PYCH 1101 CHAPTER 3 THE BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS Consciousness awareness of ourselves and our environment o Assemble information from many sources and reflect on past and plan for future o States of consciousness sleeping waking and other various altered states Study of consciousness Cognitive neuroscience o Must have an evolutionary advantage o Helps us toward long term goals not just short term and avoiding pain o The interdisciplinary study of the brain s activity and mental processes Helps understand specific brain activity and conscious experience o Mapping conscious in the cortex Based on cortical activation areas can read mind to some degree Others theorize that conscious experiences arise from specific neuron circuits firing in a specific manner Others see consciousness as coordination of the whole brain Dual Processing o Perception memory thinking language and attitudes function on a deliberate high road and an unconscious automatic low road o A two track mind Visual perception track to recognize and plan future actions Visual action track guides our conscious moment to moment actions When the two rarely conflict result in hollow face illusion inverted think it s a face Neural activity proceeds consciousness When want to move something think again it before you do it Serial conscious processing solving new problems more focused Parallel processing the high road and low road concept automatic and consciousness thoughts o Selective attention Your awareness focuses on a limited aspect of experience Even though you receive stimulus at about 11 00 bits sec you can only process about 40 bits sec Cocktail party syndrome that you only hear one voice at a cocktail party Selective attention and accidents When shifting complex tasks sometimes meet a fatal delay in coping Selective inattention At a conscious awareness we are blind to all but a sliver of the information we receive Inattentional blindness the inability to see things because of intense focusing o The ball was passed 16 times Change blindness the inability to detect change when focusing your attention Change deafness inability to detect a change in sound when focusing o People told to read a difficult set of words failed to notice the Choice blindness failed to notice that something the person had chosen persons voice change was incorrect o Asked to pick which face was more attractive and then explained why they had chosen the ladder which was actually the one they had originally rejected SLEEP AND DREAMS New research in the sleep has been generated from brain waves and muscle movements o Auditory reflex still works o Process information outside the realm of consciousness Biological rhythms and sleep o Circadian rhythm A 24 hour cycle of sleep and wakefulness that is controlled by the suprachaismatic nuclei Body temperature rises in the morning peaks in the day and falls during the night Light tweaks the rhythm by activating light sensitive renal proteins Melatonin decreases in the morning and increases in the night evening Light suppresses the release from the pineal gland Artificial light has rocked our rhythm Sleep stages o Every 90 minutes pass through 5 distinct cycles of sleep o Awake but relaxed sleep Resting but awake Closed eyes Relatively slow alpha waves o Stage 1 o Stage 2 Now asleep characterized by the irregular brain waves Daydreaming or hallucinations sensory experiences without sensory stimulus Hyphnagogic hallcinations caused by this stage of sleep ex alien abductions Irregular brain waves with patches of spindles that signal rapid rhythmic brain activity Theta waves o Stage 3 and 4 Delta waves are seen large amplitude waves More during the stage 4 level Hard to awaken Sleep walking talking 4 and bed wetting o REM rapid eye movement Beta waves Occurs during energetic brain activity EEG shows rapid saw like activity Heart rate increases breathing rate is irregular eyes move in rapid irregular fashion Often causes vivid dreams After being asleep ascend up from the 4th stage Motor cortex active but the brainstem blocks its messages to stop potential Instead of going into the 1st stage of partial wakefulness REM occurs muscle movement Paradoxical sleep your body is internally aroused but externally calm o Trends Stage 4 decreases and eventually disappears REM cycles get longer as the duration of sleep increases The effects of sleep loss o Sleep o Causes obesity Increases memory increases immune function repairs brain tissue moderates hunger and obesity lessens the risk of fatal accidents Increase the hunger hormone gherlin and decreases satiety hormone leptin Stress of deprivation increase cortisol release stimulating the body to make fat o Suppresses immune cells that fight off viruses and disease o Accidents Daylight savings less accidents with gaining an hour and more with losing an Sleep theories hour o Protection o Recovery Protection from predators and darkness Restore and repairs brain tissue Large amounts of metabolic activity release damaging free radicals that neurons need to repair from o Memory o Creative thinking Restoring and rebuilding memories from today s experience Helps promote thinking and learning Can problem solve better after a night s sleep During the night the pituitary gland releases growth hormone As we age less GH is released and we sleep less o Growth Sleep Disorders o Insomnia persistent problems in going and staying asleep Alcohol and sleeping pills quick fix do not help as much because reduce REM Exercise and avoiding caffeine o Narcolepsy periodic overwhelming sleepiness Genetic link to a loss of orexin a wakeful hormone in the hypothalamus nuclei o Night terrors children awaken during the stage 4 sleep cycle and cannot awaken terrified Dreams o What we dream Dreams hallucinations of the sleeping mind Mostly negative and rarely sexual Manifest content incorporates traces of the previous days nonsexual experiences and preoccupations Sensory stimuli light and auditory stimuli can influence dream content Why we Dream o To satisfy our own wishes Freud proposed that the manifest content of our dreams is a censored version of the latent content Latent content consists of unconscious drives and wishes that would otherwise be threatening if exposed The underlying meaning of a dream Freud s theory that dreaming of certain things is linked to certain hidden emotion is false o To file away memories Information processes that files away and stores the day s experiences Same brain
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