PSYC 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Visual Cortex, Dazed, Informed Consent
14 Dec 2016
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Sensation, perception and consciousness
(part 2)
Introduction to Psychology PSYC*1000-01 Lecture 10
October 13th 2016
Module(s) 4.1 & 5.1
Ethical issues in the news:
Informed consent?
• Ontario legislature is introducing Bill 41
• It gives the government power to audit, review and investigate patients medical records
without a warrant or their consent.
• Government appointed bureaucrats would have access to some of your most intimate details
• No more patient-doctor confidentiality?
Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize
meaningful objects and events
• Unconsciously, we see: color, motion, forum, depth
• Conscious experience -> I saw a flying bird!
• Parallel processing refers to building perceptions out of sensory details processed in different
areas of the brain at the same time
• Bottom-up processes: Construct the whole from its parts (Starts with activity in the primary
visual cortex followed by the association cortex)
• Top-down processes: Starts with our beliefs and expectations, which we impose on the raw
stimuli captured by our senses (Starts with activity in the association cortex followed by the
primary visual cortex)
1.1 What is consciousness?
• In psychology, it often refers to a persons subjective awareness of internal and external stimuli,
including thoughts, perceptions, experiences, and self- awareness.
• According to William James, the "stream of consciousness" is governed by four characteristics:
1. Every thought tends to be part of a personal consciousness
2. Consciousness is in constant change
3. Within each personal consciousness thought is sensibly continuous
4. It attends to some parts of these objects to the exclusion of others
1.2 What is attention?
Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of
one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or train of thought. It implies withdrawal
from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in
the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state which is called distraction.
-William James, Principles of psychology (1890/1983) pp. 381-382
What really is attention?
No one knows what attention is, and... there may even not be an it there to be known about (although
of course there might be) -Harold Pashler
What does attention do?
• Among its multiple roles a fundamental one is to guide perception
• Perception involves the processing of sensory information in such a way that it produces
conscious experiences that we attend to and guides actions in the world
2. How attention shapes (limits) consciousness?
• We dont attend to all of it, only some pieces
• Broadbents filter theory of attention
• Attention is a bottleneck through which information passes
• Filter that allows us to pay attention to important stimuli while we ignore others
Selectively directing attention
• Selective attention: What we focus on is what we consciously perceive
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Informed consent: ontario legislature is introducing bill 41. It attends to some parts of these objects to the exclusion of others. 1. 2 what is attention? (cid:1688)everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or train of thought. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state which is called distraction. (cid:1689) What really is attention? (cid:1688)no one knows what attention is, and there may even not be an (cid:1684)it(cid:1685) there to be known about (although of course there might be)(cid:1689) -harold pashler. Selectively directing attention: selective attention: what we focus on is what we consciously perceive, attention shapes how we construct the world around us, it feels like a unified experience, but it is not, it is a limited ability.
