Introduction to psychology
Chapter 4: Consciousness
4.1 What is Consciousness?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Define consciousness.
Identify varied states of consciousness.
Discuss how unconscious processes influence thought and behavior.
Explain how brain activity gives rise to consciousness.
Identify the major neurotransmitters and their primary functions.
- People can be conscious of their surroundings even when they do not appear to be.
- Conscious experiences are associated with brain activity.
Consciousness Is a Subjective Experience
- Consciousness: one’s subjective experience of the world, resulting from brain
activity.
- Every person might have a different experience of sensations.
Conscious Awareness Involves Attention
There is a limit to how many things the mind can be conscious of at the same time.
Attention: involves being able to focus selectively on some things and avoid focusing
on others.
Attention and consciousness are not the same but often go hand in hand.
Selective Attention
1958: Donald Broadbent develops a theory to explain the selective nature of attention.
Decisions about what to attend to are made early in the perceptual process, but
unattended information is still processed to some extent.
Change Blindness
- Change Blindness: a failure to notice large changes in one’s environment
, - Results from a lack of attention to the vast array of visual information.
- E.g. campus experiment, the person you talked to change into another person
and you didn’t notice.
Large discrepancies exist between what most of us believe we see and what we actually see,
thus our perceptions of the world are often inaccurate and we have little awareness of our
perceptual failures.
Laptops in the Classroom
- Laptops distract many students in classes and lectures.
- Taking notes on a laptop is much less effective than taking handwritten notes.
Unconscious Processing Influences Behavior
Freudian Slip: when an unconscious thought is suddenly expressed at an
inappropriate time or social context.
Subliminal Perception: the processing of information by sensory systems without
conscious awareness.
Subliminal messages in advertisements
- E.g. flashing words so fast that people do not consciously see
them but still are affected thirst for buying a drink
Much of human behavior happens without awareness or intention
- E.g. study of Nijmegen University – professor vs soccer hooligans.
Students performed better at trivia when subtly being presented
with information about ‘professors’ than about ‘soccer hooligans’.
Brain Activity Gives Rise to Consciousness
The Global Workspace Model
One of the many different models that have been proposed for consciousness.
Posits that consciousness arises as a function of which brain circuits are active – you
experience your brain regions’ output as conscious awareness.
Supported by studies of people with brain injuries, who are sometimes unaware of
their deficits.
No single area of the brain is responsible for general ‘awareness’. Different areas deal
with different types of information.
Chapter 4: Consciousness
4.1 What is Consciousness?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Define consciousness.
Identify varied states of consciousness.
Discuss how unconscious processes influence thought and behavior.
Explain how brain activity gives rise to consciousness.
Identify the major neurotransmitters and their primary functions.
- People can be conscious of their surroundings even when they do not appear to be.
- Conscious experiences are associated with brain activity.
Consciousness Is a Subjective Experience
- Consciousness: one’s subjective experience of the world, resulting from brain
activity.
- Every person might have a different experience of sensations.
Conscious Awareness Involves Attention
There is a limit to how many things the mind can be conscious of at the same time.
Attention: involves being able to focus selectively on some things and avoid focusing
on others.
Attention and consciousness are not the same but often go hand in hand.
Selective Attention
1958: Donald Broadbent develops a theory to explain the selective nature of attention.
Decisions about what to attend to are made early in the perceptual process, but
unattended information is still processed to some extent.
Change Blindness
- Change Blindness: a failure to notice large changes in one’s environment
, - Results from a lack of attention to the vast array of visual information.
- E.g. campus experiment, the person you talked to change into another person
and you didn’t notice.
Large discrepancies exist between what most of us believe we see and what we actually see,
thus our perceptions of the world are often inaccurate and we have little awareness of our
perceptual failures.
Laptops in the Classroom
- Laptops distract many students in classes and lectures.
- Taking notes on a laptop is much less effective than taking handwritten notes.
Unconscious Processing Influences Behavior
Freudian Slip: when an unconscious thought is suddenly expressed at an
inappropriate time or social context.
Subliminal Perception: the processing of information by sensory systems without
conscious awareness.
Subliminal messages in advertisements
- E.g. flashing words so fast that people do not consciously see
them but still are affected thirst for buying a drink
Much of human behavior happens without awareness or intention
- E.g. study of Nijmegen University – professor vs soccer hooligans.
Students performed better at trivia when subtly being presented
with information about ‘professors’ than about ‘soccer hooligans’.
Brain Activity Gives Rise to Consciousness
The Global Workspace Model
One of the many different models that have been proposed for consciousness.
Posits that consciousness arises as a function of which brain circuits are active – you
experience your brain regions’ output as conscious awareness.
Supported by studies of people with brain injuries, who are sometimes unaware of
their deficits.
No single area of the brain is responsible for general ‘awareness’. Different areas deal
with different types of information.
