1 / 12

Consciousness

Consciousness. Waking consciousness Our awareness of ourselves and our environment Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that occur when we are awake and alert Allows us to reflect and plan Altered States of Consciousness A mental state that differs noticeably from normal waking consciousness.

malissa
Download Presentation

Consciousness

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Consciousness • Waking consciousness • Our awareness of ourselves and our environment • Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that occur when we are awake and alert • Allows us to reflect and plan • Altered States of Consciousness • A mental state that differs noticeably from normal waking consciousness

  2. Unconscious processing • Well-learned tasks become automatic • Driving • Keyboarding • When you meet people you unconsciously react to their gender, age and appearance • Subconscious processing • Bird (color, form, movement, distance) • Unconscious processing is parallel while conscious is linear but good at novel problems • Can you taping different times??

  3. Forms of Altered-Consciousness Sleep

  4. History of Consciousness • Psychology began as a science of consciousness. • Behaviorists argued about alienating consciousness from psychology. • However, after 1960, mental concepts (consciousness) started reentering psychology.

  5. Theories Explaining Waking Consciousness • The Stream of Consciousness – • Consciousness results from the activity of the thalamus which analyzes and interprets information in the cerebral cortex. • “sweeping or scanning” total a rate of 40 times per second • Each sweep results in a single image or “moment of consciousness”

  6. Theories Explaining Waking Consciousness The unconscious mind processes information simultaneously on multiple tracks, while the conscious mind processes information sequentially. Conscious mind Unconscious mind

  7. Theories Explaining Waking Consciousness • Consciousness is also viewed as an adaptation allowing us to get along with others in our group (humans) • Allows us to ‘see’ ourselves

  8. Theories Explaining Waking Consciousness • Neuroscientists believe that consciousness emerges from the interaction of individual subconscious brain events much like a chord that is created from different musical notes. • Move wrist - 0.2 seconds prior you must decide to move the wrist since it takes that long to travel to the wrist. • But it isn’t until 0.35 seconds after that your brain waves jump • If told to hit a button after a tone you can respond in 1/10th of a second, but won’t show the jump in brain waves until .35 seconds. • You live in the past – but only by a bit

  9. Daydreaming and Fantasy • Spontaneous shifts attention away from the here and now into a make-believe world • Urge to daydream peaks about every 90 minutes and is highest between 12:00 and 2:00pm • Almost half of your waking hours? • Daydreams may provide stress relief and encourage creativity

  10. Sleep & Dreams Sleep – the irresistible tempter to whom we inevitably succumb. Mysteries about sleep and dreams have just started unraveling in sleep laboratories around the world.

  11. Circadian Cycles:The Biological Clock • Circadian cycles are those that last “about a day” • Circadian rhythms are governed by an area of the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) • Sends a signal to the pineal gland to increase or decrease the sleep-inducing hormone. • Jet lag is the result of desynchronization of the circadian rhythm • The longer we are awake the more adenosine (a chemical that inhibits certain neurons) accumulates. Sleep reduces adenosine – caffeine blocks it.

  12. Rhythm of Sleep Light triggers the suprachiasmatic nucleus to decrease (morning) melatonin from the pineal gland and increase (evening) it at night fall.

More Related