PSY 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Sensory Memory, Cocktail Party, Epigenetic Clock

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Mark Dallas

Document Summary

Consciousness: our awareness of ourselves and our environment. Selectivity: capacity of consciousness to include some things but not others. Transience: consciousness has a tendency to change its focus. Dual processing: information is simultaneously processed on conscious and unconscious levels. Almost all information is ignored because it is not available to consciousness or it is suppressed due to other things going on. Serial conscious processing: solving problems with unfocused attention. Unconscious parallel processing: auto-pilot, taking care of routine business. Selective attention: focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. Cocktail party effect (focusing on one message while filtering out others) We are good at focusing on one stimuli but not at sharing attention between tasks-ex. Inattentional blindness failure to see objects when attention is directed elsewhere. Circadian rhythm: biological clock , regular body rhythm occurring over a 24-hr period. Regulated by suprachiasmatic nucleus, which responds to daylight and tells pineal gland to release melatonin.