Study Notes on Consciousness and Metacognition
- Participants rated lower meaning in life with difficult-to-read fonts (Trent & others, 2013).
- Metacognitive difficulty affects belief in reaching life goals (Oyserman & Horowitz, 2023; Walter & others, 2020).
Shift in Psychology Focus
- Early 20th century: emphasis on observable behavior.
- Recent trend: renewed interest in studying consciousness.
Definition of Consciousness
- Two components:
- Awareness: recognition of external events and internal sensations, including self-awareness.
- Arousal: physiological engagement with experiences.
- Awareness encompasses more than sensory experiences (Adams & Browning, 2020; Baysan, 2023; Dennett, 2020).
- Subjective awareness is a complex scientific problem, debated as either a real experience or an illusion (Dennett, 2016; Frankish, 2020; Rimmer-Williams, 2024).