Cognition, Emotion & Development > Consciousness > Flashcards

Consciousness Flashcards

(18 cards)

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1
Q

PROBLEMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

A

EXPLAINING PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS
- subjective experience
- private sensory experience “feel” (sensory qualia)/inner thoughts/feelings/action intentions
- what it’s like to be YOU
CORRELATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
- processes/representations in mind/brain associated w/phenomenal awareness (invariably/sometimes/w/consequences)>?
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
- representation of bodily self
- self = subject of experience
- sense of agency = self as owner of actions/intentions

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2
Q

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

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NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS
- anosognosias = not acknowledging major/frank cognitive disorders (ie. Anton’s syndrome_
- anarchic hand = loss of intention ownership awareness
- alien hand = loss of body part ownership awareness
- psychotic auditory hallucinations = loss of intention/internal speech ownership awareness (ie. FRITH (1992))
ANIMAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
- dubious mirror test status
- tests bodily awareness VS mirror image interpretation ability?

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3
Q

COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS ASSOCIATED W/AWARENESS

A
  • no conscious access to very early sensory analysis stages (ie. pre-attentional cortical colour maps/edge orientation/movement)/late motor representation stages (joint angle changes/muscle contraction forces)
  • informally encapsulated BUT…
    NAIVE MODEL (WRONG!)
  • sensory analysis processes (unconscious) -> perception/cognitive evaluation interpretation/decision intention (conscious) -> motor control processes (unconscious)
  • also SAP -> MCP via automatic reflexes (posture control/highly practiced skills) BUT…
  • most in-between processes/representations = informationally encapsulated as sensory/motor processes (ie. syntactic processing/unconscious interference based on heuristics)
  • numerous higher cog aspects once thought to require consciousness happen w/o awareness
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4
Q

SEMANTIC PROCESSING OF SUBLIMINAL WORDS VIA RESPONSE PRIMING TO VISIBLE TARGET

A

MARCEL (1983)

  • semantic priming obtained from backward masked words w/prime duration at which presence of word cannot be discriminated
  • similarly masked category priming of pictures/words/faces; must classify face gender, dif subliminal prime face of same/opposite gender facilitates/interferes
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5
Q

MEANING ACTIVATION VIA SUBMLIMINAL/UNATTENDED OBJECTS/EVENTS

A

KOUIDER & DEHAINE (2007)

  • possible to find conditions (brief masked presentation) w/enough sensory input processing to activate meaning/emotional salience etc. BUT no perceptual awareness of stimulus
  • specific claims = controversial as methodological difficulties (ie. establishing total prime invisibility/ruling out priming as perceptual overlap/ruling out response priming)
  • unattended words outside focal attention = unnoticed/remembered BUT undergo some attenuated semantic processing (ie. GSR to shock conditioned words in unattended message)
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6
Q

PRIMING TO BEHAVIOUR

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BARGH et al (1996)

  • pps believing in large exp assembled into sentences
  • words associated w/age/control words
  • walking speed down corridor slower after priming w/age related words
  • many similar reports, especially in social cog lit, gained public currency (ie. Thaler’s Nudge)
  • BUT big replication/publisher bias (easy to get effect published; hard w/null/replica failures) problems
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7
Q

CAN SUBLIMINAL STIMULUS INITIATE VOLUNTARY ACTION?

A
  • naive voluntary action model to stimulus =
    sensory processes -> see stimulus (conscious) -> decide to act (conscious) -> motor processes
  • implies have to consciously see visual stimulus/intend to act to perform voluntary action
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8
Q

BLINDSIGHT

A
  • patients w/hemianopia (^ restricted scotoma) - blindness area in visual area via cortical V1 damage - have no conscious awareness of blind region stimuli
  • BUT (if forced to guess) voluntarily point at moving object in blind region + make discriminations (form/colour) better than chance
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9
Q

VOLUNTARY ACTIONS EVOKED VIA STIMULI OF WHICH NORMAL SS = UNAWARE

A

FEHRER & RAAB (1962)

  • stimulus which pp doesn’t see (because of meta-contrast masking via flanking stimuli)
  • can initiate intended action w/unaffected RT (relative to unmasked condition where pp sees stimulus)
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10
Q

AWARENESS INTENTION RELATIVE TO ACTION INITIATION

A

LIBET’S ERP PARADIGM (1983)

  • pp raises finger when they want
  • judges via noting position of rotating clock handle moment W at which action = consciously initiated
  • readiness potential onset substantially precedes judged intention to act moment
  • same true for briefer LRP (lateralised readiness potential) associated w/left VS right response selection
  • awareness follows/caused by response selection?
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11
Q

AWARENESS INTENTION X ACTION INITIATION IMPLICATIONS

A
  • none of causal chain requires awareness; consciously seeing stimulus inessential to semantic/emotional activation/action initiation
  • if there is awareness, comments on intentional task-set establishment/stimulus detection/action initiation + selection after they happen, awareness DOESN’T CAUSE THEM
  • SO…
    intention awareness -> stimuli awareness -> meaning awareness/action selection awareness
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12
Q

DECISION MAKING/PROBLEM SOLVING

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NISBETT & WILSON (1977)

  • perceptuo-motor reactions/semantic activation = only contingently associated w/awareness
  • classic important studies; make choice w/immediate debrief of why
  • pp doesn’t appear to know what does/doesn’t influence decision
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13
Q

CHOICE BLINDNESS

A

JOHANSSON et al (2005/2006)

  • exp shows pp two faces
  • asks pp to choose preferred face; appears to pass face down to pp (slight of hand substitutes for other in some trials)
  • asks pp to explain preference as they look at it
  • 80% didn’t notice manipulation; happily gave reasons for wrong “choice” which cannot be differentiated w/face they DID choose on numerous measures
  • pps don’t appear w/access to process/determinants of choice or would have noticed manipulation
  • provide post-hoc choice rationale
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14
Q

INTUITIVE/UNCONSCIOUS VS CONSCIOUS THINKING

A
  • increasing acceptance of decision making/reasoning via 2 routes: step-by-step (serial/logical/conscious) reasoning (S2) OR intuition (automatic/memory-based/unconscious) reasoning (S1)
  • S1 = fast/quick & dirty/automatic heuristics SO inferior
  • BUT…
    DIJKSTERHUIS et al (2006)
  • sudden insight unconscious problem solving = slow YET effective/creative/superior as can integrate many features while S2 = limited capacity for representing multiple features; overweighed w/just a few
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15
Q

UNCONSCIOUS THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS

A

DIJKSTERHUIS et al (2006)

  • pps told they’ll receive info about 4 dif cars; should form impression of each car; then shown series of 48 displays describing 12 features for each car (ie mileage); options differ w/number of desirable/undesirable features (good VS bad mileage)
  • randomly assigned to deliberation (conscious)/distraction (unconscious); told they’ll later be asked on opinion on cars
  • deliberation = 3m careful thinking; distraction = 3m unrelated task (ie crossword)
  • all features BUT not all cars = better after distraction
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16
Q

UNCONSCIOUS THOUGHT REPLICATION ISSUES

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A

NIEUWENSTEIN et al (2015)

  • do UTA findings reflect “spurious effects obtained w/unreliable paradigm” OR “real effect that occurs only when certain conditions met” (ie timing/mindset/goal)
  • conducted:
    1. large scale replication (N = 399) of OG meeting certain conditions; proposed by STRICK, DIJSTERHUIS et al (2012); NO!STATSIG UTA found
    2. meta-analysis of available studies; UTA restricted to small sample studies; positive finding prevalence in lit attributed w/publication bias
17
Q

SUMMARY

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A
  • a lot happens in our heads that we cannot access
  • many mental process/representation types which, though assumed w/awareness requirement, turn out not to need it (ie meaning/emotions activation; stimulus triggered/spontaneous action; some choice/decision making)
  • is any process/representation ALWAYS associated w/awareness? maybe; mental-situation model integrates current rep of meaningful state of affairs/serial logical thinking (S2)
18
Q

GLOBAL WORKSPACE THEORY

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A

KOUIDER & DAHAENE (2007)

  • brain = specialised processor collection; mostly operates unconsciously BUT can be consciously accessed when linked to global/metastable assembly involving distant prefrontal/parietal neurons w/long-range axons
  • no fixed conscious/unconscious processing limit; subjects of any can attend one of several levels of rep bringing corresponding info into consciousness
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