consciousness

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  • Created by: Cruick96
  • Created on: 18-05-17 20:47
what is consciousness?
intuitively clear
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what is an issue with measuring consciousness?
unclear if we have the tools to measure it scientifically
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what did James say about consciousness?
seems obvious at first sight. aware of actions but also feel as it initiated them. need to explain how our subjective experience arises from interaction between material and objective world
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what did Block say about consciousness?
that there are 2 types
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what are Block's 2 types of consciousness?
access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness
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what is access consciousness?
refers to elements for use in thinking, speech or action - most of cognitive psychology deals with this type
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what is phenomenal consciousness?
explains subjective feeling of consciousness, seen as the hard problem to explain (Chalmers)
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what is one historical perspective of consciousness?
modern version of notorious mind-body problem. 2 realms - physical world and subjective experience. whole civilisation based on premises of some kind of dualism.
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who is Descartes?
dualist. treated mind and brain as 2 different entities meeting in small structure in middle of brain - pineal gland
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what is another historical perspective of consciousness?
idealism - only the things in our mind really exist
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how does idealism differ from dualism?
avoids interaction problem by rendering physical world redundant
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how does behaviourism differ from dualism?
direct and extreme reaction to idealism. idealists made world completely subjective and impossible to investigate whereas behaviourists put notion of consciousness away by denying existence of mental states
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what is the materialist solution?
mental states are equivalent to brain states
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why is consciousness important in cognitive psychology?
studies complex processes like thinking and attention, focuses on access consciousness, often relies on phenomenal.
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what is change blindness?
if we look around us we will see amazing richness of detail. unless we direct our attention to a part of a scene, there is a good chance we will not notice the details of the objects found here
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what does change blindness tell us about consciousness?
we are not consciously looking at every aspect of a scene at a given time (not poss)
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what did Simons say about change blindness? IGNORE
extent of change blindness in visual perception suggests limits on our capacity to encode, retain and compare visual info from one glance to next - suggests more problems with encoding and not attentional consciousness
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what did Rensink et al say about change blindness?
demonstrated that one needs dozens of alterations between 2 pics to spot changes as big as the disappearance of a whole jet engine
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what is inattentional blindness?
due to involvement of attentional resources in other tasks, we may miss obvious events.
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what did Simon and Chabris do?
participants asked to count number of passes in basketball on white t shirt team. gorilla walks past. present for 9 secs. only half of participants notices his presence
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how can mindfulness help inattentional blindness?
mindfulness linked to improvements in attention and effects of mindfulness most pronounces when stressed etc
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what was Kuhn and Tatler's magic trick?
cigarette trick - fixations on magicians face, hand holding lighter and right shoulder - not on the cigarette dropping (no one saw)
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what was Vicary's subliminal persuasion?
flashed short images like 'drink coke' etc in cinema lasting for third of a ms. audience said to take this in subconsciously as after 6 weeks coke sales increased by 18% and popcorn by over 50. messages never reached awareness but influenced behaviou
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what did Moore say about subliminal persuasion?
no empirical evidence that it works
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what are some recent examples from subliminal persuasion myth?
parents of 2 teens who killed themselves said rock band Judas Priest incorporated 'do it' in a song and thats what made them kill themselves. Disney sub messages in Aladdin and Lion king
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what has been concluded about subliminal messaging?
might affect cognitive influences in short term. Bar and Biederman found this is the case. despite never reaching awareness, been processed for meaning as evidenced by their influence on subsequent behaviour
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what was Dehaene et al's experiment?
p's decide as quick as poss if presented digit smaller/larger than 5. before presentation of target digit, another digit written in letters briefly shown and followed by random letter string. when sub was congruent with target faster responses
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what are automated actions?
fast, require little effort/attention, unavailable to consciousness. high amounts of practice leads to automated actions (driving etc)
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what is the stroop effect?
meaning of words automatically comes to mind as reading is highly practised task. saying the colour of the word is therefore hard when doesn't match the word
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what did Fournier et al find?
children who are less experienced readers show less slowing down
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what did Dyer find?
effect less pronounced when language in which words are written is unfamiliar
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what is norman and shallice's model of consciousness?
supervisory attentional system (controls allocation of attention, decides which process will become conscious). SAS is a little human (homunculus)
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what is norman and shallice's model problematic?
leads to infinite regress - who/what controls the homunculus??
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what is Dennett's cartesian theatre?
all processes come together to a single place. some of processes are deemed to represent consciousness. no such thing as central processor in brain (not even pineal gland)
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what is the global workplace theory by baars?
attempts to avoid dualism. assumes network of subsytems - each one responsible for different cog processes. which of these enters conscious depends on access to global workspace - broadcasts info about processes to other subsystems. consciousinf used
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what are the issues with the global workplace theory?
unclear why broadcasted processes become conscious and other processes don't, describes info processing associated w/ consciousness - doesn't answer question of nature and function of consciousness
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what is materialism?
modern view of equating the mind with physical brain processes. solves problem of interaction (there isn't one - brain and mental states = same thing)
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what is the main problem with materialism?
even if cog processes are explained by physical processes in brain, still problem of conscious subjective experience
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what did Chalmers say about consciousness and zombies?
zombies = complete replica of humans w/o consciousness. materialists - if zombies are true replica of humans just by definition they behave as conscious people do.
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are computers conscious?
no - they simulate numerous cog processes and results sometimes indistinguishable from actual behaviour but no
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what is epiphenomenalism?
proposed by some materialist theorists - consciousness just a byproduct of cog processes - has no use or power (some people even see it as an illusion)
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what has been found about patients with neglect?
damage to right side of brain, can't see left side of scene. mental imagery affected too. when decribing milan from north, neglect ps omit left side. when south omit right side. don't know theres something wrong with their description
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what did Wegner hypothesise?
feeling that our thoughts influence our actions is just an illusion. brain initiates planning for action and intiates thoughts about it. once action executed, jump to conc that thoughts caused it. feeling of control and planning = illusion
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what was wegners experiment?
ps share comp mouse w/ confederate. presented through headphones with thoughts relevant to actions. move cursor to select corresponding pic. confederate moves without ps knowledge.
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what is libet's free will experiment?
when they choose it, ps spontaneously make movement of hand. at same time watch clock rotating. they report position of hand when decide to act. ps report consciuos intention to act about 200ms before actual action. brain activity starts 350ms before
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Card 2

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what is an issue with measuring consciousness?

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unclear if we have the tools to measure it scientifically

Card 3

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what did James say about consciousness?

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Card 4

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what did Block say about consciousness?

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Card 5

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what are Block's 2 types of consciousness?

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