CHS AP Psychology Unit 4: Consciousness Essential Task 5.7: Describe various states of consciousness and their impact on behavior. Logo Green is R=8 G=138 B=76 Blue is R= 0 G=110 B=184 Border Grey is R=74 G=69 B=64

Consciousness Waking consciousness Altered States of 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

Subconscious processing Well-learned tasks become automatic Driving Typing 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

Forms of Altered-Consciousness Sleep

History of Consciousness Psychology began as a science of consciousness. (Titchner and Structuralism) Behaviorists argued about alienating consciousness from psychology. However, after 1960, mental concepts (consciousness) started reentering psychology. OBJECTIVE 1| Discuss the history of psychology’s study of consciousness and contrast conscious and unconscious information processing.

Evolutionary Reason for Consciousness Consciousness as an adaptation allowing us to get along with others in our group (humans) Allows us to ‘see’ ourselves and therefore moderate our behavior.

Tripartite Theory - Freud

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” Intralaminar nucleus, a kind of doughnut of cells within the thalamus, has nerve cells that send out long axons that reach to every part of the cerebral cortex. Significantly, there are also returning axons that come down from all areas of the cortex back to the intralaminar nucleus.

Consciousness as a Chord of Subconscious brain events. 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 to moving your wrist, 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