Topic 3b - Conscious Will Flashcards
1
Q
Triangles and Circle
A
- People see a video of triangles/circles moving around as telling a story
- We tend to personify things because we like to tell stories
2
Q
Split Brain
A
- Left half of brain does word stuff, right half does visual stuff, if the corpus collosum is you can send information to one hemisphere but not the other
- Left hemisphere will justify what the right side does even if it doesn’t know the real reason
3
Q
Electrical Stimulation of the Brain
A
- Patient is electrically made to turn their head as if looking for something, they always considered the action to be spontaneous and offered an explanation for why they turned their head
4
Q
Models of Information - Action
A
- Conscious Will is possibly not a causal experience
- We suppose that our will causes our actions because if reliably happens before we act
5
Q
Conscious Only Action
A
- Sensory Info -> Conscious Decision -> Action
- Typical “common sense” view
6
Q
Unconscious Influence Action
A
- Sensory Info -> Conscious/Unconscious Decision -> Action
- We know that our unconscious decisions have a lot more influence than one might think
7
Q
Unconscious Only Action
A
- Sensory Info -> Unconscious Decision -> Conscious Decision/Action
- Perhaps conscious decision happens after the fact as a result of our unconscious decision
8
Q
Wagner - Quadrants of Normal Experience
A
Feeling of Doing No Feeling
Acting NORMAL
Not Acting NORMAL
- Being in the non-normal sections leads to a disconnect
9
Q
TMS - Finger Response
A
- Ask participant to pick a finger, then stimulate the brain to make them move a specific finger
- Patients didn’t have any idea that their decision had been influenced
- We get the feeling of having chosen even if we didn’t, suggesting that the feeling of choosing comes after
10
Q
I-Spy Study: Wenger and Wheatley
A
- Two people control a mouse, one person has secret instructions to stop the mouse at specific points while the other just hears random words in their headset
- When the mouse stops, the participants have to rate how much of the decision to stop was theirs
- Participants rated their control higher if the experimenter stopped the cursor on something that had just been mentioned on the tape
- We overestimate how much control we have based on environmental cues
11
Q
Unconscious Math Strategies - Siegler
A
- Children are asked to solve repetitive math problems like A - B + B where every problem has the same strategy to solve
- Children were observed to start using the strategy unconsciously a number of trials before they reported using the strategy
- We often make decisions before we’re conscious of them
12
Q
Rude, Polite Primes
A
- People who have done an exercise with a series of words have to wait to hand their test into an experimenter
- People primed with “polite” words (kind, honor, discreetly) waited longer than people with “rude” words (aggressive, rude, obtrusive)
- Our personality is influenced by unconscious factors
13
Q
Alien Hand
A
- People have less control over one hand than another, report it acting independently
- Even our idea of control over our own body is our brain’s interpretation
14
Q
Mirror Box
A
- People are looking at “their” hand through a box (actually an experimenter’s hand in a mirror) and asked to draw a line
- When experimentor’s hand curves off, people try to compensate with their actual hand, but don’t report anything strange about their hand
- Our brain’s guess about what is and isn’t us is still a guess, which can be wrong
15
Q
Phantom Limb Mirror Box
A
- Phantom limb is where people report having sensation in limbs that have been lost
- Mirror box can be used to influence sensation in phantom hand
- Brain assumes that a hand should go there, so go there it does
