Psych notes chapter 3 Consciousness and the Two Track Mind Brain States and Consciousness In psychology consciousness is a fundamental yet slippery concept Defining consciousness It was hard for scientist to scientifically study consciousness so they instead turned to observing behavior its like a cars speedometer it doesn t make it go but it reflects what s happening then psychologist started studying conciseness altered by hypnosis brain activity related to sleep dreaming There was a new importance on cognition or mental processes Now Consciousness is the awareness of ourselves and our environment Which allows us to assemble information form many sources and reflect on our past and plan for the future Overtime we go between various states of consciousness such as sleeping walking The biology of consciousness Cognitive neuroscience the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition including perception thinking memory and language o Ex a 23 year old was in a car accident and showing no signs of physical consciousness but when researchers asked her to imagine herself playing tennis they saw using an FMRI scan that there was brain activity in the part that normally controls arm and leg movement Showing that even in a motionless body the brain van still be active o Neuroscientists look at the cortex a lot in order as a way of mapping and exploring our conscious functions Dual Processing the principle that the information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks ex when we see a bird flying we are aware of our cognitive processing it s a hummingbird But we are not aware of our sub processing of the birds color movement form Blindsight a condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimuli without consciously experiencing it ex someone couldn t see after carbon monoxide damage When asked to put a postcard in a mail box she could do it without error but she could not report the width of the block in front of her This would also occur if you experienced temporary blindness Visual perception track enables us to think about the world to recognize things and plan for the future Visual action track guides out moment to moment movements A patient lost his left visual cortex leaving him blind to objects presented on his right side He was able to sense the emotion expressed in faces even when they were outside his visual sight field The hollow face illusion when you perceive the inside of a mask as a protruding face Selective Attention Selective Attention the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus The cocktail party your ability to attend to one voice among many But when someone calls your name your cognitive radar on your other track will instantly bring that voice into consciousness When you talk on the phone listen to music or attend to the GPS while driving your selective attention will shift back and forth between the road and the electronics When completing an action that requires concentration you blink less ex reading driving we pay a toll for switching attentional gears because there is a slight delay in coping ex 28 of traffic accidents happen when people are on the phone or texting FMRI scans have shown that multitasking distracts the brains resources allocated to driving They show that the brain activity necessary for driving decreases 37 percent when attending to a conversation Inattentional blindness failing to see visible obstacles when our attention is focused elsewhere EX when telling people to watch a video and focus on one task such as how many times was the basketball passed Most people failed to notice the clearly visibale gorilla that passed in the middle magicians also manipulate out selective attention Change Blindness Failing to notice changes in the environment Magicians also exploit this when they sneakily get us to focus our attention on the dramtic action of their left therefore we fail to notice the action of their other hand Another form of inatenttion is choice blindness People at a supermarket where asked to taste two jams and then choose their preferred flavor Then they were asked to retaste their preferred one and explain why they chose it Most people didn t notice they were actually retasting the non prefered jam Sleep and Dreams Even when you sleep your perceptual window is open a little Ex you move around in your bed but you manage not to fall out EEG records show that the brains auditory cortex responds to sound stimuli even when you are asleep Biological Rhythms and Sleep we have a biological rythms our 24 hour biological clock and our 90 min sleep cycle Circadian rhythm biological clock regual bodily rhythms that occur on a 24 hour cycle Ex temputure and wakefulness in the morning body temp rises then peaks during the day and dips at night Age can also effect the circadian rhythm Most 20 year olds are evening energized with performance increasing throughout the day Most adults are morning lovers with performance lowering as the day goes on Sleep stages the sleeping brain has its own bilological rhythm About every 90 mins We cycle through four distinct sleep stages REM sleep rapid eye movement sleep Reoccurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur Also known as paradoxical sleep because muscles are relaxed but other body systems are more active Alpha waves the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed awake state Hillucinations false sensory experiences such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulis usally occurs during NREM 1 You then relax more deeply and begin about 20 mins of NERM 2 sleep with its periodic sleep spindles burst of rapid rhythmic brain wave activity But you can still be woken up with out to much difficulty Then you transition into a deep sleep of NREM 3 During this slow waves sleep which last about 30 mins your brain emits delta waves large slow brain waves associated with deep sleep It is harder to be woken up and it is at the end of this stage that a child might wet his bed REM sleep for about 10 mins every night our brain waves become more rapid and sawtoothed During REM sleep our heart rate raises and breathing becomes rapid and irregular and about every half miniute our eyes dart around in momentarily burst of activity behind closed lids This eye movement marks the begging of dreams You often become aroused during this period Your motor cortex is active at this time but your brain stem blocks messages so