Slide 1 Chapter 9 - Consciousness Chapter 9 Consciousness

Chapter 9Conscious 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.
Chapter 9 - Consciousness
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.
> 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.
Within Psychology, Consciousness has many meanings, many of them relevant to psychology in different ways.
Things like:
- the notion of self-awareness
- consciousness as control (hypnotism)
- altered states of consciousness
Selective Attention
Think for a minute about all of the various stimuli you could be
attending to right now.
It doesn’t 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?
at learning to selectively
attend even when stimuli
of each other
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 … isn’t hard to concentrate (think deeply)
on something when you’re tired?
Thus, we select because we must.
information is not processed at all.
> Broadbent’s 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.
> Name and ambiguous word stuff.
The most recent work suggests that unattended information may
be processed fairly deeply, then inhibited.
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.
Steve’s baseball idea
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?
Hypnosis
Is it possible for one person to take possession of another’s
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?
> Can they be made to perform dangerous acts?
> What about immoral acts?
> What factors underlying hypnotic susceptibility?
Sleep
Although I won’t 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?
> it seems it is not to recharge our muscles
> deprivation studies suggest that sleep does not benefit
performance on simple intellectual tasks
> in keeping with the resource idea though, sleep
deprivation does interfere with complex intellectual
tasks, and with our general ability to be attentive
> What about REM sleep?
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?
various Animals - the work of Gordon Gallup
Anesthetize an animal (or person).
Place some kind of mark on the
animal (e.g., lipstick).
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.
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:
responses
> 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.

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Slide 1 Chapter 9 - Consciousness Chapter 9 Consciousness