Consciousness

Consciousness and Cognitive Processes

Course Information

  • Course: Cognitive Psychology (PS21820)

  • Date: 11th November 2024

  • Instructor: Dr. Ioana Mihai

  • Contact: iom7@aber.ac.uk

  • Office: Room 1.29, P5

Today's Lecture Overview

  • Topics Covered:

    • Definitions

    • Functions and roles

    • Assessment and issues

    • Brain damage

    • Theories and the brain

    • Consciousness and perception

    • Consciousness and attention

    • Preconsciousness

Understanding Consciousness

Definitions

  • Consciousness: Sense of being alert, aware of thoughts and surroundings.

    • Subjective Quality: The unique quality of individual experience.

    • Conscious Content vs. Conscious Level:

      • Content: Information including perception, feelings, thoughts, and self-awareness.

      • Level: State alterations required for conscious experience.

    • Multi-Dimensional: Includes behavioral and neural evidence.

Types of Consciousness

  • Access Consciousness: Information available for cognitive processes and communicable.

  • Phenomenal Consciousness: Raw experiential features, harder to assess yet richer in experience.

Functions and Role of Consciousness

Cognitive Functions

  • Transversal nature: Consciousness involved in many cognitive processes such as:

    • Stimuli categorization and detection

    • Information integration

    • Access to internal states/memories

    • Behavioral control

Problematic Aspects

  • Self-Consciousness vs. Primary Consciousness.

  • Qualia: The subjective quality of experiences.

  • Distinction between easy and hard problems of consciousness; it is more than the sum of experiences.

Specific Functions

  • Perception: Processing sensory information.

  • Social Communication: Enables interaction and understanding.

  • Action Control: Ability to regulate behavior based on internal states.

  • Detachment from the Present Moment.

Consciousness Assessment

Methods

  • Behavioral and Introspective Methods:

    • Verbal reports and yes/no decisions for assessing consciousness.

    • Limitations:

      • Conscious experience often richer than what is verbally reported.

      • Under-reporting and change blindness issues.

Consciousness and Brain Damage

Stages of Degraded Consciousness

  • Coma

  • Vegetative State

  • Minimally Conscious State

  • Importance of brainstem connections to cortical areas.

Theories of Consciousness

Global Workspace Theory

  • Proposed by Baars (1988), refined by Dehaene & Changeux (2011):

    • Theatre Metaphor: Consciousness as the stage for active content (cortex and thalamus involved).

Integrated Information Theory

  • Tononi (2016): Richness of conscious experience relies on integrated activation in brain networks, with specific structures.

Consciousness and Perception

Overlapping Brain Regions

  • Explores how different brain areas contribute to conscious experience and cognitive processes.

  • Techniques used to differentiate between conscious awareness and physical stimulation.

Key Phenomena

  • Blindsight: Ability to respond to stimuli without conscious awareness.

  • Subliminal Perception: Processing information without conscious awareness.

  • Backward Masking: Interrupting conscious processing.

Consciousness and Attention

Interrelationship

  • Change Blindness and Inattentional Blindness: Show the limits of conscious awareness.

  • Natural Scene Perception: Understanding gist and distinguishing visual pop-out effects.

Preconsciousness

Conceptual Understanding

  • Information that is available for processing but not currently conscious.

  • Instances include:

    • Priming: Activation of memory.

    • Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon: Retrieval failure.

    • Automatic Actions: Actions carried out subconsciously.

Conclusions on Consciousness

  • Elusive concept, critical across various cognitive functions.

  • Involves social communication, agency sense, and action control.

  • Assessment challenges with reliance on language; behavioral methods help differentiate overlap with attention and perception.

  • Current theories propose either unitary or complex understandings of consciousness.