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
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??
Forms of Altered-Consciousness
Sleep
History of Consciousness
1. Psychology began as a science of
consciousness.
2. Behaviorists argued about alienating
consciousness from psychology.
3. However, after 1960, mental concepts
(consciousness) started reentering
psychology.
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”
Theories Explaining Waking
Consciousness
The unconscious mind processes information
simultaneously on multiple tracks, while the
conscious mind processes information sequentially.
Conscious mind
Unconscious mind
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
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
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
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.
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.
Rhythm of Sleep
Light triggers the suprachiasmatic nucleus to decrease
(morning) melatonin from the pineal gland
and increase (evening) it at night fall.