AP Psych: Unit 5: Module 22

Consciousness is part of dual processing that goes on in

2 track minds

What happens to highly hypnotizable people?

20 percent who can carry out a suggestion not to smell or react to a bottle of ammonia held under their nose—typically become deeply absorbed in imaginative activities

Martin Orne and Frederick Evans asked other individuals to pretend they were hypnotized.Orne Laboratory assistants, unaware that those in the experiment's control group had not been hypnotized, treated both groups the same. The result?

All the unhypnotized participants (perhaps believing that the laboratory context assured safety) performed the same acts as those who were hypnotized.

In an experiment deeply hypnotized people imagine colors. What happened to the brain when it happened?

Areas of brain activated if saw color. Imagination leads to hallucination.

Example of hypnosis relieving pain.

As some dentists know, light hypnosis can reduce fear, thus reducing hypersensitivity to pain.; In surgical experiments, hypnotized patients have required less medication, recovered sooner, and left the hospital earlier than unhypnotized control patients Nearly 10 percent of us can become so deeply hypnotized that even major surgery can be performed without anesthesia. Half of us can gain at least some pain relief from hypnosis.

Consciousness offers weird experience. Give an example.

As when entering sleep or leaving a dream. We wonder who is really in control.

Explain this social phenomenon, or the social influence theory of hypnosis

Attention+ Interpretations = Perceptions; Consciousness + Social Influence +Hypnosis

Define the biopsychosocial approach of Hypnosis

Biological influences: distinctive brain activity/ unconscious information processing; Psychological influences: focused attention/ expectations/ heightened suggestibility/ dissociation between normal sensations and conscious awareness; Social-cultural influences: presence of an authoritative person in legitimate context/ role playing "good subject"

State of consciousness: Spontaneously

Daydreaming. Drowsiness. Dreaming.

People believe that conscious controls when it doesn't.. Give an example. In one experiment, two people jointly controlled a computer mouse.

Even when their partner (who was actually the experimenter's accomplice) caused the mouse to stop on a predetermined square, the participants perceived that they had caused it to stop there.

States of consciousness: Physiologically induced

Hallucinations. Orgasm. Food or oxygen starvation

Tell how selective attention explains hypnotic pain relief. (form of dual processing)

Hypnotic pain relief is the effect of selective attention because it reduced brain activity in a region that processes painful stimuli, but not in the sensory cortex, which receives the raw sensory input.

What does a hypnotist do?

Hypnotist suggest to close eyes and relax boyd. Few minutes later, you are beyond control to disobey the hypnotist

Our information processing, which starts with selective attention, is divided into simultaneous conscious and unconscious realms.

In hypnosis as in life, much of our behavior occurs on autopilot. We have two-track minds.

Can hypnosis be therapeutic?

Kind of

What happened to psychology after 1960?

Mental concepts reemerged. Neuroscience advances related brain activity to sleeping, dreaming, and other mental states. Researchers began studying consciousness altered by hypnosis and drugs. Psychologists of all persuasions were affirming the importance of cognition, or mental processes.

Do subjects fake hypnosis consciously?

NO

Can hypnosis enhance recall of forgotten events?

No

When unhypnotized people put their arm in an ice bath, they feel intense pain within 25 seconds. When hypnotized people do the same after being given suggestions to feel no pain, do they feel pain?

No

What happened to psychology by the 1960's?

Psychology had nearly lost consciousness and was defining itself as "the science of behavior.

Give an example of when consciousness seems to split.

Reading Green Eggs and Ham: obliging mouth could say the words while my mind wandered elsewhere.; Asks what you're doing for lunch while you're texting, it's not a problem. Your thumbs complete the message as you suggest getting tacos.

States of consciousness:psychologically induced

Sensory deprivation. Hypnosis. Meditation

Attention is diverted from a painful ice bath. How? (Social influence theory and Divided-consciousness theory)

Social influence theory: The subject is so caught up in the hypnotized role that she ignores the cold.; Divided-consciousness theory: Hypnosis has caused a split in awareness.

Hypnosis is a normal social and cognitive preocess. How?

Told to scratch their ear later when they hear the word psychology, subjects will likely do so—but only if they think the experiment is still under way. If an experimenter eliminates their motivation for acting hypnotized—by stating that hypnosis reveals their "gullibility"—subjects become unresponsive.

Most people believe that experiences are all there recorded in brain and we are able to recall if we break through our own defenses. What's the truth?

We don't take in everything around us. We permanently store some experiences, but we are unable to retrieve some stored memories

In the Stroop Effect experiment, researchers invited hypnotizable and non hypnotizable people to say the color of letters. This is an easy task, but it slows if, say, green letters form the conflicting word RED.What was the result?

When easily hypnotized people were given a suggestion to focus on the color and to perceive the letters as irrelevant gibberish, they were much less slowed by the word-color conflict. (Brain areas that decode words and detect conflict remained inactive.)

Explain postural away.

When people stand upright with their eyes closed and are told that they are swaying back and forth, most will indeed sway a little. In fact, postural sway is one of the items assessed on the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale.

Can anyone experience hypnosis?

YES

Can hypnosis force people to act against their will?

Yes and No

Can hypnosis relieve pain?

Yes. Hypnosis inhibits pain-related brain activity.

Explain the 2 track mind when under hypnosis,

You can see the chair and report it's not here, but manage to avoid it when walking

What's dissociation? (form of dual processing)

a split between different levels of consciousness

Define consciousness

awareness of ourselves and environment

Hypnosis does not block sensory input, but it may...

block our attention to those stimuli

Examples of dissociation

doodling while listening to a lecture; typing the end of a sentence while starting a conversation. ; hypnotized people lower their arm into an ice bath, the hypnosis dissociates the sensation of the pain stimulus (of which the subjects are still aware) from the emotional suffering that defines their experience of pain. The ice water therefore feels cold—very cold—but not painful.

To psychologists, consciousness is a ______________ concept.

fundamental yet vague

Define posthypnotic suggestions

help alleviate headaches, asthma, and stress related skin disorder

Define hypnotherapists

help patients harness with own healing power

People that believe that they saw aliens are?

highly hypnotizable people. (explains the concept of hypnotically refreshed memories that combine fact with fiction)

Hypnotic subjects carry out suggested behaviors when they believe that no one is watching and distinctive brain activity accompanies_____________.

hypnosis

People who postural sway are the same people that respond to what?

hypnosis

Ernest Hilgard believed what?

hypnosis involves not only social influence but also a special dual-processing state of dissociation. Hilgard viewed hypnotic dissociation as a vivid form of everyday mind splits.

Hypnosis starts with what?

hypnotic induction

The power of hypnotism is no magic-mind control. Where does the power reside?

in subject's openness to suggestion and ability to focus on certain image and behaviors

Sometimes the conscious mind tells you ___, but you body says ___

no;yes

People that can experience hypnosis are what?

open to suggestion.

An authoritative person in a legitimate context can induce people—hypnotized or not—to perform _______________

some unlikely acts

Hypnosis involves heightened suggestibility. Therefore it can help overcome what?

stress related ailments and relieve pain

Define hypnotic ability.

the ability to focus attention totally on a task, to become imaginatively absorbed in it, to entertain fanciful possibilities.

In the beginning what was psychology described as?

the description and explanation of states of consciousness

In the first half of the 20th century, what was it described as?

the difficulty of scientifically studying consciousness led many psychologists to turn to direct observations of behavior.

Researchers have induced hypnotized people to perform an apparently dangerous act: plunging one hand briefly into fuming "acid," then throwing the "acid" in a researcher's face Interviewed a day later, what had happened?

these people emphatically denied their acts and said they would never follow such orders

Explain this further.

they begin to feel or behave in ways appropriate for good hypnotic subjects. they like and trust the hypnotists more and allows the person to direct attention and fantasies. The hypnotists ideas become the subjects thoughts.

Hypnosis is positive for__________________________ and negative for_______________________.

treatment of obesity; drugs/alcohol/smoking; In controlled studies, hypnosis speeds the disappearance of warts, but so do the same positive suggestions given without hypnosis

Although much of our information processing is conscious, much is?

unconscious and automatic—outside our awareness because of our selective attention; also attentive when we learn concept or behavior

22-1 Describe the place of consciousness in psychology's history.

• After initially claiming consciousness as its area of study in the nineteenth century, psychologists had abandoned it in the first half of the twentieth century, turning instead to the study of observable behavior because they believed consciousness was too diffi cult to study scientifically. • Since 1960, under the influence of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, consciousness (our awareness of ourselves and our environment) has resumed its place as an important area of research.

22-2 Define hypnosis, and describe how a hypnotist can influence a hypnotized subject.

• Hypnosis is a social interaction in which one person suggests to another that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur. • Hypnosis does not enhance recall of forgotten events (it may even evoke false memories). • It cannot force people to act against their will, though hypnotized people, like unhypnotized people, may perform unlikely acts. • Posthypnotic suggestions have helped people harness their own healing powers but have not been very effective in treating addiction. Hypnosis can help relieve pain.

22-3 Discuss whether hypnosis is an extension of normal consciousness or an altered state.

• Many psychologists believe that hypnosis is a form of normal social infl uence and that hypnotized people act out the role of "good subject" by following directions given by an authoritative person. • Other psychologists view hypnosis as a dissociation—a split between normal sensations and conscious awareness. Selective attention may also contribute by blocking attention to certain stimuli.