake picture flashed, they started sweating more even though they don’t know what they saw

What is Priming?

Activating certain concepts and associations from one’s memory

Ex: Priming people by having them drink warm glass, made them behave more “warmly” towards others

Williams & Bargh

What is Implicit Associations Test?

Online tool that measures subconscious associations between concepts, such as a person's automatic or unconscious biases and stereotypes

What is High Awareness?

• Effortful attention & careful decision making

• Higher awareness associated with recognizing when you’re using a stereotype, rather than fair evaluation

• Used to protect against external influences

What is Flexible Correction Model?

Explains how people correct for perceived biases in their judgments by using their own "naive theories" (beliefs) about how context or factors might unfairly sway their opinions

What is Hypnosis?

• Mental state characterized by reduced peripheral awareness

• Increased focus on singular stimulus, results in enhanced susceptibility to suggestion

What is Dissociation?

• Separation of one’s awareness from everything besides what one is centrally focused on

• Can become more extreme in hypnosis

What is Hypnotherapy?

• Modern: Uses combination of relaxation, suggestion, motivation, to create desired mental state

• Helps with acute/chronic pain

What are Trance States?

• Also dissociation of self

• Less voluntary control over behaviour/actions

• Often occur in religious ceremonies

What is APA?

• State in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the environment rather than others

• CNS is in state of readiness in response to stimuli

What is Limited Capacity?

Can only be focused on small amount of info at a time

What are the 4 types of attention?

• Sustained

• Selective

• Alternating

• Divided

What is Sustained Attention?

Ability to maintain focus on a task or stimulus over an extended period, particularly when faced with distractions

What is Spatial Attention?

How we focus on one part of the environment and how we move attention to other locations

What is Alternating Attention?

More than 2 tasks are given to participants and they are expected to switch their response based on a cue/rule given at a time

What happens with Divided attention and Multitasking? What is a task example?

• Taking diction for spoken words while reading unrelated material for comprehension

• Looking at factors of: Rate of response, Accuracy, Time, Error rate

• Testing our working memory if we are either blocking or attending

What is Sensory Deprivation?

• Intentional reduction of stimuli affecting one or more of the senses

• Has possibility of resulting changes in consciousness

What do treatments in isolation tanks help with?

• Help with medical issues

• Helps with insomnia, muscle pain, headaches

• Helps with addictions like smoking, alcoholism, and obesity

• If used too often it can lead to perception disorders such as hallucinations

What is meditation?

• Techniques individual focus on something specific (like object, word, breathing) trying to ignore external distractions

• Focus on internal state

• Achieving relaxation

• Some people use to achieve higher spiritual state

• Can also induce altered state of consciousness

• Sympathetic Division of ANS is suppressed, creating more relaxed state

Who was Cahn & Polich?

• Found that experienced meditators in meditative state had more alpha waves than theta waves

• Studies shown decline in heart rate, skin conductance, oxygen consumption, C02 elimination

What did Lutz et al show?

• Demonstrated that those who meditate regularly tend to utilize greater part of brain

• Gamma waves are faster & more powerful

Explain the study of consciousness when it comes to psychological processes/behaviours?

• People do not need consciousness when it comes to certain psychological processes or behaviours

• Just by perceiving stimulus repeatedly, makes it more positive

• Ex: hearing song on radio everyday

Mere-exposure effects?

• Little exposure does not require conscious awareness of object of an attitude

• These effects happen even when stimuli is presented for very brief durations

What are the 3 stages of creativity?

1. Attending to problem consciously

2. Unconscious incubation stage where it is put aside for a while and not thought about

3. Conscious attention happens again, creativity is verbalized.

What is Eureka experience?

It's a form of creative thinking where previously disconnected ideas link up, leading to a novel solution or understanding

What does alcohol do?

CNS depressant that alters mood, behavior, and cognition by slowing brain activity

What is automatic behaviour & empathy?

• Automated behaviour - actions or thoughts that occur spontaneously, without conscious effort or control

• Empathy - capacity to understand and share the feelings and perspectives of another person

What is BAC?

• Quantifies alcohol in the bloodstream

• Indicator of intoxication's effects on mental/physical functions

• Judgment, coordination, perception, and emotion