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Psych 101 > Consciousness > Flashcards

Consciousness Flashcards

1
Q

What is phenomenology?

A

Study of how things seem to the conscious person

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2
Q

What is the problem of other minds?

A

the fundamental difficulty we have in perceiving the consciousness of others

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3
Q

What do philosophers call the hypothetical nonconscious person?

A

zombie
- no clear way to distinguish a conscious person from someone who is not conscious but just appears to be

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4
Q

What are the 2 dimensions of mind perception?

A

People judge minds according to
- capacity for experience
- capacity for agency
> minds have experiences and lead us to perform actions

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5
Q

What solution did behaviorism offer for the problem of other minds?

A

Eliminate consciousness from psychology entirely and follow the other sciences into total objectivity by renouncing study of anything mental.

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6
Q

What is the mind-body problem?

A

the issue of how the mind is related to the brain and body

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7
Q

What are the 4 basic properties of consciousness?

A
  1. intentionality: quality of being directed towards an object
  2. unity: resistance to division/ ability to integrate info from all of the body’s senses into one coherent whole
  3. selectivity: capacity to include some objects but not others/brain makes decisions about what info to include or exclude
  4. transience: tendency to change
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8
Q

what is dichotic listening?

A
  • a task in which people wearing headphones hear different messages in each ear
  • conscious system is most inclined to select info of special interest to listener
    eg. cocktail party phenomenon: people tune in one message even while they filter out others nearby
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9
Q

What are the different levels of consciousness?

A
  • minimal: low-level kind of sensory awareness & responsiveness that occurs when mind inputs sensations may output behavior
  • full: you know and are able to report your mental state
  • self-conscious: person’s attention is drawn to the self as an object to the exclusion of everything else
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10
Q

What are 3 disorders of consciousness?

A
  1. coma: patients don’t communicate & don’t respond to their name being called/ completely unaware
  2. vegetative state: alternate btw eyes-open and eyes-closed states/ no behavior caused in response to external stimuli
  3. minimally conscious: can respond reliably but inconsistently to sensory stimulation
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11
Q

What is locked-in syndrome?

A
  • condition where patients have full awareness but can’t demonstrate it, because unable to voluntarily move muscles
  • not a disorder of consciousness
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12
Q

What is daydreaming?

A
  • state in which a seemingly purposeless flow of thoughts comes into mind
  • brain active when it has no specific task at hand > default network
  • default network involves thoughts about social life, self & past and future
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13
Q

What is mental control?

A

the attempt to change conscious states of mind

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14
Q

What is thought suppression?

A

conscious avoidance of a thought

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15
Q

What is the rebound effect of thought suppression?

A

the tendency of a thought to return to consciousness with greater frequency following suppression

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16
Q

What is ironic processes of mental control?

A
  • mental process can produce ironic errors because monitoring for errors can itself produce them
  • ironic monitor works outside of consciousness
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17
Q

What is Freud’s dynamic unconscious?

A

an active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires and the person’s inner struggles to control these forces

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18
Q

What does Freud believe must be done about the unconscious?

A
  • force to be held in check by repression: mental process that removes unacceptable thoughts and memories from consciousness and keeps them in the unconscious
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19
Q

What are Freudian slips?

A
  • evidence of the unconscious mind in speech errors and lapses in consciousness
  • believes that errors are not random and instead have some deeper meaning created by intelligent unconscious mind
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20
Q

What is the cognitive unconscious?

A

all the mental processes that give rise to a person’s thoughts, choices, emotions, and behavior even though they are not experienced by the person

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21
Q

What are dual-process theories?

A

suggest that we have 2 different systems in our brains for processing info:
1. dedicated to fast, automatic and unconscious processing (System 1); helps efficiently navigate your daily life
2. dedicated to slow, effortful and conscious processing (System 2); uses info and inputs from S1 to help guide future behavior

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22
Q

What is an altered state of consciousness?

A
  • a form of experience that departs significantly from the normal subjective experience of the world and the mind
  • can be accompanied by changes in thinking, disturbances in sense of time, feelings of loss of control, etc.
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23
Q

What is pre-sleep consciousness called?

A

hypnagogic state

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24
Q

What’s a hypnic jerk?

A

sudden quiver or sensation of dropping

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25
Q

What is the post-sleep consciousness?

A

hypnopompic state

26
Q

What is the naturally occurring 24-hour cycle?

A

circadian rhythm

27
Q

What changes in electrical activity occur in the brain during the circadian cycle?

A
  • during waking: alternating between high frequency activity (beta waves) during alertness and lower-frequency activity (alpha waves) during relaxation
28
Q

When do the largest changes in EEG occur?

A
  • during sleep there are 5 stages
29
Q

What are the 5 sleep stages?

A

Stage 1: Theta waves
Stage 2: sleep spindles and K complexes (short bursts of activity)
Stage 3 & 4: delta waves
Stage 5: sawtooth waves

30
Q

What is the 5th stage of sleep called?

A

REM: stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements and high level of brain activity

31
Q

What is the glymphatic system?

A
  • system in the brain that eliminates potentially neurotoxic waste products and distributes necessary compounds through brain such as glucose, lipids and amino acids
  • operates mainly during sleep
32
Q

What is insomnia?

A
  • difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep
  • self induced insomnia: lifestyle choices
  • secondary insomnia: response to depression, anxiety, other conditions
  • primary insomnia: no obvious causal factors
33
Q

What’s sleep apnea?

A
  • disorder in which the person stops breathing for brief period while asleep
  • involuntary obstruction of breathing passage
34
Q

What is somnambulism/sleep walking?

A
  • occurs when a person arises and walks around while asleep
  • usually during slow wave sleep
35
Q

What is narcolepsy?

A
  • disorder in which sudden sleep attacks occur in middle of waking activities
  • intrusion of sleep into wakefulness & accompanied by unrelenting excessive sleepiness and uncontrollable sleep attacks (30 sec-30min)
  • genetic basis
36
Q

What is sleep paralysis?

A
  • the experience of waking up unable to move
  • occurs when waking from REM sleep but before you have regained motor control
37
Q

What are sleep terrors/night terrors?

A

abrupt awakenings with panic and intense emotional arousal

38
Q

What are the 5 characteristics of dream consciousness?

A
  1. We intensely feel emotion
  2. Dream thought is illogical: continuities don’t apply
  3. Sensation is fully formed and meaningful
  4. Dreaming occurs with uncritical acceptance: as if events are normal
  5. We have difficulty remembering the dream after it’s over
39
Q

What is Freud’s theory of dreams?

A
  • dreams are confusing and obscure because the dynamic unconscious creates them precisely to be confusing
  • dreams represent wishes and some of these wishes are so unacceptable that the mind can express them only in disguised form
  • mostly sexual
40
Q

What is Freud’s manifest content of a dream?

A

A dream’s apparent topic or superficial meaning is a smoke screen for its latent content > dream’s true underlying meaning

41
Q

What is the action synthesis model? (Hobson, McCarley)

A

theory that dreams are produced when the brain attempts to make sense of random neural activity that occurs during sleep

42
Q

What is the difference between Freud’s theory and activation synthesis theory?

A

Freud: dreams begin with meaning
AST: dreams begin randomly, but meaning can be added as the mind lends interpretations in process of dreaming

43
Q

What is the neurocognitive theory of dreams?

A

dreaming is enabled by the default network

44
Q

What’s the threat simulation theory of dreams?

A

purpose of dreams is to simulate threatening situations that a person is likely to experience and practice escape and avoidance from those situations

45
Q

Which brain areas are activated and which aren’t during REM sleep?

A

Activated: motor cortex, visual association areas, amygdala, brainstem
Deactivated: prefrontal cortex

46
Q

What are psychoactive drugs?

A
  • chemicals that influence consciousness or behavior by altering the brain’s chemical message system
  • agonists: increase activity of a neurotransmitter
  • antagonists: decreasing activity of a NT
47
Q

What is drug use initially motivated by?

A

positive reinforcement: increase in the likelihood of a behavior following the presentation of a reward

48
Q

What is drug use motivated by over time?

A
  • negative reinforcement: increase in likelihood of a behavior following removal of aversive state
  • over time some drugs become less rewarding
  • people continue to use drugs to reduce withdrawal symptoms
49
Q

What are 3 factors in drug use?

A
  1. Drug tolerance: tendency for larger drug doses to be required over time to achieve the same effect
  2. Physical dependence: pain, convulsions, hallucinations that accompany withdrawals from drug use
  3. Psychological dependence: strong desire to return to drug even when physical withdrawal symptoms are gone
50
Q

What are depressants?

A
  • substances that reduce the activity of the central nervous system
  • have sedative/calming effects & can arrest breathing in extremely high doses
  • can produce both physical & psychological dependence
51
Q

What are 2 theories explaining the variable effects of alcohol on people?

A
  1. expectancy theory: the idea that alcohol effects can be produced by people’s expectations of how alcohol will influence them in particular situations
  2. alcohol myopia: condition that results when alcohol hampers attention, leading people to respond in simple ways to complex situations
52
Q

What is a balanced placebo design?

A

study design in which design in which behavior is observed following the presence/ absence of an actual stimulus and also following the presence/absence of a placebo stimulus

53
Q

What are stimulants?

A
  • substances that excite the central nervous system, heightening arousal and activity levels
  • increases the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain > higher levels of activity in brain circuits
  • increased alertness and energy in the user
54
Q

What are narcotics/opiates?

A
  • highly addictive drugs derived from opium that relieve pain
  • long-term use produces both tolerance and dependence
  • mimic the brain’s own internal relaxation and well-being system
55
Q

What are hallucinogens?

A
  • drugs that alter sensation and perception and often cause visual and auditory hallucinations
  • produce profound changes in perception
  • main class of drugs that animals won’t work to self-administer
  • don’t induce significant tolerance/dependance/overdose deaths
56
Q

What is Marijuana/cannabis?

A

the leaves and buds of the hemp plant, which contains psychoactive drug called tetrahydrocannabinol
- receptors that respond to THC are normally activated by a NT called anandamide
- anandamide: involved in mood, memory & appetite regulation
- abuse & dependence linked with depression, anxiety

57
Q

What is a gateway drug?

A

drug whose use increases risk of subsequent use of more harmful drugs

58
Q

What is hypnosis?

A
  • social interaction in which hypnotist makes suggestions that lead to a change in another person’s subjective experience of the world
  • not everyone is equally susceptible to hypnosis
59
Q

What is post-hypnotic amnesia?

A
  • Failure to retrieve memories following hypnotic suggestions to forget
  • only memories lost under hypnosis can be retrieved through hypnosis
60
Q

What is hypnotic analgesia?

A
  • reduction of pain through hypnosis in people who are susceptible to hypnosis

Psych 101 (8 decks)

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