PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Reticular Formation, Jet Lag, Theta Wave

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Doug Mc Cann

Document Summary

Psych 1010 chapter 5: variations in consciousness. Consciousness the awareness of internal and external stimuli. Consciousness is in constant flux; william james named this flow the stream of consciousness. Every human behavior comes from a mixture of conscious and unconscious processing. Mind wandering refers to people"s experiences of task-unrelated thoughts. In contrast to controlled processes judgements or thoughts that we exert some control over, that we intend to occur automatic processing and its effects happen without our intentional control or effort. Consciousness arises from activity in distributed networks of neural pathways. Electroencephalograph (eeg) a device that monitors the electrical activity of the brain over time by means of recording electrodes attached to the surface of the scalp. Different patterns of eeg activity are associated with different states of consciousness. We do not know whether changes in mental states cause brain wave changes or vice versa. Also, a third factor (signals coming from subcortical structure of brain) causing both.