Basic Consciousness Concept

Defining Consciousness

LOQ: What is the place of consciousness in psychology’s history?

At the very beginning of psychology is was “the description and explanation of states of consciousness” (Ladd, 1887)

• First half of the twentieth century moved psychologists to observe bevahiors rather then studying counsciness

• 1960s psychology didn’t really mean “study of counscinuess” and rather meant “the science of behavior”

  • Mental concepts emerged

  • Neuroscientist linked brain activity to sleeping, dreaming, and other mental states

  • Began studying consciousness changed from drugs, hypnosis, and meditation

Most psychologists define consciousness as “our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment”.

• Awareness of this allows us to piece together information from different sources from reflecting on our past, adapting to our present, and plan for our future

• It focuses our attention when we learn a complex concept and/or behavior

• Over time, we change from different states of consciousness, such as normal walking awareness and a variety of altered states

• Psychology explores the biology of psychologists

  • Believe that consciousness causes a reproductive advantage

  • Promotes our survival by predicting how we seem to others and reading other people

Consciousness: our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment.

Studying Consciousness

Cognitive Neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience are researching and mappin functions of the conscious cortex

• Based on cortical activation patters can read yout mind in limited ways

Conscious experience comes from synchronized activity across the brain

• Stimulus activates enough coordinated neural activity

  • Strong signals in one brain area can cause activity in other places

  • A weaker stimulus may cause localized visual cortex activity that quickly ends

  • Reverberating activity is a sign of conscious awareness

Cognitive Neuroscience: the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language).

Selective Attention

**LOQ:**How does selective attention direct our perceptions?

Selective attention allows our awareness focuses on a aspect of all that we experience

• We rhino we can fully be present in a long conversation od lecture while responding back

  • Our consciousness can only focus on one thing at a time

Things that we think of as important is what catches our limited attention

• Ex. at a party and you are paying attention to someone talking and then you hear someone else call your name

  • Your cognitive radar instantly brings the other person’s voice into consciousness

Selective Attention: the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.

Selective Attention and Accidents

60% of American drivers read or sent a message or looked at a map on the phone

• This causes your selective attention to shift back and forth from the road to the device

Inattentional Blindness

A state of conscious awareness were we are “blind” to everything except for s smal visual stimuli that we are focusing on.

• Your mind is only in one place at a time

• Peoples blindness extend to the person’s own choices

There is a form of inattentional blindness called change blindness

• Where people fail to notice simple things such as different colored shirt, a object missing, or something being a different height

Change deafness can also occur

• Ex. people focusing on a repeating a list of words and filing to notice that the voice changed during that time

  • Some stimuli are very powerful and distinct that we experience a popout

    • Ex. the voice changing from female to male

Inattentional Blindness: failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Change Blindness: failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness.

Dual Processing: The Two-Track Mind

LOQ: What is the dual processing being revealed by today’s cognitive neuroscience?

At any moment we are aware of a little more that what is in our consciousness

• Beneath the surface unconscious information and processing is happening all at the same time

• This is called dual processing

Brain waves for actions occur milliseconds before you proceed with the action

• Brain waves jump around 0.35 seconds before you are able to consciously reconize it and react

• Consciousness sometimes arrives late to decision-making

• When the actual decision to move happens when the brain activity crosses a threshold, causing the average “time of awareness of intention to move” (about 0.15 seconds before the action)

Unconscious parallel processing is faster than conscious sequential processing

• Both are essential

• There is two different types of this processing

  • Parrallel processing

    • Allows your mind to take care of habits

  • Sequential processing

    • Better for solving new problems, requiring focused attention on one specific thing

Dual Processing: the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks.

Blindsight: a condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it.

Parallel Processing: processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; generally used to process well-learned information or to solve easy problems.

Sequential Processing: processing one aspect of a problem at a time; generally used to process new information or to solve difficult problems

Sleep and Dreams

LOQ: What is sleep?

Sleep:  a periodic, natural loss of consciousness—as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation. (Adapted from Dement, 1999)

Biological Rhythms and Sleep

Circadian Rhythm

LOQ: How do our biological rhythms influence our daily functioning?

Our bodies roughly try to match up with the 24-hour day cycle

• We have an internal biological clock (called the circadian rhythm)

  • Our age and experience can alter our circadian rhythm

    • Night time is typically when younger adult have a bit more energy, whereas older adults tend to have less energy, and vice versa in the morning with younger adults not having as much energy and older adults having more\

      • Night Owls (stay up late) tend to be smart and creative

      • Morning Birds (wake up early) tend to do better in school, be more initiative, more punctual, and less vulnerable to depression

• As morning gets closer, our temperature rises, peaking during the day, and then will drop two times; early afternoon and the evening

  • Pulling an all nighter usually causes us to feel the tiresest in the middle of the night, but as you approach your normal wake-up times, you will start to feel a bit more normal

Circadian Rhythm: our biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example, of temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle.

Sleep Stages

LOQ: What is the biological rhythm of our sleeping and dreaming stages?

About every 90 minuets when we sleep , we cycle through different sleep stages

• Alpha waves slow down as you become more relaxed

  • Then from this stage you fall asleep

  • Marked by slow breathing and irregular brain waves

• Non-REM stage 1 sleep (NREM-1) is the first stage of sleep

  • May experience images that seem like hallucinations(ex. Sense of falling causing you to jolt awake)

    • These hypnagogic sensation may become a part of your memories

• Non-REM stage 2 sleep (NREM-2) is the second stage of sleep

  • Begins about 20 minutes later

  • Periodic sleep spindles- burts of rapid and rhythmic brain wave activity

  • Now “clearly asleep” to people around you but can stil be woken up easily

• Non- REM stage 3 sleep (NREM-3) is the third stage of sleep

  • Lasts about 30 minuets

  • Brain gives off large and slow delta waves

  • Hard to be woken up

    • Most children wet the bed at the end of this stage

REM Sleep: rapid eye movement sleep; a recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur. Also known as paradoxical sleep, because the muscles are relaxed (except for minor twitches) but other body systems are active.

Alpha Waves: the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state.

Hallucinations: false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus.

Delta Waves: the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep.

REM Sleep

After about an hour after falling asleep, you begin to ascend back into NREM-2 (you spend about ½ of the night in this stage) and will experience REM sleep

• For roughly 10 minuets, brain waves become very quick and similar to those as NREM-1

• During REM sleep your heart rate rises, breathing becomes more rapid and irregular, and your eyes dart around about every 30 seconds

  • Darting eyes are typically the beginning of a dream (story like, emotional, and hullucinatory)

    • REM sleep tricks you into responding as if your dream was fully real

    • Genitals become aroused during REM sleep, except during nightmares or scary dreams

    • Brain’s motor cortex is active and makes you basically paralyzed except for some twitching

      • Sleep paralysis happens during REM sleep when you wake up and can’t move your body

• Sometimes called paradoxical sleep

• This cycle repeats about every 90 minutes in young adults (shorter for older adults)

  • Deep NREM-3 sleep gets shorter and disappears and NREM-2 and REM increase

    • Usually spend 20-25% of sleep (sometimes 100 minuets) in REM sleep

    • We spend 600 hours a year experiencing about 1,500 dreams

What Affects Our Sleep Patterens?

LOQ: How do biology and environment interact in our sleep patterns?

Sleep patterns are genetically influenced as well as culturally influenced

• Sleep regulating genes in humans and other animals are genetically influenced

• School, work, extracurricular activities are culturally influenced

Bright light changes the circadian clock by activating rnetial proteins that are light-sensetive

• These control the circadian clock by sending signals to the brains suprachlasmatic nucleus (SCN)

  • Does its jobs by causing the pineal gland to decrease production of the hormone melatonin in the morning and increase in the evening

Night-shift workers may develop desynchronization

• This causes an increased chance of fatigue, GI issues, heart disease, and breast cancer

Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN): a pair of cell clusters in the hypothalamus that controls circadian rhythm. In response to light, the SCN causes the pineal gland to adjust melatonin production, thus modifying our feelings of sleepiness.

Why Do We Sleep?

LOQ: What are sleep’s functions

Protects: Our ancestors were asleep in a cave, out of the way of most damage and injury. If they didn’t wander off at night, they were more likely to have offspring and have the offspring survive. A species’ sleep pattern is suited to fit its ecological niche

Helps Us Recuperate: Helps restore the immune system and repair brain tissue, gives neurons a time to repair themselves. In some animals such as bats, they have a high waking metabolism and produce free radicals which are toxic molecules to neurons which sleep gets rid of.

Helps Restore and Rebuild Memories of the Day:  Consolidates our memories by relpaying recent learning and strengthens neural connections. Recent experiences are stored in the hippocampus and shifts them for permanent storage somewhere else in the cortex.

Feeds Creative Thinking: Can inspire special artistic and scientific achievements. This allows people to solve difficult problems more insightfully after sleeping on it.

Supports Growth: The pituitary gland releases a growth hormone that muscles need for development during slow wave sleep.

Sleep Deprivation and Sleep Disorders

LOQ: How does sleep loss affect us, and what are the major sleep disorders?

Effects of Sleep Loss

With more sleep (at least 9 hours a night), we wake up feeling more refreasehd and usually sustain a better mood, and preform more accurately and efficiently.

• Sleep loss is a predictor of depression

• 12-18 years olds who only slept 5 or less hours had a 71% higher risk of developing depression that kids their age getting 8 hours

• Sleep deprived students preform below what they could be

  • Cuases difficulty studying, lower productivity, increased errorsm and irritabilit and fatigue

• Affects our physical health

  • Sleep deprivation increase ghrelin (hunger-arousing hormone), and also decreases leptin (hunger suppressing hormone)

  • Decreases metabolic rate

  • Increases production of cortisol (stress hormone that stimulates the body to make fat)

  • Enhances limbic brain responses to the sight of food and decrease are willingness to resist the temptation

  • Sleeping when having an infection boosts our immune cells

  • Slows reactions and increases errors on tasks that require visual attention

Major Sleep Disorders

Major sleep disorders

• Insomnia

• Narcolepsy

• Sleep apnea

• Sleep walking

• Sleep talking

• Night terrors

Insomnia: recurring problems in falling or staying asleep.

Narcolepsy: a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. The sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopportune times.

Sleep Apnea: a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings

Night Terrors: a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during NREM-3 sleep, within two or three hours of falling asleep, and are seldom remembered.

Dreams

LOQ: What do we dream, and what functions have theorists proposed for dreams?

REM dreams are more vivid, emotional, and often much weirder than daydreams

• The link between REM sleep and dreaming is creating new area of dream research

Dream: a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind.

What We Dream

8 in 10 dreams are marked with at least one negative event or emotion in both men and women

• Usually failing at doing something, being attacked, pursed, rejected, or misfortune

  • After trauma, survivors commonly report nightmares

    • This helps get rid of fears during the day

  • Musicians report having twice as many of dreams of music

  • Studyies in 4 different countries show that blind people dream using all of their other senses except visual but can sometimes “see” people in their dreams

Why We Dream

To Satisfy our Own Wishes: Sigmund Fruend proposed that dreams give a psychic safey valve that expells unacceptable feelings and viewed a dream’s manifest content as sensor, symbolic version of its latent content, the unconscious drives and wishes

Manifest Content: according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream (as distinct from its latent, or hidden, content).

Latent Content: according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream (as distinct from its manifest content).

Drugs and Consciousness

Tolerance and Addiction in Substance Use Disorders

LOQ: What are substance use disorders?

Substances such as psychoactive drugs change perceptions and moods

Overusing prescription drugs above the recommended dosage and not using it in moderation at the correct dose is called substance use disorder.

• Effects of drugs depends on biological effects and the expercations of the user

Psychoactive Drug: a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods.

Substance Use Disorder: a disorder characterized by continued substance craving and use despite significant life disruption and/or physical risk.

Depressants

LOQ: What are depressants, and what are their effects?

Depressants are drugs that calm neural activity and slow body functions

Alcohol

Alcohol in any amount is a depressant, not just in large amounts

• Alcohol is and equal-opportunity drug

  • Increases (disinhibitors)- helpful tendencies such as leaving a big tip for a bartender

  • Increases harmful tendencies such as sexual aggression leading to sexual assault

• Prolonged and excessive drinking is the base deifniton of alcohol use disorder

  • Women lacking an enzyme that digests alcohol are more vulnerable to become addicted

Depressants: drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions.

Alcohol Use Disorder: (popularly known as alcoholism) alcohol use marked by tolerance, withdrawal, and a drive to continue problematic use.

Slowed Neural Processing

Alcohol slows down the SNA activity

• In low does it relaxes the drinker

• Large doses causes slow reactions, slurred speech, and worse skill performance

Memory Disruption

Alcohol can disrupt memory formations

• Heavy drinking can have long-term effects of the brain and cognition

Reduced Self-Awareness and Self-Control

One study showed that people that consumed alcohol where 2x as likely to become destracted during a reading task

• Were less likely to notice that they were zoned out

Alcohol reduces self-awareness

• Creates a “myopia” from focusing on arousing situations

Expectancy Effects

Expectations influence behavior on substance abuse

• Ex. believing we consumed alcohol with make us act as if we did have alcohol

Barbiturates

Barbituates depress the nervous system like alcohol

• Also know as trqualizers (ex. Nembutal, Seconal, and Amytal)

• Using these with alcohol can create an event for a total depressive effect on bodily functions which can be fatal

Barbituates: drugs that depress central nervous system activity, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgment.

Opiates

Opiates and other derivates of opium depress neural function

• Opiates include heroin, and medical pain releif narcotics such as codeine, morphin, and methadone (synthetic opiate used for heroin substatue)

• With extended use of opiates, the brain will stop developing as many endorphins since they are getting an abundance of the, causing the body to become dependant on them

Opiates: opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety.

Stimulants

LOQ: What are stimulants, and what are their effects?

Stimulants increase neural activity and speeds up bodily functions

• Pupils dilate, heart rate and breathing increase, blood sugar rises, and energy and self confidence arise

• Some people use stimulants to feel alert, lose weight, boost mood, or athletic performance

Nictotine:

• In cigarettes, e-cigarrets, and other tobacco products

• Highly and quickly addictive

  • People who try and quit in the first few weeks of starting often fail

  • Smokers develop tolerance and need more and more overtime to feel the same

• Withing 7 seconds of inhaling nicotine, a signal is sent to the CNS and releases a flood of neurotransmitters

  • Epinephrine and norepinephrine desmished appetite and boosts alertness and mental efficiency

  • Dopamine and opioids temporarily calm anxiety and reduce pain sensitivity

Cocaine

Powerful and addictive stimulant derived from the coca plant

• Now snorted, injected, or smoked

  • Crack Cocaine is a faster working mixture giving an intense high followed with an intense crash

• Can heighten reactions that trigger aggression

Methamphetamine

Amphetamines stimulate neural activity

• Speeds ip energy and functions and mood rises

• Parent drug for methamphetamine

  • Clinically similar but with greater effects

  • Releases dopamine which increases energy and mood

    • Lasts for about 8 hours of heighted energy and euphoria

    • May cause irritability, insomnia, hypertension, seizures, depression, social isolations, and violent outbursts

Ecstasy

Ectasy is also known as MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and known as Molly in its powder form

• Amphetamine derived

• Triggers dopamine release and stored serotonin and blocking its reuptake

  • This makes the feel-good feeling last longer

  • Feel the effect about ½ an hour after use

  • Experience high energy and better mood for 3 to 4 hours after

• Suppresses the immune system, impares memory, and slows thought and disrupts sleep

Stimulants: drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, and Ecstasy) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.

Nicotine: a stimulating and highly addictive psychoactive drug in tobacco.

Cocaine: a powerful and addictive stimulant derived from the coca plant; produces temporarily increased alertness and euphoria.

Methamphetamine: a powerfully addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system, with accelerated body functions and associated energy and mood changes; over time, appears to reduce baseline dopamine levels.

Amphetamines: drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing accelerated body functions and associated energy and mood changes.

Ecstasy (MDMA): a synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen. Produces euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risks and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition.

Hallucinogens

LOQ: What are hallucinogens, and what are their effects?

Halluciens distort perception and evoke sensory images in absence of sensory input

• This is why they are called psychedelics (means “mind manifesting”)

• LSD, MDMA, and Marijuana are phsycdelics

• Hullicates in the same way between different drugs

  • Starts by seeing geometric shapes like lattices, cobwebs, or spirals

  • Next phase is seeing more meaningful images such as a tunnel or past emotional experiences

  • All of these sensations are very similar to near-death experience

    • Bright lights, old memories, out-of-body sensations

    • Enhances personal growth and spirituality

Hallucinogens: psychedelic (“mind-manifesting”) drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.

Near-Death Experience: An altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death (such as cardiac arrest); often similar to drug-induced hallucinations

LSD

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), also known as acid, cuaes emotions that vary from euphori to detachment to panic

• Ther expectations and moods coor the emotional experience

LSD: a powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid (lysergic acid diethylamide).

Marijuana

Majiruna leaves contain THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) produces mixed effects

• Smoking it causes it to react quicker (takes 7 seconds to get to the brain)

• Eating THC containing products (such as edibles) take much longer and at unpredictable rates

• Classified as a mild hallucinogen because it amplifies sensitivities to colors, tastes, smells, and sounds

• Impares motor coordination like alcohol

  • Unlike alcohol, THC and byproducts stay in the system for over a week, compared to just a few hours with alcohol

• Everyones experinece with marjiuna vary

U.S. National  Acedemics of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that use of marjiua

• Alleviates chronic pain and chemotherapy related nausea

• is not associated with tobacco-related cancers, such as lung cancer,

• is predictive of increased risk of traffic accidents, chronic bronchitis, psychosis, social anxiety disorder, and suicidal thoughts

• likely contributes to impaired attention, learning, and memory, and possibly to academic underachievement.

THC: the major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations.

Influences on Drug Use

LOQ: Why do some people become regular users of consciousness-altering drugs?

For some adolescents, occasional drug use represent their thrill seeking

• But for others they become regular users

Biological Influences

Some people are biologically more vulnerable to specific drugs

• Some evidence shows that heredity influences some aspects of substance use problems

  • If one identical twin is diagnosed with alcohol use disorder, the other twin is at an increased risk

  • Researchers have found genes that are linked to alcohol use disorder

    • They are now looking for genes linked to tobacco addiction

  • Warning signs of alcohol use disorder:

    • Drinking binges

    • Craving alcohol

    • Use results in unfulfilled work, school, or home tasks

    • Failing to honor a resolution to drink less

    • Continued use despite health risk

    • Avoiding family and/or friends when drinking

• There are also other biological influences on other drugs as well

Pyschological and Social- Cultural Influences

One common psychological problem in teens and young adults is the feeling of meaningless and directionless

• Common among school dropouts with no jobs or job skills, privilege, and with little hope

• Girls with history of depression, eating disorders, or sexual or physical abuse are more likely to develop a substance use disorder

• Adolescents may start using drugs to feel and act like people they look up to such as celebrities or to try and fit into the crowd

• Rates of drug use are different across cultural and ethnic groups

• Peers influence attitudes towards substance abuse

Ways to suggest treatment and drug prevention is to

• Edicate young people about the long-term costs of a drug’s temporary pleasures.

• Help young people find other ways to boost their self-esteem and discover their purpose in life.

• Attempt to modify peer associations or to “inoculate” youth against peer pressures by training them in refusal skills.