PSY 1101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Psychological Dependence, Caffeine, Chemical Substance

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Kenneth Campbell

Document Summary

Consciousness: our awareness of ourselves and our environment. Allows us to assemble information from multiple sources. Focuses our attention when we learn a complex concept or behavior. Helps us act in our long-term interest. Neuroscience advances linked brain activity to sleeping, dreaming, and other mental states. Researchers began studying consciousness altered by hypnosis, drugs, and meditation. We flit between different states of consciousness; including sleeping, waking and various altered states. Physiologically induced: hallucinations, orgasm, food or oxygen starvation. Cognitive neuroscience: the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory and language) Some vegetative show cognitive function (in fmri scans) Cognitive neuroscientists are mapping the conscious functions of the cortex. Some view sees conscious experiences as produced by the synchronized activity across the brain. A strong stimulus will engage areas of the brain that are involved with activities such as language, attention and memory. A weak stimulus may trigger a localized cortex that quickly dies out.