Understanding Consciousness and Its Mechanisms

Consciousness

Awareness of internal and external experiences.

Arousal

Level of wakefulness or alertness.

Awareness

Recognition of specific experiences.

Self-Awareness

Recognition of oneself as distinct entity.

Spotlight Effect

Belief others notice us more than they do.

Selective Attention

Focusing awareness on specific stimuli.

Inattentional Blindness

Failure to notice stimuli outside focus.

Change Blindness

Failure to notice changes in visual stimuli.

Mind Wandering

Spontaneous thought unrelated to current task.

Automaticity

ability to preform a task without conscious awareness or attention

hysteria

Sigmnd Freud: physical symptoms without know physical cause

conscious

focus of current awareness

preconscious

thoughts, feelings and memories that are not in current awareness but are consciously accessible

Dynamic Unconscious

Inaccessible memories influencing thoughts and behaviors.

Cognitive Unconscious

Mental processes outside conscious awareness.

Cocktail Party Phenomenon

Noticing important information amidst distractions.

Dichotic Listening Task

Listening task with different messages in each ear.

Subliminal Perception

Processing information below conscious awareness.

Implicit Memories

Unconscious memories influencing behavior and skills.

Mere Exposure Effect

Increased liking of stimuli after repeated exposure.

Subliminal Advertising

Use of subliminal messages in marketing strategies.

Conscious Mind

Part of mind that controls behavior consciously.

Unconscious Mind

Processes information without conscious awareness.

Reticular Formation

Regulates arousal and alertness in the brain.

Thalamus

Relay station for sensory and motor signals.

Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome

Condition from thalamic lesions causing consciousness loss.

Spatial Hemi-Neglect

Loss of awareness of one side of space.

Global Workspace Hypothesis

Consciousness arises from information broadcasting in brain.

EEG Matching Task

Task comparing brain activity for perceived vs. non-perceived words.

Default Mode Network

Brain regions active during rest and mind wandering.

Visual Flanker Task

Task predicting mistakes based on attention focus.

Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc Study

Study demonstrating effects of subliminal perception.

Arousal Regulation

Adjusting alertness levels in response to stimuli.

Threshold of Conscious Awareness

Point at which stimuli become consciously perceived.

Ancestral Threats

Innate fears that capture attention quickly.

Neural Synchronization

Coordinated brain activity during conscious perception.

Locked-in syndrome

Complete paralysis of voluntary muscles but preservation of consciousness and normal cognitive abilities.

DMN connectivity

Decreased in severely brain-damaged patients (in proportion to degree of consciousness impairment) but not in locked-in patients.

Hippocampus

Plays a role in mental time travel, thinking about past events or imagining the future.

Bilateral hippocampi damage

Patients cannot vividly recall past events or envision future events.

Circadian rhythm

Body's natural 24-hour cycle that regulates various physiological processes, including the sleep-wake cycle.

Zeitgeber

External/environmental cue that helps regulate & synchronize an organism's biological rhythm ('time giver' in German).

Melatonin

Important for regulating sleep, produced by the pineal gland; secretion begins in the evening until time of awakening.

Entrainment by light

Suprachiasmatic nucleus is stimulated by light, affecting sleep-wake cycles.

Beta waves

Low-amplitude, high frequency waves indicating that the brain is actively processing information.

Alpha waves

Slower, larger waves indicating that a person is awake but relaxed.

Non-REM sleep

Divided into 4 stages in humans, characterized by increasingly large high-amplitude slow waves.

Theta waves

Present in Stage 1 and 2 of non-REM sleep, indicating lighter sleep.

Delta waves

Present in Stage 3 and 4 of non-REM sleep, indicating deep sleep.

K complexes and sleep spindles

Special waveforms seen in Stage 2 (and early parts of Stage 3) thought to play a role in suppressing incoming sensory information, as well as learning & memory.

REM sleep

back-and-forth eye movements, sympathetic nervous system activation, vivid dreams, and muscular paralysis.

Paradoxical sleep

During REM, heightened activity in brain's motor cortex but body muscles paralyzed; brainstem blocks signals from motor cortex.

REM behavior disorder

Occurs when signals from the motor cortex are not blocked, leading people to act out their dreams.

Sleep cycles

Move through stages of sleep in predictable cycles of ~90 min in length, with changing proportions of NREM and REM sleep throughout the night.

Sleep deprivation

Directly related to a decline in functioning; e.g., rats deprived of sleep begin to die ~2 weeks after initiation of total sleep deprivation.

Learning & memory

Sleep is thought to be important for memory consolidation; sleep deprivation impairs memory performance.

REM rebound

Tendency to spend more time in REM sleep if deprived of it on previous nights.

Why do we dream?

May help sort through recent experiences, consolidate memories, and solve problems.

Sigmund Freud's theory of dreams

Dreams are a form of wish fulfillment; manifest content disguises the hidden, latent content.

Activation-synthesis hypothesis

Dreams as a product of brain's attempts to organize the chaotic patterns of brain activity during sleep into a semicoherent narrative.

Psychoactive drugs

Chemicals that influence consciousness or behaviour by altering the brains' chemical signalling.

Depressants

Drugs that decrease activity levels in the nervous system.

Alcohol

A depressant that lowers levels of arousal, making people feel calm and sleepy.

Opioids

A class of depressant drugs that decrease activity levels in the nervous system.

Alcohol myopia

A narrowing of attention leading to focus on most salient information ('tunnel vision').

Stimulants

Drugs that increase activity levels in the nervous system. eg; caffeine, nicotine, cocaine

Caffeine

A stimulant that enhances mental alertness, concentration, and improved athletic performance.

Nicotine

A stimulant that increases heart rate & blood pressure and enhances alertness.

Cocaine

A stimulant that produces a rush of euphoria and energy.

Hallucinogens

Drugs that distort sensory perception and can trigger sensory experiences such as sights and sounds in the absence of any sensory input.

THC

The main active ingredient in marijuana that has hallucinogenic properties.

MDMA

A drug that has both hallucinogenic and stimulant properties.

Hypnosis

An altered state of consciousness involving focused attention & reduced peripheral awareness, characterized by enhanced response to suggestion.

Analgesia

Reduction in pain that can be produced by hypnosis.

Selective attention

A process that may represent an extreme form of attention, focusing on the what of the hypnotist's suggestion while neglecting the why.

Free will

The ability to consciously control our actions & decisions.