Consciousness

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Chapter 9

• Consciousness

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Conscious vs. Unconscious Influences
We all think of ourselves as conscious entities
we imagine an I or me and that entity is a
constant in our lives (or is it?). We like to
think this conscious self is in control of our
behaviour or, at least, our important
behaviour. At the same time, we tend to believe
that some animals at least are not conscious
and we are willing to believe that we humans
are, at least, partially animals. Thus, it seems
reasonable to believe that some of our behaviours
are unconsciously influenced, and some are
consciously influenced.
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Evidence for a DistinctionThe Use of
Oppositional Tasks
Early research attempting to show a distinction
between conscious and unconscious influence
focused on perception without awareness
methodologies that are problematic Recently
(like in the 90s) researchers have begun using a
logic that rests on the assumption that conscious
and unconscious influences are different. If
they are different, then it should be possible to
find conditions where the two influences are
biasing performance in different ways. gt the
Coke versus Pepsi example These conditions have
the potential to tell us a great deal
about conscious and unconscious influences,
especially when contrasted with non-oppositional
versions of the same task.
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Consciousness as a Catch-All
Within Psychology, Consciousness has many
meanings, many of them relevant to psychology in
different ways. Things like - links between
attention and awareness - the notion of
self-awareness - consciousness as control
(hypnotism) - altered states of consciousness -
and more!
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Selective Attention
Think for a minute about all of the various
stimuli you could be attending to right now. It
doesnt seem to us that all of these stimuli are
being processed. Rather, it seems as though we
select certain stimuli to process deeply (i.e.,
think about) and the rest feel as though they are
not being processed much at all. Why do we have
to selectively attend to only a subset of the
available stimuli? What happens to the
information that we do not attend to?
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Selective Attention Demonstration

• BFALKUETRE
• PQIULEOETN
• TGIRGAESRS
• QBUAEKEENR
• TPIIGLEORT
• GFRLAUSTSE

Hopefully this demo shows that we are amazingly
good at learning to selectively attend even when
stimuli are presented almost on top of each
other How do we do it?
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Why Do We Select?
The most common answer to this question is that
consciousness is a limited capacity, perhaps
serial, mechanism. Often Psychologists will talk
in terms of cognitive resources (like energy for
the mind) and that being aware of things takes a
lot of this resource thus we can only be aware
of one thing (at most) at a time because that is
all the resources we have. This notion can be
linked to our need for sleep, and to issues such
as concentration isnt hard to concentrate
(think deeply) on something when youre
tired? Thus, we select because we must.
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What Happens to Information that is not Attended?
Early studies of selective attention suggested
that unattended information is not processed at
all. gt Broadbents dichotic listening
stuff. Later studies suggest that unattended
information does get in if it is salient enough
and that it can bias interpretations of
attended information even when it is not so
salient. gt Name and ambiguous word stuff. The
most recent work suggests that unattended
information may be processed fairly deeply, then
inhibited.
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Linking this Back to the Oppositional Idea
This limited capacity notion explains some of the
effects found with oppositional tasks. The
reason that good music will make you miss some
turn you would not usually make is because you
are attending to the music, and not to where you
really want to go. Thus, consciousness is tied
up with what it is attending to, allowing the
unconscious influences to go unopposed. Steves
baseball idea
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Neuropsychological Cases
Split-Brain Patients - Patients that have had
their corpus-collosum surgically separated
often seem to have two consciousnesses Blindsight
- Patients with damage to their primary visual
cortex have scotomas, or patches in their
visual field where they are aware of nothing.
Nonetheless, they are often able to make
accurate judgements about stimuli presented in
the scotoma Multiple Personality Disorder - Some
clinical patients appear to have multiple
personalities do these reflect multiple
consciousnesses?
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Hypnosis
Is it possible for one person to take possession
of anothers consciousness via hypnosis? The
evidence in favor of hypnosis as a true altered
state of consciousness is very
controversial. There is no doubt that people
will do bizarre things when hypnotized but do
they do them because they are no longer in
control of themselves, or because they are
playing along? gt Can they be made to perform
dangerous acts? gt What about immoral acts? gt
What are some of the tricks of stage
hypnotists? gt What factors underlying hypnotic
susceptibility?
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Sleep
Zzzzzzzzz.....
Although I wont go into detail about sleep in
class (there is some interesting reading in the
book), I will hit on a few things. Stages of
sleep overhead BIO12 (figure 9.14 in
text) Perhaps the most interesting question
concerning sleep is why? gt it seems it is not
to recharge our muscles gt deprivation studies
suggest that sleep does not benefit
performance on simple intellectual tasks gt in
keeping with the resource idea though, sleep
deprivation does interfere with complex
intellectual tasks, and with our general
ability to be attentive gt What about REM sleep?
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Consciousness, Self-Awareness, Empathy
One notion of consciousness is that it is a model
of the world that includes a model of ourselves
and others. This model may allow us to learn
from events that happen to others AS IF
those events had happened to us. This kind of
model may also be what makes us feel empathy for
others, and it may also allow us to vicariously
enjoy things like movies, sports events, etc
Moreover, having such a model may also allow
us to play out future events in our minds and
use the imagined outcomes to decide on best
courses of actions. How might this all relate to
dreams? Hypnosis?
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Self-Awareness (and therefore Consciousness?)
invarious Animals - the work of Gordon Gallup
Anesthetize an animal (or person). Place some
kind of mark on the animal (e.g.,
lipstick). When animal awakes, show it
a reflection of itself in mirror. Does it seem
to realize that the reflection is a reflection
of itself and, as a result, reach for the
lipstick on itself (not the reflection). Some
animals do, and some do not including some we
think of as highly intelligent.
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Consciousness Conclusions
The scientific study of consciousness is recently
undergoing a renaissance of sorts with many
different scientists becoming involved and
journals being devoted solely to such
studies. Despite this work, we still have only
theories concerning the function of
consciousness gt It may allow us the flexibility
to counter overlearned responses gt It may
somehow be related to our language abilities gt
It may reflect our internal model of the world
and may underlie our ability to
empathize Clearly, the road is open for more
research and understanding.