PSYC 1100 Week 8 – Consciousness

Consciousness: Core Definitions & Philosophical Problems

• Consciousness – a person’s subjective experience of the world & the mind.

  • Phenomenology – study of how things seem to the conscious person.

  • Fundamental uncertainty: we cannot be 100 % certain that the subjective quality of another person’s colour, sound, or pain matches our own.

• Problem of Other Minds

  • How can we know that other entities possess consciousness and do not simply display the behavioural correlates of it?

  • Philosophical zombie thought-experiment: a creature identical to you in all observable ways yet lacking any inner experience.

  • Agency vs. Experience framework (Gray et al.)

  • High Agency / High Experience: adult humans.

  • High Experience / Low Agency: babies, many animals.

  • High Agency / Low Experience: sophisticated robots, A.I.

  • Low Agency / Low Experience: inanimate objects (chairs, trees).

• Mind–Body Problem

  • Descartes’ Dualism contrasted with modern neuroscientific monism: “mind is what the brain does.”

  • Libet-style findings: \approx 0.3\,\text{s} neural precursors precede the conscious decision to move.

Four Basic Properties of Conscious Experience

• Intentionality – consciousness is about something; selective focus within enormous sensory input.

• Unity – integration of inputs into one coherent, singular experience (no ‘split-screen’ awareness in normal waking life).

• Selectivity – ability to include some objects while excluding others.

  • Dichotic-listening tasks; Cocktail-party phenomenon (own name breaks attentional filter).

• Transience – stream of consciousness is continuously shifting (William James’ “stream”).

Levels of Consciousness & Self-Awareness

• Minimal consciousness – low-level sensory awareness & reflexive behaviour (e.g., during light sleep or groggy waking).

• Full consciousness – aware that you are having experiences; can report them.

• Self-consciousness – attention is directed toward the self as object (mirror recognition, embarrassment, introspection).

  • Rouge/Mirror test: infants (~18–24 mo.) & some animals (apes, dolphins, elephants) show self-recognition.

Disorders of Consciousness

• Coma – eyes closed; no wake cycles; no purposeful responses.

• Vegetative State – cycles of eye-opening; reflexive behaviours; no reliable signs of awareness.

• Locked-in Syndrome – conscious but almost completely paralysed; often can move eyes = not a consciousness disorder.

• Neuroimaging (fMRI, EEG) can detect covert awareness better than behavioural bedside exams.

Natural Contents of Consciousness

• Experience-Sampling / EMA – text beepers prompt real-time self-reports; reveals that consciousness is filled with current environment & spontaneous thoughts.

• Daydreaming – mind-wandering; activates the Default Mode Network (medial prefrontal, posterior cingulate, lateral parietal cortices).

• Mental Control

  • Thought suppression → rebound effect (Wegner’s white bear example).

  • Ironic processes: monitoring for errors can cause the very error (e.g., insomnia worsened by trying to sleep).

The Unconscious: Freud vs. Modern Cognitive View

• Freud’s Dynamic Unconscious – repressed memories & forbidden desires actively resisted.

  • Repression plus Freudian slips as evidence (post-hoc, unfalsifiable).

• Modern Cognitive Unconscious – a set of fast, automatic processes giving rise to thoughts & actions without awareness.

  • Dual-Process Theory

  • System 1 – fast, automatic, emotional, heuristic.

  • System 2 – slow, deliberate, logical, resource-heavy; monitors & overrides System 1 when necessary.

Sleep: An Altered State of Consciousness

• Circadian Rhythm – endogenous \approx 24\text{ h} cycle; becomes \approx 25\text{ h} absent cues (free-running).

• Hypnagogic state – pre-sleep hallucinations; hypnic jerk (motor burst, possible evolutionary ‘tree-fall’ reflex).

Five Stages of Sleep (EEG-defined)

• Stage 1 – \theta waves; light sleep.

• Stage 2 – sleep spindles & K-complexes; deeper.

• Stage 3 – \delta waves; slow-wave sleep begins.

• Stage 4 – predominately \delta; deepest NREM.

• REM – rapid eye movement; saw-tooth, high-frequency EEG resembling wake; autonomic activation; muscle atonia; vivid dreams occur in real time.

How Much Sleep & Why?

• Newborns ~16 h/day; children 11–12 h; adults 7–8 h; elderly slightly less.

• 11-day Randy Gardner case: cognitive & mood deficits, recovered after ~15 h.

• Total sleep deprivation in rats (≈21 days) fatal: weight loss despite hyperphagia, thermoregulation failure.

• Functions: memory consolidation, metabolic cleanup (glymphatic system), emotional regulation.

  • Stage 3/4 deprivation → physical symptoms (aches, immune).

  • REM deprivation → memory & aggression problems; REM rebound on recovery nights.

Major Sleep Disorders

• Insomnia – difficulty initiating/maintaining sleep.

  • Primary (idiopathic), Secondary (comorbid), Self-induced (lifestyle).

  • Paradoxical intention & ironic monitoring escalate the problem; pharmacological aids decrease REM/SWS & risk dependence.

• Sleep Apnoea – breathing cessation; daytime fatigue; often undiagnosed.

• Sleepwalking (somnambulism) – occurs in NREM-3/4; eyes open; safe but supervise.

• Narcolepsy – REM intrusions; cataplexy; genetic; stimulant meds.

• Sleep Paralysis – at REM–wake boundary; transient; may include hypnopompic hallucinations.

• Night Terrors – NREM events in children; intense autonomic arousal; no dream recall.

Dreaming

• Five defining features: emotional intensity, illogical narrative, full sensory form, uncritical acceptance, poor recall.

• Content mirrors waking concerns (continuity hypothesis) but not episodic memory; external stimuli (sounds, smells) can integrate into dream.

  • Tetris studies in amnesiacs – implicit memory traces enter dreams.

  • Trauma increases nightmares.

Theoretical Accounts

• Freud: Manifest vs. Latent content; dream-work disguises unacceptable wishes (mainly sexual). Lacks empirical support.

• Activation–Synthesis (Hobson & McCarley)

  • Pons generates random activity → cortex synthesises narrative.

  • Meaning imposed after the fact.

Neural Correlates

• REM fMRI: high amygdala (emotion), visual association (imagery), low primary visual & prefrontal (logic/planning) → bizarre emotional dreams.

• Lucid dreaming shows increased prefrontal & parietal activity, allowing meta-awareness.

• Brainstem motor inhibition prevents dream-enactment (disinhibited in REM behaviour disorder).

Psychoactive Drugs & Altered States

• Psychoactive drug – chemical that modifies neurotransmission.

  • Can be agonist (mimic or increase) or antagonist (block) relative to endogenous NTs (dopamine, serotonin, GABA, etc.).

• Tolerance – escalating dose needed due to homeostatic neuroadaptations.

• Physical vs. Psychological dependence; withdrawal symptoms often opposite to drug’s acute effects.

Major Classes

• Depressants (CNS activity ↓)

  • Alcohol ↑ GABAergic inhibition → sedation, disinhibition.

  • Expectancy theory: effects partly constructed by social beliefs.

  • Alcohol myopia: narrowed attention produces simplistic responses to complex cues (e.g., aggression, risky sex).

• Stimulants (CNS activity ↑)

  • Cocaine, amphetamines, MDMA elevate dopamine & norepinephrine → euphoria, confidence, energy; withdrawal = dysphoria, fatigue.

• Narcotics / Opiates

  • Morphine, heroin bind \mu-opioid receptors like endogenous endorphins; analgesia, euphoria, respiratory depression at overdose.

• Hallucinogens

  • LSD, PCP, ketamine distort perception; serotonin/glutamate mechanisms; low addictive potential, but unpredictable ‘bad trips.’

Hypnosis

• Definition: social interaction in which hypnotist’s suggestions alter participant’s perception, memory, or voluntary action.

• Susceptibility: stable trait (≈10–15 % highly hypnotisable) not predicted well by personality; correlates with absorption & imagination.

• Phenomena

  • Post-hypnotic amnesia – suggested forgetting; only for information learned under hypnosis; not reliable for factual memory retrieval.

  • Hypnotic analgesia – reduced pain perception > comparable to morphine in some surgical/dental procedures for high susceptibles.

• Ethical/legal relevance: false-memory implantation, witness testimony contamination, informed consent in hypno-anaesthesia.

Integrative Connections & Real-World Relevance

• Agency/Experience model informs debates on moral standing of A.I., animals, & end-of-life patients.

• Ironic monitoring loops visible in insomnia, anxiety disorders → drives CBT techniques (paradoxical intention, mindfulness switch to non-judgemental awareness).

• Dual-process evidence relevant to advertising (System 1 persuasion), public-policy ‘nudges,’ & implicit-bias training.

• Sleep hygiene & public-health: chronic sleep debt correlated with \uparrow obesity, mood disorders, traffic accidents.

• Opioid crisis: understanding tolerance & physical dependence vital for harm-reduction policies.

• Hypnosis as adjuvant for chronic pain management offers non-pharmacological alternative amid opioid concerns.