Notes

Chapter 3: Consciousness and the Two Track Mind.
Slide 1.
What does this chapter consist of?
-- The quality of our mental experience. The way our experience is affected by our two tacks of experience, and like the role the brain plays in this whole experience.
What are some things we will be discussing that alter our experiences?
-- Sleep, Hypnosis, and Psychoactive Drugs.

Slide 2.
What is consciousness?
-- It's the awareness of yourself and your surroundings. To have the free will to make a "conscious" decision.
Aren't animals aware of their surrounds as well?
-- Humans are able to think about their awareness in a narrative experience point of view.

Slide 3.
What are some forms of consciousness that occur spontaneously?
-- Daydreaming, Drowsiness, and Dreaming.
What are some forms of consciousness that are phsysiologically induced?
-- Hallucinations, Orgasms, and Food and Oxygen Starvations.
What are some forms of consciousness that are phsycologically induced?
-- Sensory deprivation, Hypnosis, and Meditation.

Slide 4.
What is the relationship of consciousness to psychology?
-- Once upon a time, psychology was defined as the description and explanation of all the states of consciousness.
What branch of psychology allows to see how consciousness relates to the brain?
-- Cognitive Psychology.

Slide 5.
What are some rare findings of consciousness?
-- Some coma patients react to conversation in their state of unconsciousness.
What does the implication of the answer above?
-- Never judge a book by its cover, just because a patient is unable to speak, observe, and sense; it does not mean it's too late for that person. Through conversation even the unconscious understand their surroundings in bits and blurs. In-the-end, it can make a difference.

Slide 6.
What are the two tracks of consciousness?
-- One track is the high-end where as the other is the low-end. On the high-end track our minds take deliberate actions we know we are doing. For example, "I saw a bird!" or problem solving. The low-end track is when our minds perform automatic functions such as walking and your reflexes.

Slide 7.
What are some possible benefits of having a two-track mind?
-- We don't have to think about everything at once. It stops us from confusing ourselves. Allows us to multi-task.
What do some recent studies show when thinking before acting?
-- Students showed brain activity of pushing a button before they even aware of the decision to push the button.

Slide 8.
What are some consequences of having a dual-track mindset?
-- Blindsight, Selective Attention, Selective Inattention -- which includes: Inattentional blindness, change blindness, and choice blindness.

Slide 9.
Describe Blindsight Blindness?
-- It's when people with damaged brain are unable to see objects directly, but they are able to "sense" them. For example, a woman with brain damage but NO eye damage is unable to see an object in front of her; however, she is able to perform actions such as putting mail into the mailbox slot. Another example is when a man walks through a room full of obstacles and he avoids them however he is unable to see any of it. High-end is Visual Perception, Low-end is Visual Action.

Slide 10.
Describe Selective Attnention?
-- It's when we choose what bits of information to focus on when a kagillion bits of information comes our way. It basically chooses and selects what to notice.
Describe Selective Inattention?
-- Well, since selective inattention is to choose what focus and notice, the opposite is selective Inattention. It is when you are so hyperfocused you are unable to perform other tasks. For example, a stressful talk about your relationship with someone as you are driving your car.
What is the cocktail party effect?
-- It is when we are able to focus our mental spotlight to one conversation even if there are several other conversations going on around us.

Slide 11.
So what are the differences between selective attention and selective inattention?
-- Basically, selective attention is what we focus on and what we notice where as selective inattention is what we are not focused on and what we do not notice!
So what are some examples of Inattentional Blindness?
-- It's when we are focused we tend to miss things which other people deem as obvious. For example when you are concentrating on a bunch of students passing a ball wearing either black or white shirts. You tend to focus around that task when you actually miss a dancing gorilla that randomly walks in and out through the people interweaving with each other. I physically observed this experience. Magicians utilize this trick when they do their tricks.

Slide 12.
What are some examples of change blindness?
-- It's when you ask a person to give directions and they are so focused on giving you directions that when an object blocks their view of you, you are able to switch places with another person and the original person giving directions doesn't even realize you switched!

Slide 13.
What are some examples of choice blindness?
-- It's the jam experiment. When you ask a person to try two jams. They taste the jams and you asked which of the two you liked better. After their answer you switch them around and then ask them to try it again. Because they already tried the jam and they already know the answer in their mind they taste the opposite jam but say it's the one they wanted. So it basically masks, the flavor of strawberry over blueberries.

Slide 14.
When sleeping, are we fully unconscious? ("Dead to the world?")
-- Well, if this were true how are you able to move around without falling out of bed? We sometimes incorporate real world noises into our dreams as well as some noises wake us up more easily than others. Usually, foreign noises tend to wake us up since we are not aware of these noises and it causes a sense of insecurity and confusion of the mental state.
How do we learn about sleep and dreams?
-- We record EEG/Brain waves and muscle movements during sleep. Scientists experiment on people when they sleep by saying words and noises and see how it affects them while they sleep or see if they are able to retain the information through memory.

Slide 15.
Sleep and Biological clock -> 24-hour clock and the 90 minute sleep cycle.

Slide 16.
What is the circadium rhythm?
-- it refers to the body's natural 24-hour cycle, roughly matched to the day/night cycle of light and dark.
What changes during these 24 hours?
-- it varies from person to person. It's when you body temperature, arousal/enegery, and mental sharpness rise and fall over the course of the day. Some people are able to study better during early mornings where as other people are able to focus on studying during late nights.
"Larks" vs. "Owls"?
-- General peaks of alertness: evening peak ~ age 20 "owls" and then morning peak ~ age 50 "larks".

Slide 17.