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Consciousness

Consciousness. Two concepts of consciousness: Consciousness as general state of arousal (sleep vs. waking state) Consciousness as focus of attention/awareness (controlled vs. automatic processing) Cognitive research on consciousness of focus of attn/aware (2 nd concept).

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Consciousness

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  1. Consciousness Two concepts of consciousness: Consciousness as general state of arousal (sleep vs. waking state) Consciousness as focus of attention/awareness (controlled vs. automatic processing) Cognitive research on consciousness of focus of attn/aware (2nd concept). Unconscious priming: does occur, but with limitations (conscious processing necessary to disambiguate terms) Stem completion: again uncon influences, but within limits – con processing necessary for inhibition of primed completion (need to check 102 notes on these)

  2. Cognitive Studies of consciousness: Priming test • Word or non-word RT measure • FORK = word; DXMZ = non-word • SIGN – FORK • DXMZ – FORK • SPOON – FORK (sig reduction in rt) • Unconscious priming? -- yes

  3. Cognitive studies of consciousness: Exclusion task in priming • Coconut…palm (tree or wrist?) cons: only tree/uncon: either • Hand…palm (tree or wrist?) cons: only wrist/uncon: either • Stem completion task: complete BUT_ _ _ (could be butter or butler). What happens when one is presented earlier either consciously or unconsciously?) But can only be excluded consciously

  4. Consciousness • Research on Consciousness as general state of awareness (2nd concept) • Sleep vs. Waking state • Stages of sleep based on brain wave patterns (REM vs. NonREM) • Stem completion studies and anecdotal evidence indicates some limited awareness • Altered states: meditative and mystical/religious states – increased pain tolerance; loss of sense of self; union with ‘absolute’

  5. Sleep and Dreams: Stages of Sleep • NREM (Non-Rapid-Eye-Movement) Sleep: • Stage 1 (lightest sleep) • Stage 2 (deeper sleep) • Stages 3 and 4 (deepest sleep) • REM (Rapid-Eye-Movement) Sleep: • Light sleep (also called paradoxical sleep)

  6. Sleep and Dreams: Stages of Sleep in a Typical Night

  7. Consciousness: Evolutionary Issues • Mirror test suggests some great apes have self-awareness, but monkeys do not • To what extent do apes other than humans know what other’s know?

  8. Consciousness: Philosophical Issues • Dualism: Mind and brain are separate substances; consciousness independent of physical matter/laws. Conforms with subjective experience, but violates laws of physics • Materialism: Mind is what brain does; rejects mind as causally relevant; conforms with laws of physics, but rejects subjective experience of agency • Emergence: Mind is emergence property of brain; depends on brain, but has own causal power.

  9. Baar’s Global Workspace Theory of Consciousness • 3 important elements • 1. Unconscious experts: brain structures that carryout various mental task – perceptual pattern recognition; language processing; face recognition; implicit memory processes, etc. • 2. Global workspace: brain structure allows for wide dissemination of a particular expert’s activity (may be thalamic-cortical network) • 3. Contextual biasing structures: activated schemas; intentions; task-relevant programs, etc that bias the competition for access to global workspace.

  10. Baar’s Global Workspace

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