01:830:101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Change Blindness, Inattentional Blindness, Introspection Illusion
Module 8 Outline: Brain States and Consciousness
The Place of Consciousness in Psychology’s History
▪ 1880s: Psychology defined as description and explanation of states of consciousness
▪ First half of 20th century: Direct observation of behavior
▪ 1960s: Consciousness nearly lost; science of behavior
▪ After 1960s: Study of consciousness altered by hypnosis, drugs, and meditation; importance of
cognition
▪ Today: Under the influence of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience, our
consciousness has reclaimed its place as an important area of research.
Brain States and Consciousness
▪ Consciousness: Awareness of self and environment
▪ Inattentional blindness: Failure to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
The Biology of Consciousness
▪ Cognitive neuroscientists
▪ Explore and map conscious cortex function and can sometimes “read” minds
▪ Suggest consciousness arises from synchronized brain activity
Dual Processing: The Two-Track Mind
▪ Dual processing
▪ Principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious (explicit)
“highroad”-reflective and unconscious (implicit) intuitive “low road”-intuitive
▪ Perceptions, memory, attitudes, and other cognitions all operate on two levels
▪ The human brain is a device for converting conscious into unconscious knowledge
Blindsight awareness
▪ Condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing
▪ Patient D.F—brain damage caused her to not be able to see ‘consciously” but be able mail a
letter
▪ We have some blindsight—if our right and left eyes view different scenes, we will only be
conscious of one at a time, yet we display some blindsight awareness of the other
▪ Eye sends information simultaneously to different brain regions that support different tasks
▪ D.F.’s brain had damage in area responsible for recognizing objects
When the blind can “see”
• A visual perception track enables us “to think about the world”—to recognize things and to plan
future actions. A visual action track guides our moment-to-moment movements.
Cognitive neuroscience is the Interdisciplinary
study of the brain activity linked with cognition
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
coralporcupine379 and 85 others unlocked
172
01:830:101 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
172 documents