PSY1100 - Ch. 4 - States of Consciousness

Levels of Awareness:

- 5 shades of awareness that are unique: 1) Higher-Level Consciousness 2) Lower-Level Consciousness 3) Altered States of Consciousness 4) Subconsciousness 5) No awareness

Sleep

- A natural state of rest for the body and mind that involves the reversible loss of consciousness - Important for body restoration and brain plasticity

Psychoactive Drugs

- Act on the nervous system to alter consciousness, modify perceptions, and change moods - Some use them to deal with life's difficulties

REM Sleep (Stage 5 sleep)

- Active stage of sleep during which dreaming occurs - Sleep paralysis - EEG shows fast waves similar to relaxed wakefulness, sleeper's eyeballs move up and down and from left to right - Usually occurs as come back down from stage 2 sleep, then enter REM cycle, then go back into stage 2 sleep and back up

Cognitive development theory of dreams

- Amount of REM sleep greater in infants than in adults - REM sleep/dreams help cognitive development

Hypnosis

- An altered state of consciousness or as a psychological state of altered attention and expectation in which the individual is unusually receptive to suggestions - State of concentration & selective attention; not like sleep - Useful for pain, medical conditions, & habit disorders - Brain activity during hypnotic state suggest that hypnosis produces a state of consciousness similar to other states of consciousness - 4 Steps: 1) Minimize distractions, makes person comfortable 2) Tells person to concentrate on something specific, such as ticking of a watch 3) Informs person what to expect in hypnotic state 4) Suggests certain events or feelings he or she knows will occur or observes occurring, such as "eyes getting tired"

Consciousness

- An individual's awareness of external events and internal sensations under a condition of arousal. (awareness of self & environment) - Awareness: awareness of the self and thoughts about one's experiences. Having awareness means that our sensory experiences are more than the sum of their parts - Arousal: The physiological state of being engaged with the environment. - Dual processing: simultaneously process info consciously and unconsciously

Sleep and brain neurotransmitters

- As sleep begins, neurotransmitters sent to forebrain start dropping and continue to fall until they reach lowest levels in stage 4 - REM sleep sees a rise in ACH, which activates cerebral cortex while rest of the brain remains relatively inactive. - REM sleep ends when there is a rise in serotonin and norepinephrine, increasing forebrain activity nearly to awakened state. Most likely to wake up just after a REM period. If not, enter another sleep cycle

Meditation

- Attaining a peaceful state of mind in which thoughts are not occupied by worry; meditator mindfully present to his or her thoughts and feelings but is not consumed by them

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory related to dreams

- Believed dreams were a key to our unconscious minds - Believed that dreams (even nightmares) symbolize unconscious wishes and that analysis of dream symbols could uncover our hidden desires

Altered States of Consciousness

- Can be produced by drugs, trauma, fatigue, possibly hypnosis, and sensory deprivation - Feeling the effects of having taken alcohol or psychedelic drugs; undergoing hypnosis to quit smoking or lose weight

Subconscious Awareness

- Can occur when people are awake, as well as when they are sleeping and dreaming - Sleeping and dreaming - Waking Subconscious Awareness: Processes going on just below surface of our awareness. - Subconscious Awareness during sleep and dreams: Dreams considered low levels of consciousness. When asleep, remain aware to external stimuli to some degree.

Stream of Consciousness

- Continuous flow of changing sensations, images, thoughts, and feelings. - Description of the mind by William James - "Fringe" of Consciousness - all the thoughts and feelings we have about our thoughts.

Sleep Stages

- Correspond to massive electrophysiological changes that occur throughout the brain as the fast, irregular, and low-amplitude electrical activity of wakefulness is replaced by the slow, regular, high-amplitude waves of deep sleep - Wakefulness Stages: Beta waves - concentration and alertness. Faster, desynchronous Alpha waves - relaxed but still awake; slower, more synchronous - Sleep Stages: 1-4 = Non-REM Sleep; low likelihood of dreaming 5 = REM Sleep: most likely to be dreaming

Circadian Rhythms

- Daily behavioral or physiological cycles - Eg: sleep/wake cycle, body temp, blood pressure, blood sugar level - Body monitors the change from day to night by means of the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus, a small brain structure that uses input from the retina to synchronize its own rhythm with the daily cycle of light and dark.

Stage 4 sleep

- Deep sleep when sleeper is difficult to rouse - Delta sleep - Delta waves present more than 50% of the time - Deepest sleep, when brain waves are least like waking brain waves - Stage when bedwetting, sleepwalking, and sleep talking occur

Activation-Synthesis Theory of dreams

- Dreaming occurs when the cerebral cortex synthesizes neural signals generated from activity in the lower part of the brain - *Dreams result from the brain's attempts to find logic in random brain activity that occurs during sleep* - During sleep, conscious experience driven by internally generated stimuli that have no apparent behavioral consequence - Spontaneous neural activity in the brain stem triggers internal stimulation, which produces dreams from sensory experiences - Eg: incorporate ringing alarm clock into dreams - Nervous system cycling through various activities, and our consciousness is along for the ride - Dreams a flashy sideshow, not the main event

Stage 1 Sleep

- Drowsy sleep - May have sudden muscle movements called myoclonic jerks - Lasts up to 10 minutes - Theta waves present - Relatively light stage of sleep

No awareness

- Freud's belief that some unconscious thoughts are too laden with anxiety and other negative emotions for consciousness to admit them - Having unconscious thoughts; being knocked out by a blow or anesthetized - Unconscious thought: reservoir of unacceptable wishes, feelings, and thoughts that are beyond conscious awareness. Storehouse for vile thoughts and impulses

Social Cognitive Behavior View of Hypnosis

- Hypnosis is a normal state in which the hypnotized person behaves the way he or she believes that a hypnotized person should behave - Hypnosis based around cognitive factors - attitudes, expectations, and beliefs of good hypnotic participants - and around the powerful social context in which hypnosis occurs - Individuals being hypnotized surrender their responsibility to the hypnotist and follow the hypnotist's suggestions; and they have expectations about what hypnosis is supposed to be like. - Subject caught up in hypnotized role

Insomina

- Inability to sleep - Can involve problems falling asleep, waking up during the night, or waking up too early - More common among women and older adults, as well as individuals who are thin, stressed, or depressed

Lower-Level Consciousness

- Includes *automatic processing that requires little attention, as well as daydreaming* - Punching in a number on a cell phone; typing on a keyboard when one is an expert, gazing at a sunset

Theory of Mind

- Individuals' understanding that they and others think, feel, perceive, and have private experiences. - Developmental accomplishment, often studied in children - False belief task - test for children's theory of mind - Theory of mind essential to valuable social capacities, such as empathy and sympathy - Theory of mind mechanism (Baron-Cohen): suggests we are born with a brain mechanism that is ready to develop a theory of mind.

Higher-Level Consciousness

- Involves *controlled processing, in which individuals actively focus their efforts on attaining a goal* - Most alert state of consciousness - Doing a math or science problem; preparing for a debate; taking an at-bat in a baseball game

Narcolepsy

- Sudden, overpowering urge to sleep - Often so uncontrollable that person may fall asleep while talking or standing up - Immediately enter REM sleep rather than progressing through first 4 sleep stages

Daydreaming

- Low level of conscious effort - Between active consciousness and dreaming while asleep - Usually occurs when doing something that requires less than our full attention - Keeps minds active while helping us cope, create, and fantasize

Controlled Processes

- Most alert states of human consciousness - Individuals actively focus their efforts toward a goal - Require selective attention: the ability to concentrate on a specific aspect of experience while ignoring others - Executive Function: Higher-order, complex cognitive processes, including thinking, planning, and problem solving Ability to harness consciousness to focus in on specific thoughts while ignoring others - Typically slower than automatic processes because they demand attention and effort - Eg: classmate trying to learn new smartphone, focuses intently on learning it, oblivious to others - Can't do 2 controlled processes at same time very well (eg: driving and texting)

Stage 2 Sleep

- Muscle activity decreases, person no longer consciously aware of the environment - Heart rate slows, temp drops, muscles relax - Sleep spindles present in EEG (high frequency waves) - Lasts up to 20 minutes - Relatively light stage of sleep

Sleep Cycles through the night

- One cycle lasts about 90 to 100 minutes, recurs several times during the night - Amount of deep sleep (3 and 4) much greater in first half of a night's sleep than in the second half - Most REM sleep takes place toward end of night's sleep - During normal night of sleep, individuals spend about 60% of sleep in light sleep (1 and 2), 20 percent in delta sleep (3 and 4), and 20% in REM sleep

Biological rhythms

- Periodic physiological fluctuations in the body. We are unaware of most of them, but they can influence our behavior

Addiction to drugs

- Physical or psychological dependence, or both on drugs - Person's body requires a drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms - How? Drugs increase dopamine levels in brain's reward pathways. Increasing the activity of this reward pathway due to increasing dopamine transmission - Pathway to addiction: 1) Experimentation 2) Regular Use 3) Preoccupation 4) Dependence

Arousal

- Physiological state determined by the reticular activating system, a network of structures including the brain stem, medulla, and thalamus - Refers to the ways that awareness is regulated: If in danger, need to be on high alert, arousal high. In safe environment, arousal low.

Stage 3 Sleep

- Progressively more muscle relaxation - Delta sleep - Delta waves present (slowest and highest-amplitude brain waves during sleep) less than 50% of the time

Divided Consciousness View of Hypnosis (Hilgard)

- Proposed that hypnosis involves a special state of consciousness in which consciousness is split into separate components - Dissociation: split between consciousness levels - One component follows the hypnotist's commands, while the other component acts as a hidden observer

Cognitive Theory of dreams

- Proposes that we can understand dreaming by applying the same cognitive concepts we use in studying the waking mind - *Dreams process, assimilate, and update info from the day* - Rests on the idea that dreams are essentially subconscious cognitive processing. - Dreaming involves information processing and memory; thinking during dreams seems to be very similar to thinking in waking life - Dreams viewed as dramatizations of general life concerns that are similar to relaxed daydreams. - Ties the brain activity that occurs during dreams to the activity that occurs during waking life. - Dreaming during sleep may emerge from the activity of the default network, a collection of neurons that are active during mind wandering and daydreaming - Dreams should be viewed as kind of mental simulation that is very similar in content to our everyday waking thoughts - Different from Freud's theory

Stimulants

- Psychoactive drugs that *increase the CNS' activity* - Eg: Caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine - Caffeine: Most widely used psychoactive drug - Nicotine: Main psychoactive ingredient in smoking; highly addictive. Stimulates brain's reward centers by raising dopamine levels - Amphetamines: "Uppers;" used to boost energy, stay awake, or lose weight. Diet pills, etc. Increase the release of dopamine - Cocaine: coca plant from Bolivia and Peru - Ectasy/MDMA: synthetic drug with stimulant and hallucinogenic properties

Hallucinogens

- Psychoactive drugs that *modify a person's perceptual experiences and produce visual images that are not real.* Also called psychedelic drugs - Eg: Marijuana, LSD - LSD: Hallucinogen that even in low doses produces striking perceptual changes

Depressants

- Psychoactive drugs that *slow down mental and physical activity/CNS* - Eg: Alcohol, barbiturates, tranquilizers, and opiates - Barbiturates: Depressant drugs that decrease central nervous system activity. Often taken as sleep aids - Tranquilizers: Depressant drugs that reduce anxiety and induce relaxation. Valium and Xanax - *Opiates: consist of opium and its derivatives and depress the CNS's activity. Used as pain killers. Called "narcotics." Morphine and heroin*

Physiological function theory of dreaming

- Regular stimulation from REM helps develop and preserve neural pathways

Sleep Apnea

- Sleep disorder in which individuals stop breathing because the windpipe fails to open or because the brain processes involved in respiration fail to work properly - Experience numerous brief awakenings during the night so that they can breathe better, although they usually are not aware of their awakened state - May feel sleepy during the day because deprived of sleep at night - Common sign is loud snoring punctuated by slience

Latent Content of Dreams

- The dream's hidden content, its unconscious-and true-meaning - Wish fulfillment - Eg: Dream of riding on a train and talking with a friend; analyzing dream images would have to be done to determine latent content

Manifest content of Dreams

- The dream's surface content, which contains dream symbols that disguise the dream's true meaning - Eg: Dream of riding on a train and talking with a friend; train ride is dream's manifest content

Tolerance of drugs

- The need to take increasing amounts of a drug to get the same effect - Results from continued use of psychoactive drugs

Physical Dependence of drugs

- The physiological need for a drug that causes unpleasant withdrawal symptoms such as physical pain and a craving for the drug when it is discontinued - Drugs act like neurotransmitters so body produces less; need more drug to compensate for subnormal levels - Psychological dependence: psychological need - Results from continued drug use

Psychological Dependence of drugs

- The strong desire to repeat the use of a drug for emotional reasons, such as a feeling of well-being and reduction of stress

Brain Workspace approach to Consciousness

- The widespread ability of information broadcast throughout the brain is what we experience as conscious awareness

Metacognition

- Todays term of describing the processes by which we think about thinking.

Automatic Processes

- states of consciousness that require little attention and do not interfere with other ongoing activities. - Require less conscious effort than controlled processes - When awake, Automatic behaviors occur at lower level of awareness than controlled processes, but they are still conscious behaviors - Eg: classmate with new smartphone ultimately able to send text message while carrying on conversation with others - Can do controlled processes and automatic processes at same time (eg: walking and chewing gum)

Sleep Theory (Theories of why we sleep)

1) Evolutionary - conserved energy; still when predators active; SAFEST thing for us to do during the night 2) Repair/Restoration - recuperation from daily activities 3) Memory Consolidation - Strengthens and stabilizes memory traces 4) Supports Growth - Pituitary releases growth hormone during sleep