PSYCH-101 Ch4 Notes
Psych 101 - Introduction to Psychology: Chapter 4 - States of Consciousness
The Nature of Consciousness
Defining Consciousness: A person's awareness of external events and internal sensations under a condition of arousal.
Awareness: Refers to an individual's self-awareness and thoughts about their experiences.
Arousal: Involves being engaged with the environment.
Consciousness and the Brain: Awareness and arousal are linked to distinct brain regions.
Awareness: Primarily associated with the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate (involved in acts of will).
Arousal: Regulated by the reticular activating system, which includes structures like the brain stem, medulla, and thalamus.
Theory of Mind: The understanding of one's own thoughts and the recognition that others also possess thoughts.
False Belief Research with Children: Research, such as the chocolate in blue or red cupboard task (involving a switch between ages and ), demonstrates the development of theory of mind.
Childhood Development: Relates to Piaget's theory of conservation, exemplified by the 'OJ in glasses' experiment.
Levels of Awareness
Higher-Level Consciousness: Represents controlled processes, the most alert states of human consciousness. Individuals actively focus efforts toward goals, engage in selective attention, concentrating on a focal item while ignoring others.
Executive Function: Encompasses higher-order complex cognitive processes such as thinking, planning, and problem-solving.
Pre-frontal Cortex: Crucial for executive functions.
Slower than Automatic Processes: Requires more time for thinking and attention compared to automatic processes.
Lower-Level Consciousness: Requires less attention.
Automatic Processes: States of consciousness that demand minimal attention and do not interfere significantly with other concurrent activities.
Daydreaming: An intermediate state between active consciousness and dreaming, which can foster creativity.
Altered States of Consciousness: States that are noticeably different from normal awareness, often induced by illness or drugs.
Subconscious Awareness: Mental processes occurring just below the threshold of full awareness.
Waking Subconscious Awareness: Ideas incubating below the surface of awareness can lead to sudden insight (an 'aha' moment).
Subconscious Awareness During Sleep and Dreams: Different brain areas are activated by external stimuli (e.g., tones vs. hearing one's name) during sleep, indicating low levels of awareness.
No Awareness: A state where an individual is completely unconscious, such as when knocked out or under anesthesia.
Sleep and Dreams
Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Biological Rhythms: Periodic physiological fluctuations within the body.
Circadian Rhythms: Daily behavioral and psychological rhythms, including the sleep/wake cycle, body temperature (which can exhibit a degree swing), blood pressure, and blood sugar levels.
Desynchronizing the Biological Clock: Occurs due to factors like jet lag, insomnia, and shift work.
Resetting the Biological Clock: Bright lights can enhance alertness; melatonin may offer potential benefits. There are differences in how travel affects the clock when moving eastward versus westward.
Why Do We Need Sleep?
Theories on the Need for Sleep:
Evolutionary Perspective: To protect oneself from dangers during the night.
Energy Conservation: Sleep serves as a means to conserve energy.
Restorative Function: Sleep is essential for the body and mind to restore themselves.
Brain Plasticity: Enhances synaptic connections and aids in memory consolidation.
Effects of Chronic Sleep Deprivation: The recommended sleep duration is hours per night.
Lack of sleep leads to difficulties in paying attention and problem-solving.
Many individuals experience chronic sleep deprivation.
Results in a weakened immune system response.
Stages of Wakefulness and Sleep
Stage W (Wakefulness): Characterized by beta and alpha waves.
Beta Waves: Present when awake and actively thinking.
Alpha Waves: Present when awake and relaxed.
Stage N1 (Non-REM1) Sleep: The initial phase of sleep, marked by drowsiness and head nods; associated with theta waves.
Stage N2 (Non-REM2) Sleep: The second phase where muscle activity decreases, and conscious awareness of the environment is lost; characterized by theta waves with sleep spindles (high-frequency bursts of neural firing).
Stage N3 (Non-REM3) Sleep: The deepest stage of sleep, dominated by delta waves.
Stage R (REM) Sleep: An active stage of sleep featuring rapid eye movements and vivid dreaming; shows activity in the hippocampus, which assists with memory.
Sleep Cycling Through the Night: Individuals cycle through all five stages throughout the night.
Each cycle lasts approximately minutes.
Deep sleep (N3) is more prevalent in the first half of the night.
REM sleep is more prevalent in the second half of the night.
Approximately of sleep is spent in N1 and N2, in N3, and in REM.
Sleep and the Brain: Neurotransmitter levels fluctuate, which helps trigger sleep, waking, and dreaming.
Sleep Throughout the Life Span
Exhibits clear variation across the lifespan: infants, children, teens, adults, and older adults.
Better sleep patterns are linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
of older adults report experiencing sleep difficulties.
Sleep and Disease
Sleeplessness is associated with obesity, diabetes, psychological disorders, and heart disease.
Adequate sleep supports a robust immune system response.
Sleep Disorders
Insomnia: The inability to sleep, more common in women and older adults. Good sleep habits include:
Going to bed at the same time consistently.
Sleeping in a dark, quiet place.
Using the bed only for sleeping.
Taking a hot bath before bed.
Cutting off electronics before bed (added suggestion).
Sleepwalking and Sleep Talking: Occur during the deepest stages of sleep.
Nightmares and Night Terrors:
Nightmares: Frightening dreams that often awaken the person and are remembered; more common in children but also reported by adults, especially when under stress.
Night Terrors: (Not explicitly defined beyond being distinct from nightmares, but usually involve intense fear and no memory of the event).
Narcolepsy: A sudden, overpowering urge to sleep, with individuals immediately entering REM sleep upon falling asleep.
Sleep Apnea: Brief interruptions in breathing that cause partial awakenings multiple times during the night, leading to daytime sleepiness.
Treatment: Includes weight loss, sleeping on the side, propping the head up, or using a CPAP machine.
Dreams
Cognitive Theory of Dreaming: (Mentioned as a theory, but details not provided in transcript).
Activation-Synthesis Theory: (Mentioned as a theory, but details not provided in transcript).
Psychoactive Drugs
Use of Psychoactive Drugs
Definition: Psychoactive drugs act on the nervous system to alter consciousness, modify perceptions, and change moods.
Reasons for Use: Often used to reduce tension, relieve boredom and fatigue, or escape the realities of life.
Tolerance: Continued drug use can lead to tolerance, requiring increasing amounts to achieve the same effect.
Physical Dependence: Results in unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued.
Psychological Dependence: An internal desire to re-experience the positive feelings associated with the drug.
Addiction: A state of dependence that can be triggered both physically and psychologically.
Mechanism: Most psychoactive drugs increase dopamine levels in the brain's reward pathways.
Types of Psychoactive Drugs: Depressants
Depressants: Drugs that slow down mental and physical activity.
Alcohol: Can induce feelings of relaxation, lower inhibitions, and impair judgment. Reactions vary based on individual differences, body weight, metabolism, and tolerance. Strong links to violent crimes: implicated in of homicides and of sexual violence crimes. Use among high schoolers has significantly declined since . Approximately drinkers eventually develop alcoholism.
Barbiturates: Decrease central nervous system activity; often used as sleeping pills. Extremely dangerous when combined with alcohol.
Tranquilizers: Reduce anxiety and induce relaxation; individuals are susceptible to developing tolerance.
Opioids: Include natural forms and chemical analogues; depress the central nervous system and are highly addictive. Produce feelings of euphoria and pain relief, and can increase activity for food and sexual drive. Can slow breathing to the point of death, with approximately deaths from opioid overdose daily.
Types of Psychoactive Drugs: Stimulants
Stimulants: Drugs that increase mental and physical activity.
Caffeine: The world's most widely used psychoactive drug, naturally found in plants. Affects the brain's pleasure centers.
Nicotine: A highly addictive psychoactive ingredient in tobacco products. Enhances attention and alertness. Tobacco use contributes to nearly of deaths in the USA. While overall trends are declining, the rise of vaping complicates these statistics.
Amphetamines: Known as 'uppers,' used to boost energy, stay awake, and lose weight. Crystal meth is a popular synthetic variety that damages dopamine receptors.
Cocaine: Snorting or injecting quickly floods the bloodstream, producing rapid euphoric feelings. This is followed by a significant drop-off as neurotransmitters are depleted. Crack is a particularly strong and one of the most addictive versions known.
MDMA (Ecstasy): An illegal synthetic drug that produces feelings of warmth, pleasure, and alertness. It releases serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.
Types of Psychoactive Drugs: Hallucinogens
Hallucinogens: Psychoactive drugs that modify a person's perceptual experiences and produce visual images that are not real.
Marijuana: A natural drug derived from the hemp plant; its active ingredient is THC. Causes an increased pulse rate and blood pressure. It is the most widely used illegal drug among high school students. Medicinally allowed in states and recreationally allowed in states for individuals over ; it was on the ballot in ND, SD, and FL in .
LSD: Has strong impacts, primarily affecting serotonin and some dopamine pathways.
Hypnosis
The Nature of Hypnosis
Definition: A state of altered attention and awareness.
The Four Steps in Hypnosis:
Minimize distractions.
Focus on something (e.g., a light, a ticking sound).
Tell the person what to expect.
Suggest certain events that the person knows will occur.
Individual Variations in Hypnosis: There are large differences in hypnotizability among individuals.
Explaining Hypnosis
A Divided State of Consciousness: One theory posits that one component of consciousness listens to the hypnotist, while a second acts as a 'hidden observer,' ensuring the hypnotized person does not do anything too extreme.
Social Cognitive Behavior: This theory suggests that hypnosis is a normal state where people behave as they expect a hypnotized person to behave.
Uses of Hypnosis
Applied to a wide variety of problems, though results are often unclear.
More effective when used in conjunction with other types of treatment.
Empirical support for its effectiveness is still being built.
Demonstrations often showcase its potential.
Meditation
Mindfulness Meditation: A technique practiced by yoga enthusiasts and Buddhist monks.
An -week meditation-training program has been shown to result in reduced anxiety and fewer negative emotions.
Lovingkindness Meditation: Involves developing loving acceptance of oneself and others, leading to heightened feelings of social connection, increased positive emotions, and improved coping with stress.
The Meditative State of Mind: fMRI studies show distinct brain activation differences during meditation.
Getting Started with Meditation: Key elements include finding a quiet space, focusing attention, and concentrating on breathing.
Often used by athletes prior to games.
Shares similarities with a wide variety of religious practices.