Consciousness for psychology

CHAPTER 5—CONSCIOUSNESS

I. Conscious and Unconscious: The Mind’s Eye, Open and Closed

A. The Mysteries of Consciousness

1. Phenomenology – how things seem to the conscious person

2. The Problem of Other Minds – the difficulty in perceiving the consciousness of others

3. The Mind/Body Problem – the issue of how the mind is related to the brain and body

a. The timing of conscious will

B. The Nature of Consciousness

1. Four Basic Properties

a. Intentionality – the quality of being directed toward an object

b. Unity – resistance to division

c. Selectivity – the capacity to include some objects but not others

i. Dichotic listening – a task in which people wearing headphones hear different messages presented to each ear

ii. Cocktail party phenomenon – a phenomenon in which people tune in one message even while they filter out others nearby

d. Transience – the tendency to change

i. Stream of consciousness

(a) Books written in this style illustrate the whirling, chaotic, and constantly changing flow of consciousness.

2. Levels of Consciousness

a. Minimal consciousness – a low-level kind of sensory awareness and responsiveness that occurs when the mind inputs sensations and may output behavior

b. Full consciousness – consciousness in which you know and are able to report your mental state

c. Self-consciousness – a distinct level of consciousness in which the person’s attention is drawn to the self as an object.

3. Conscious Contents

a. Current concerns

i. Thinking aloud

ii. Experience sampling technique

b. Mental control

i. Ironic process of mental control – proposes that ironic errors occur because the mental process that monitors errors can itself produce them

c. Thought suppression

i. Rebound effect of thought suppression – the tendency of a thought to return to consciousness with greater frequency following suppression

C. The Unconscious Mind

1. Freudian Unconscious

a. Dynamic unconscious – an active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces

b. Repression – a mental process that removes unacceptable thoughts and memories from consciousness and keeps them in the unconscious

2. A Modern View of the Cognitive Unconscious

a. a mental processes not experienced by a person but give rise to the person’s thoughts, choices, emotions, and behavior

b. Subliminal perception – when a thought or behavior is influenced by stimuli that a person cannot consciously report perceiving

i. Subliminal influence (priming)

II. Sleep and Dreaming: Good Night, Mind

A. Altered state of consciousness – a form of experience that departs significantly from the normal subjective experience of the world and the mind

B. Sleep

1. Hypnagogic state (presleep) – busy, task-oriented thoughts are replaced by wandering thoughts and images

2. Hypnic jerk – a sudden quiver or sensation of dropping

3. Hypnopompic state (postsleep) – the glimmerings of waking consciousness return in a foggy, imprecise form

4. Sleep Cycle

a. Circadian rhythm (daily)

b. Electroencephalograph (EEG; measures brain waves)

i. Beta waves (awake)

ii. Alpha waves (drowsy)

iii. Theta waves (stages 1 and 2; sleep spindles, K complexes – short bursts of activity)

iv. Delta waves (stages 3 and 4)

v. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (stage 5; paradoxical sleep; sawtooth waves)

c. Electrooculograph (EOG; measures eye movements)

5. Sleep Needs and Deprivation

a. Deprivation can wipe out learning; sleep following learning appears to be essential for memory consolidation

b. You stay up long enough, you could die

i. When rats are forced to stay awake, they have trouble regulating body temperature and lose weight, even though they eat more than normal. Body breaks down on average in 21 days.

6. Sleep Disorders

a. Insomnia – difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep

b. Sleep apnea – a disorder in which the person stops breathing for brief periods while asleep

c. Somnambulism – commonly called sleepwalking

d. Narcolepsy – a disorder in which sudden sleep attacks occur in the middle of waking

activities

e. Sleep paralysis – the experience of waking up unable to move

f. Night terrors – abrupt awakenings with panic and intense emotional arousal; they mainly occur in boys ages 3-7 during NREM sleep

C. Dreams

1. Dream Consciousness

a. Five characteristics

i. Intense emotion

ii. Illogical thought

iii. Sensation is fully formed and meaningful

iv. Uncritical acceptance

v. Difficulty remembering dream

2. Dream Theories

a. Manifest content – a dream’s apparent topic

b. Latent content – a dream’s true underlying meaning

c. Activation-synthesis model – theory that dreams are produced when the mind attempts to make sense of random neural activity that occurs in the brain during sleep

D. The Dreaming Brain

1. fMRI studies of the dreaming brain reveal activations associated with visual activity, reduction of other sensations, increased sensitivity to emotions such as fear, lessened capacities for planning, and the prevention of movement.

III. Drugs and Consciousness: Artificial Inspiration

A. Psychoactive Drugs – chemicals that influence consciousness or behavior by altering the brain’s chemical message system

B. Drug Use and Abuse

1. Drug tolerance

2. Physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms

3. Addiction

C. Types of Psychoactive Drugs

1. Depressants – substances that reduce the activity of the CNS

a. Alcohol

i. Expectancy theory – suggests that alcohol effects are produced by people’s expectations of how alcohol will influence them in particular situations

ii. Balanced placebo design – behavior is observed following the presence or absence of an actual stimulus and also following the presence or absence of a placebo stimulus

iii. Alcohol myopia – proposes that alcohol hampers attention, leading people to respond in simple ways to complex situations

b. Barbiturates, Benzodiazepines, and Toxic Inhalants

i. Barbiturates – sleep aids and anesthetics

ii. Benzodiazepines – minor tranquilizers and antianxiety drugs

iii. Toxic Inhalants – sniffing or huffing vapors of common items

2. Stimulants – substances that excite the CNS, heightening arousal and activity levels

a. MDMA (Ecstasy)

b. Cocaine

c. Amphetamines (originally diet drugs)

d. Caffeine

e. Nicotine

3. Narcotics – derived from opium (poppy seeds) to relieve pain

a. Include heroin, morphine, methadone, codeine, Demerol, and Oxycontin

b. Endogenous opioids = endorphins the brain produces; neurotransmitters closely related to opiates

4. Hallucinogens – alter sensation and perception, can cause hallucinations

a. Include LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, PCP, and ketamine

5. Marijuana – leaves and buds of the hemp plant

a. Contains THC

b. Endogenous THC = anandamide

IV. Hypnosis: Open to Suggestion

A. Hypnosis – altered state of consciousness characterized by suggestibility and the feeling that one’s actions are occurring involuntarily

B. Induction and Susceptibility

1. Not everyone equally hypnotizable

a. Some hypnotic “virtuosos” strongly influenced, most are only moderately influenced

C. Hypnotic Effects

1. Posthypnotic Amnesia – failure to retrieve memories following hypnotic suggestions to forget

2. Hypnotic analgesia – reduction of pain through hypnosis in people who are hypnotically susceptible

V. Meditation and Religious Experiences: Higher Consciousness

A. Maslow described “peak experiences” as special states of mind in which you feel fully alive and glad to be human.

B. Meditation – the practice of intentional contemplation

C. Ecstatic Religious Experiences

1. Speaking in tongues, visions, or possession