W Of M Exam Flashcards
(22 cards)
Understand the relationship between correlation and causation.
Correlation does not equal causality
Firefighters and Fire Damage
•More firefighters correlate with more damage
•Actual cause: Larger fires require more firefighters
Understand the dissociation between (conscious) visual perception and motor control.
It means your brain can use visual information to guide your movements without you being consciously aware
located in the parietal lobe and is responsible for spacial awareness
“Zombie stream”- unconscious and fast
Allows quick movement in response to stimuli
No consciousness awareness associated with processing
Describe the location and functions of the two visual systems.
Dorsal stream
located in the temporal lobe
Enables conscious visual perception
Slower processing
Helps identify objects
Connects perceptual information
Ventral stream
Define a motivational trade-off and consider its relevance for consciousness
When an animal has to trade-off means choosing between two things based on what you want more in the moment
Nervous system
Pain perception
Pleasure experience
Learning and memory
Social interaction
Environmental awareness
Emotion responses
self-awareness
the 8 criteria used to establish consciousness
Compare and contrast the Cartesian Theater and the Multiple Drafts theories of the
mind.
The cartesian theater matches how we experience life as a viewer while the multiple drafts model is more scientifically plausible but challenges our idea of a unified “self”
Describe how thought experiments about What is it like to be a bat, Mary the color
scientist, and about zombies inform our understanding of consciousness.
Shows that brain activity isn’t enough to assume consciousness, there’s more that goes into it
Understand the purpose of philosophical thought experiments.
Helps us explore ideas, challenge assumptions, and see things from new angles
Explain what qualia are.
The individual personal experiences of what something feels like
Feldman-Barrett argues that the brain is not for thinking. From her perspective,
why do we have a brain?
For running your bodies system and keeping you alive
Explain Descartes’ solution to the mind-body relationship, and list some problems with
his solution.
He believes the mind and body are two completely different “stuffs”.it’s not scientifically testable and has an unexplained communication mechanism
What is aphantasia? Explain what its existence tells us about consciousness
Condition where you’re unable to form mental images in your brain. It shows that consciousness and imagination are not the same for everyone.
Consider the difference between vision and visual imagery
Vision happens when your eyes take in light and your brain processes it, visual imagery is when your brain creates pictures without needing your eyes. Vision is what your eyes see, visual imagery is what your mind sees.
Define sensory substitution
Where information from one sensor like vision can be demonstrated through another sensory like touch. It’s about how the brain interprets; the brain, not the eyes, creates perception
Driven by stimulus and environmental information
Information coming directly through the eyes
Only accounts for approximately 10% of visual processing
bottom-up processing
Driven by expectations, experiences, and prior learning
Accounts for approximately 90% of visual processing
Brain interprets sensory information based on what has been useful before
Top-down processing
Explain what Beau Lotto means when he says “Your eyes have very little to do with
seeing”
It’s not just about your eyes, it’s mostly about your brain, what you actually see is a construction on your mind
what is change blindness
Change blindness is difficulty noticing changes in visual scenes, caused by rapid eye movements, and photoreceptors are shut down during eye movement.
what is inattention blindness
Inattention blindness is not noticing significant changes when your attention is focused elsewhere
Consider the way our eye works and explain why the blind spot occurs
The blind spot is where no visual information is received from the optic disc and there’s no photoreceptors in the blind spot area
Understand why Blackmore considers the visual system to be an illusion
Because we do not perceive reality as it truly is
