Chapter 4 - Conciousness Flashcards
(39 cards)
What is the definition of consciousness?
What are 4 other definitions that can be used to describe consciousness?
One’s moment to moment subjective experience of the world.
Sensory awareness: Knowledge fo the environment through perception of sensory stimulation.
Direct inner awareness: Knowledge of one’s own thoughts, feelings and memories without the use of sensory organs.
Personal unity: The totality of impressions, thoughts and feelings. Are you aware of something within you that others can’t see? Or are you unaware of something that others can see? Then you are unconscious of yourself. If you have a limited sense of self then it is easier to enter an altered state of consciousness.
The waking state: The mind is aware of the activities within itself, within the body, and the surroundings utilizing the five senses of sensory awareness. The mind is actively thinking and the body’s heart and breath rates are at a higher level.
What is the gateway to consciousness? Why is this?
Attention is the gateway to consciousness, because it determines how capable we are to detect changes around us, and that is what consciousness is — how you experience the world.
Are we truly conscious if we cannot detect changes that are not in the focus of attention?
What is change blindness and what is the reason behind it? What type of blindness is change blindness just a specific version of?
When change blindness occurs, is the initial image stored?
Change blindness: something changes which is not the main thing you are focusing on and so you can’t tell that it is changing.
Example: A person is giving directions and then is separated from the person they are talking to by something, and then the person they are talking to changes. If that person is very similar, then they will not notice the change. This is because their attention is on giving instructions, and so their mind is not going to notice other minor changes.
Essentially, the mind encodes only something that is important in that moment, and anything unimportant will not be focused on. And this is why only half the people noticed that something changes.
Change blindness is just a specific version of inattentional blindness, because inattentional blindness will also occur in this experiment, as the brain is only remembering the important details, and not paying attention to the rest.
The image could be stored in their mind, but they will not keep it to compare to what is seen. It just may be stored in deeper conciousness instead.
Another example of change blindness is when you are counting the basketball player passes and fail to notice the gorilla in the middle. If you are told to focus on a certain task, you will block out other things which may be very noticeable. This is inattentional blindness.
Definition of inattentional blindness…
Inattentional blindness: the failure to notice when an unexpected but completely visible object suddenly appears. This usually occurs when an individuals attention is directed elsewhere, and they are focused on that other task. SO the brain doesn’t notice the other things going on around that specific thing.
“The failure to notice something that is fully obvious right there in front of you when your attention is engaged in something or someone else.”
What is exogenous attention?
Is exogenous bottom up or top down processing?
Exogenous attention is a passive, transient automatic stimulus driven process. So this means that some salient (very different from surroundings) stimulus occurs, and it automatically diverts your attention from what you are currently looking at. So this is automatic, but this CAN BE BLOCKED OUT WHEN YOU ARE FOCUSED ON ANOTHER TASK — like the monkey in the basketball video.
This is bottom up processing, because you are not given any initial stimulus to look for, it is just very exogenous and noticeable so it draws you in when something does happen.
So its an automatic reflexive reaction to the stimulus, and it is referred to as bottom up because it is a stimulus that is “below” or “out of “ the individuals control, rather than being directed from within. It is beneath them in the surroundings, and draws their attention to the bottom where they then have to move upwards in their mind to analyze it.
Bottom up processing in general is when information is analyzed from the smallest details starting with sensory input and working upwards towards perception. This uses TRANSDUCTION = converting outer stimuli to into electrical energy to be used by the brain.
Because even thought it is technically one image coming in, the way your brain analyzes it is to break it into many different parts, and these parts then have to be combined in the interpretation centres in your brain you understand what you are seeing. YOU ARE TAKING IN BUILDING BLOCKS AND BUILDING UP!
What is endogenous attention? Is it top down or bottom up processing? Is it harder or easier then locating something using exogenous attention?
Endogenous attention is when your attention is directed based on WITHIN. You are given something to focus on and your mind then searches for that thing. So it starts with your brain seeing a whole image, and then has to break that image down into its components and compare with the components coming in, which is why it is top down processing.
This type of attention is voluntary, and would be like searching for someone. You are told who to look for and so using what you know about that thing, you can search for them in the external stimuli.
Voluntary, sustained, goal driven process. Information that aligns with an observer’s behavioural goals are internally selected for further processing.
Endogenous attention will make it harder to locate something, because you have to search to find it, knowing what you are looking for. Exogenous draws your attention, so it is very easy to spot it because it is a salient stimulus.
What causes us to view an image in two different ways? What experiment supports this?
A mental shift in attention will cause us to view images in different ways, but it is not a shift in the neurons being stimulated in the retina. It is a shift in the neurons in your brain. Because it is not a shift in the information coming in it is a shift in the information being focused on and actually processed. For the experiment of a head over a house, whether you see the house or the person will depend on which part of your brain is being stimulated. So different regions of your brain will understand stimulus differently, resulting in a different subjective experience of the environment.
What is change deafness? What will counteract change deafness? Give two examples of what will counteract this. And how can change deafness be used to detect criminals from a crime scene?
Change deafness is the inability to notice a change in some noise due to focus on another noise. If you are asked to attend to one specific stimulus, you will automatically ignore another stimulus, because your mind cannot focus on more than one at once.
It is easy to ignore one stimulus if the stimuli are very different. But if the same person is talking in each ear, it is hard to differentiate their voices and hence it will be hard to follow either voice.
However, change deafness will be counteracted if some stimulus which is relevant to the person is supplied in their other ear. This will draw exogenous attention and cause them to slow down or stop repeating the words they are attended to.
This can be used to detect criminals because if you provide words that have to do with the crime scene, they will not be able to ignore those words and will slow down what they are repeating because their attention is drawn elsewhere.
Another example is if you know one story, it is much easier to follow that story when another voice is being played, because you know what to look for.
What is selective attention? What is seen about other messages being played that the person is not attending to?
Selective attention: When you voluntarily attend to one source of information while ignoring or excluding other ongoing messages. If you focus on this one message, then it will be very hard to notice anything about other messages that are supplied, UNLESS those other messages have a very similar voice to the one they are focusing on.
Under what circumstances will the ignored information win the attention back from the individual? When will people shift their attention to the ignored message?
It is very hard to focus on multiple inputs at once, but if one input becomes more salient (voice changes from male to female, louder to quieter or vice versa, or the ignored message starts saying things that are relevant to them person (personal information) then they will automatically shift their attention back to the ignored message due to exogenous attention.
They will also shift their attention to the ignored message if it carries on the story they are following or has semantic information which is relevant to them.
What is the operational definition of the measurement of a change in input?
The operational definition that is clearly defined and can be measured is what proportion of people notice the change?
What is dichotic listening?
Dichotic listening is a research method and neuropsychological tool where different auditory signals are presented to each ear simultaneously to assess central auditory processing and hemispheric dominance for language.
Two tasks are presented to the person simultaneously, and a person tries to attend to only one of them. Endogenous attention is used to focus on just one, exogenous attention will draw them towards hearing another source which is more salient coming from the other ear.
What is the shadowed message in the shadowing task for dichotic listening? Was this reported to be easy or hard?
The shadowing task is to repeat a message out loud as soon as it is heard, while ignoring the other message coming in the other ear.
The shadowing task was reported to be very easy, because it is easy to use endogenous attention to focus on just one voice if the voices are not very similar. The subjects were not processing this shadowed message though, and so they couldn’t remember much of it.
What was the unattended message? What are two main changes in the unattended message that people could notice? What are two main changes they could NOT notice?
What were they unable to identify from the unattended message?
The unattended message was the other message that the subject was ignoring in trying to repeat the one message they were told to focus on. They will not notice slight changes in the story or brief pauses if the voice sounds the same and was initially very quiet. However, large salient changes will draw exogenous attention.
2 main changes in exogenous attention that people would notice were when human speech was changed in tone (louder or quieter), or a male voice was changed to a female voice. These are very noticeable and hence will draw exogenous attention, causing one to pause in repeating their attended message.
In general, subjects could notice changes in physical charactersistcs.
PHYSICAL CHANGES DRAW EXOGENOUS ATTENTION.
Two main changes they would not notice were:
1. The word order in the sentence was reversed, because they are not paying attention to the content of the story, and if tone and the voice are the same this is not something that would draw their attention away from what they are focusing on.
2. English was changed to another language - again not very salient.
From the unattended message, they were unable to identify the words or phrases (content) of the unattended message, because they were not focusing on that.
So overall, people failed to notice semantic characteristics.
What are some exceptions to what people failed to notice in the unattended message? Give examples…
In general people failed to notice semantic characteristics, except for:
1. People usually would hear their names (the cocktail party effect — you are having a conversation but attention will be drawn away if you hear relevant information in another conversation.
2. You hear some personal information — such as information about a crime scene — your ability to follow the attended message will slow. This will prove that you were involved.
3. When a word/phrase in the unattended message is highly relevant to the context of the attended message, then people will switch their attention to listening to the other message because they want to FOLLOW THE STORY.
Ex) Attended message: I am very excited about ordering pepperoni nine tonight.
Unattended message: Eight nine four eight nine six eight three pizza two.
They will switch to hear pizza form the attended message because they want to follow the story, and the same would be true if they had been following the other message, they would switch to hearing nine.
THE HUMAN BRAIN TRIES TO FOLLOW THE STORY AND THIS WILL OVERRIDE THEIR ENDOGENOUS ATTENTION ON A SPECIFIC VOICE.
What is active information processing and how does this relate to the unattended message exceptions?
Active information processing is when the brain looks for relevant info based on its expectation for what it wants to hear. SO it takes current context and looks for information that would continue the story. This is why for the shadowing task, you will follow whatever voice is going to complete the story.
What is the stroop test? What is the reasoning behind it? What causes a certain stimuli to be easier to report?
The stroop test is when there are two domains of information (one physical — colour — and one semantic — word). When these are combined into one stimulus, the test is to see how quickly you can ignore the semantic stimuli and report the physical stimuli — because the semantic stimuli or the word will more strongly draw your attention.
How quickly you can ignore the semantic stimuli depends on if they match. If the word written is the same colour as expected, you can quickly and easily recite that colour. But if the colour of the word is not what you are expecting based on the word itself, then your brain will compensate and say the physical quantity it expects to see. This is why it takes much longer to identify the correct colour, because there is a strong interference between the two stimuli.
YOU WILL HAVE A TENDENCY TO SAY THE WORD RATHER THAN THE COLOUR THAT YOU SEE.
If the words do not represent a colour, then there is little interference between physical stimulus and semantic, and hence it is much easier to report the physical stimulus. But if the words describe colours and the physical stimuli are colours, then you have to slow down processing to override what your brain is trying to say, and use ENDOGENOUS ATTENTION to voluntarily understand what is happening.
REASONING:
Semantic and physical are two different dimensions of processing.
If the meaning fo the word and the physical characteristics DONT overlap, then they don’t interfere and it is quick to report the physical stimulus because your brain is not expecting a certain physical stimulus.
If the meaning of the word is related to the physical characteristic of the word, then the two dimensions interfere and processing has to be slowed down and one has to use endogenous attention to report the correct physical stimulus.
Which type of information wins more attention in the stroop effect?
In this case, semantic information wins more attention over the physical characteristics because we can read the word more easily. So the processing of semantic information is automatic, and the physical info processing is less automatic in this case. This means that semantic information is more SALIENT than physical information in this case.
Therefore, when we try to selectively attend to the less salient stimulus, the more salient stimulus will interfere with it. So to process the meaning of the less salient stimulus (the physical colour) we have to use more endogenous attention in order to process the meaning.
What is the emotional stroop effect? What is causing this? What can this be used for?
Normally, if the words do not have any relation to the physical property, it is quick to process the physical property and report it. (Still not automatic though, the semantic meaning is automatic).
However, if you have an emotional or personal connection to some word, it can slow down processing time.
For example, if the meaning was someone you love or hate, something you are afraid of, etc. then you will be slower to process the physical meaning because your brain is drawn towards processing the word and relating it to the things in your mind that are important to you.
You are not supposed to process the meaning of the word because you are asked to block out the stimulus and say the colour instead. HOWEVER if you have a deep connection to the word then it is hard to not process its meaning.
This effect can also be used to detect criminals. If you put in a word that relates to the crime scene and ask the person to process the physical qualities, they will be distracted by the connection they have to that word, and hence their ability to report those colours will slow down.
So if you have an emotional connection to a word, it will intersect with your processing of the colour because your brain is automatically processing the meaning of the word.
This is called ATTENTIONAL BIAS — people would pay extra attention to some features that personally relate to them — which others would not pay attention to.
Give an example of the emotional stroop task in relation to anxiety or other mental disorders.
People with mental disorders are going to be more sensitive to words which have to do with that disorder, because it is a secret / sensitive topic that induces great emotion.
Also, if the word increases their anxiety or causes them fear, then they will automatically process it and their anxiety will peak, blinding them from the other meaning.
This is why we can test if people know something that they are pretending not to know, because they will have an involuntary attentional bias that will slow down their processing of the words they were asked to look at.
What are the two types of visual search tests? What type of attention is used for both, what type of search is used for both, and which one will result in a quicker identification of the target? How does the display size affect search time for both?
Give an example for each…
The two types of visual search types are a conjunction search and a disjunction search.
Disjunction search: Search for a simple feature, which only differs from its surroundings in one dimension, and therefore it is much easier to spot. This does not need a lot of endogenous attention, in fact it is more exogenous attention because you can quickly spot what you are told to spot since it is so salient. This uses a parallel search, because the stimulus is so different from the background, and so the overall image can be looked at at once, and the stimulus can easily be spotted.
Because the stimulus is so salient, it doesn’t matter the display size (number of distractors) because the person doesn’t have to scan the entire image, they can just look at it all in one and spot the outlier.
Ex) Trying to find a green x among red x’s, it only differs by one dimension and is very easy to spot, the background is all the same and differs from the desired thing.
It’s called disjunction because the thing you are searching for is disjoined from its surroundings, meaning it is very easy to spot since it is not similar to the surroundings.
Conjunction search: This is when you are searching for a combined feature, meaning the objects in the background and the desired object have two possible dimensions of difference, and so the desired image could share a characteristic with one background object, and share another characteristic with another background object. This means that it requires more attention to spot the desired object. Because you have to look for two dimensions. In this case, endogenous attention is required (top-down processing) because you know what to look for and you have to voluntarily search for it). Because you have to look at each object to synthesize its features into one object, the display size WILL effect the search time, because there are more distractors to search through.
This requires a serial search, which leads to a longer reaction time due to more conflicts in the stimulus.
Ex) Searching for a green x amongst red x’s and green circles, so the x shares on characteristic with part of the background and one with the other, meaning you have to filter out both to determine where it is.
What does the graph of reaction time vs display size look like for single feature search (disjunction) and two feature search (conjunction)?
With display size on the x-axis and reaction time on the hi axis, the single feature search remains constant no matter how big the display size is — this has no effect on parallel search.
However, the two feature search exponentially increases, because more distractors are present, meaning more dimensions to look through. And you are increasing area which creates exponentially more distractions to look through.
For these 4 possibilities of search, order these from largest search time to smallest search time for coming up with a response?
Disjunction and target present
Conjunction and target present
Disjunction and target absent
Conjunction and target absent.
Largest search time:
Conjunction and target absent, because you have to look through the ENTIRE image to ensure the target is not there.
Conjunction and target present, because you have to search continuously until you find the target, however you don’t necessarily have to search through the whole image like if it was absent, which is why its a shorter search time. However if the first thing you evaluate is what you were looking for, it still takes time to ensure it has both characteristic you are looking for, so would only take slightly more time then disjunction and target present/ absent would take.
Disjunction and target absent: Wouldn’t immediately spot it, have to scan the whole image in parallel to ensure its not there,
Disjunction and target present: This will draw exogenous attention and hence will be immediate reaction time, hence why its is the fastest.
What is dual processing? What types of dual processing are the easiest/ hardest and why?
Dual processing is when an individual performs two or more tasks simultaneously and therefore their attention is divided.
Some examples of dual processing are:
1. listening to music and washing dishes
2. reading and listening to music
3. driving and listening to musics
4. writing and listening to the news
5. talking on the phone and listening to the news
1 and 3 are the easiest to complete because these sensory inputs require different modes of processing. Although for driving you do still need to be able to hear your surroundings, and so listening to music can disrupt your ability to drive. Washing dishes also more passively uses the brain, which is why the processing of music is relatively easy.
2 and 4 would be much harder, because reading and writing require almost full attention of your mind, and therefore listening to music can make this quite hard.
Lastly, 5 would be almost impossible because these both require auditory processing and your mind is going to be listening to your words, making it impossible to listen for others. When you are already processing information from one person, it is very hard to take in new information and process that.
