Psych 11 11 Guy s Flashcards Rene Descartes Body works like a machine mind nonmaterial entity does not follow laws of physics only humans have minds pineal gland seat of the soul Problems with Dualism How does the mind interact with matter Why is the functioning of the mind so intimately tied to the physical details of the brain Materialism Alternative to dualism scientific psychology assumes this form of physicalism observable phenomena are explained only by natural causes belongs to the approach called monism all things are material all phenomena are the result of material interactions mind enabled by brain processes Easy problems of consciousness How can a human discriminate among different sensory stimuli and react to them appropriately How does the brain integrate information from different sources and use this information to control behavior Thomas Nagel Metacognition includes the question of our ability inability to understand other minds consciousness has a subjective character current objective science can t give a totally physical explanation of this subjective experience of another conscious organism Hard Problem of Consciousness Q How do physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience How can a materialist stance help us explain private phenomenal experience This puzzle involves the way things feel for the subject Zombies Imaginary creatures assured to lack consciousness but otherwise identical to human beings The Zombie Problem No way that a creature has brain organized like a humans brain that functions like a human s behaves like a human but has no subjective phenomenal conscious experience EEG Electroencephalogram Allows us to observe and record patterns of electrical energy generated by the brain first widely used in the 1920s Two Types Awake Low Voltage Fast Asleep High Voltage Slow Dement Wolpert Presenting dreaming subjects with stimuli often leads them to include those stimuli in their dream reports after being awaked soon after Later Research 0 50 include external stimuli in their dreams does NOT demonstrate sleep assisted learning Studies of Sleep Assisted Learning Play a learning tape control tape to sleeping subjects test knowledge later Sailors who were played morse code learned it in 3 weeks Problem 3rd Variable tapes could awaken subjects Hypnosis A procedure which suggests changes in the subject s sensations perceptions thoughts feelings or behavior Subject tries to alter cognitive processes in accordance with the hypnotist s suggestions Hypnosis Can reduce stress anxiety and severe pain anesthetize subject s undergoing dental work surgery or childbirth eliminate unwanted habits improve study skills etc Six Points on Hypnosis 1 Hypnotic state is not sleep 2 Hypnotic responsiveness depends more on the person being hypnotized than the hypnotist 3 Hypnotized people cannot be forced to do things against their will 4 Fears performed under hypnosis can be performed by motivated people who are not hypnotized 5 Hypnosis does not increase the accuracy of memory 6 Hypnosis does not produce a re experience of events from long ago Buono Bianchi Cousins Buono murders and Bianchi tortures Bianchi asked to testify against Buono he claimed he d been hypnotized when a psychologist tried to hypnotize him he walked into a crate in the room which doesn t happen under hypnosis his testimony was used Hypermnesia An enlargement of memory performance Hypnotic Hypermnesia classic claim not very well supported hypnosis actually increases number of errors made by the person remembering Pseudo Memories Errors in the remembering of events Hypnotic Age Regression Subject is supposed to have mentally traveled backward to some earlier place and been able to recall numerous details very little hard evidence to support these claims When people are regressed to an earlier age mental and moral performance remains adult like EEG s and reflexes do not become childlike Do not reason as children do Do not show child sized IQs Michael Yapko Uses hypnosis in his practice survey discovered that more than falf of 869 members of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists believed that hypnosis can be used to recover memories from as far back as birth DEAD WRONG William James Established false memories dichotomizing memory The Innocence Project DNA evidence is used to prove the innocence of condemned prisoners confession additional problem 75 80 of those proven innocent by DNA have confessed Explaining why innocent people confess is a very hot research topic in scientific psychology Reconstructive Memory Memory is not reproductive but rather constructive what we recall is a mixture of accurate recollections and information consistent with our beliefs needs emotions and hunches Schema An organized knowledge structure assumes computer metaphor Better to think of memory as processes and not to focus on structural metaphors We acquire Schemas from past learning Experiences Operate in a top down fashion to shape our perceptions of new experiences and recall of past experiences Roedinger McDermott Showed how our tendency to construct memories based on schema can lead to the creation of false memories in the lab In many cases subjects expressed high confidence that the critical lures had been on the list False Memories can seem just as real as accurate ones false Memories Memory Illusions Herman Ebbinghaus Philosopher first to study memory experimentally even though Wundt claimed that memory could not be studied scientifically 2600 nonsense syllables recall in order result Forgetting Curve forgetting fast at first most items forgotten within an hour forgetting leveled off to about 30 Implicit Memory Duplex Memory Models Separate short and long term memories relatively recent William James approach to dichotomizing memory Primary Memory what we re currently paying attention to Secondary Memory knowledge we have but aren t focusing on at the moment Atkinson Shiffrin s Multistore Model Three memory stores Sensory registers short term store long term store George Sperling Whole report versus partial report Gazzaniga Left cerebral hemisphere houses an interpreter Capgras Syndrome Damage to frontal lobes regions of the limbie system delusional belief that their family members have all been replaced by impostors Recognize the face have no emotional connection Become convinced the relative is not who they look like No amount of evidence convinces them that they really are
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