Chapter 9 Consciousness Chapter 9 Consciousness Slide 1

Chapter 9 Consciousness Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 1

Conscious vs. Unconscious Influences We all think of ourselves as conscious entities … we imagine an “I” or “me” and that entity is a constant in our lives (or is it? ). We like to think this conscious self is in control of our behaviour or, at least, our important behaviour. At the same time, we tend to believe that some animals at least are not conscious … and we are willing to believe that we humans are, at least, partially animals. Thus, it seems reasonable to believe that some of our behaviours are unconsciously influenced, and some are consciously influenced. Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 2

Evidence for a Distinction The Use of Oppositional Tasks Early research attempting to show a distinction between conscious and unconscious influence focused on perception without awareness methodologies that are problematic Recently (like in the 90 s) researchers have begun using a logic that rests on the assumption that conscious and unconscious influences are different. If they are different, then it should be possible to find conditions where the two influences are biasing performance in different ways. > the Coke versus Pepsi example These conditions have the potential to tell us a great deal about conscious and unconscious influences, especially when contrasted with non-oppositional versions of the same task. Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 3

Consciousness as a Catch-All Within Psychology, Consciousness has many meanings, many of them relevant to psychology in different ways. Things like: - links between attention and awareness - the notion of self-awareness - consciousness as control (hypnotism) - altered states of consciousness - and more! Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 4

Selective Attention Think for a minute about all of the various stimuli you could be attending to right now. It doesn’t seem to us that all of these stimuli are being processed. Rather, it seems as though we select certain stimuli to process deeply (i. e. , think about) and the rest feel as though they are not being processed much at all. Why do we have to selectively attend to only a subset of the available stimuli? What happens to the information that we do not attend to? Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 5

Selective Attention Demonstration • • • BFALKUETRE PQIULEOETN TGIRGAESRS QBUAEKEENR TPIIGLEORT GFRLAUSTSE Chapter 9 - Consciousness Hopefully this demo shows that we are amazingly good at learning to selectively attend even when stimuli are presented almost on top of each other How do we do it? Slide 6

Why Do We Select? The most common answer to this question is that consciousness is a limited capacity, perhaps serial, mechanism. Often Psychologists will talk in terms of cognitive resources (like energy for the mind) and that being aware of things takes a lot of this resource … thus we can only be aware of one thing (at most) at a time because that is all the resources we have. This notion can be linked to our need for sleep, and to issues such as concentration … isn’t hard to concentrate (think deeply) on something when you’re tired? Thus, we select because we must. Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 7

What Happens to Information that is not Attended? Early studies of selective attention suggested that unattended information is not processed at all. > Broadbent’s dichotic listening stuff. Later studies suggest that unattended information does “get in” if it is salient enough … and that it can bias interpretations of attended information even when it is not so salient. > Name and ambiguous word stuff. The most recent work suggests that unattended information may be processed fairly deeply, then inhibited. Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 8

Linking this Back to the Oppositional Idea This limited capacity notion explains some of the effects found with oppositional tasks. The reason that “good music” will make you miss some turn you would not usually make is because you are attending to the music, and not to where you really want to go. Thus, consciousness is tied up with what it is attending to, allowing the unconscious influences to go unopposed. Steve’s baseball idea Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 9

Neuropsychological Cases Split-Brain Patients - Patients that have had their corpus-collosum surgically separated often seem to have two consciousnesses Blindsight - Patients with damage to their primary visual cortex have “scotomas”, or patches in their visual field where they are aware of nothing. Nonetheless, they are often able to make accurate judgements about stimuli presented in the scotoma Multiple Personality Disorder - Some clinical patients appear to have multiple personalities … do these reflect multiple consciousnesses? Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 10

Hypnosis Is it possible for one person to take possession of another’s consciousness via hypnosis? The evidence in favor of hypnosis as a true altered state of consciousness is very controversial. There is no doubt that people will do bizarre things when hypnotized … but do they do them because they are no longer in control of themselves, or because they are playing along? > Can they be made to perform dangerous acts? > What about immoral acts? > What are some of the tricks of stage hypnotists? > What factors underlying hypnotic susceptibility? Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 11

Sleep Although I won’t go into detail about sleep in class (there is some interesting reading in the book), I will hit on a few things. Stages of sleep … overhead BIO 12 (figure 9. 14 in text) Perhaps the most interesting question concerning sleep is; why? > it seems it is not to recharge our muscles > deprivation studies suggest that sleep does not benefit performance on simple intellectual tasks > in keeping with the resource idea though, sleep deprivation does interfere with complex intellectual tasks, and with our general ability to be attentive > What about REM sleep? Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 12

Consciousness, Self-Awareness, & Empathy One notion of consciousness is that it is a model of the world that includes a model of ourselves and others. This model may allow us to learn from events that happen to others AS IF those events had happened to us. This kind of model may also be what makes us feel empathy for others, and it may also allow us to vicariously enjoy things like movies, sports events, etc … Moreover, having such a model may also allow us to “play out” future events in our minds and use the imagined outcomes to decide on best courses of actions. How might this all relate to dreams? Hypnosis? Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 13

Self-Awareness (and therefore Consciousness? ) in various Animals - the work of Gordon Gallup Anesthetize an animal (or person). Place some kind of mark on the animal (e. g. , lipstick). When animal awakes, show it a reflection of itself in mirror. Does it seem to realize that the reflection is a reflection of itself and, as a result, reach for the lipstick on itself (not the reflection). Some animals do, and some do not … including some we think of as highly intelligent. Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 14

Consciousness Conclusions The scientific study of consciousness is recently undergoing a renaissance of sorts with many different scientists becoming involved and journals being devoted solely to such studies. Despite this work, we still have only theories concerning the function of consciousness: > It may allow us the flexibility to counter overlearned responses > It may somehow be related to our language abilities > It may reflect our internal model of the world and may underlie our ability to empathize Clearly, the road is open for more research and understanding. Chapter 9 - Consciousness Slide 15