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Summary AP Psychology Unit 5 Comprehensive Notes
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Consciousness- Our mental model of the world which we are aware of
- Part of the mind where we can retrieve a fact, an idea, an emotion, a memory → and
combine it with critical thinking
Types of consciousness
- Waking consciousness: state in which thoughts, feelings, and sensations are clear and
organized → the person feels alert
- Altered state of consciousness: state in which there is a shift in the quality or pattern
of mental activity as compared to waking consciousness
- Ie. drugs, hallucinations
Competing views (schools of psych)
- Structuralists: use introspection (self-reporting) to find the boundaries of conscious
thought
- Behaviorists: John Watson – takes the “mind” out of psychology as he argued there is
no real way to see inside of it → science of behavior (observations) rather than
consciousness or mind
- Hate structuralists because they think structuralists are not scientific
- Then in 1960s, people because to question behaviorist because:
1. There were psychological issues that needed better explanations that
behaviorism could offer
- This was a time where drugs were popular + perceptual illusions,
memory, etc.
2. Technological innovations let psychologists look into the brain in ways that
Watson did not consider
- Cognitive neuroscience: combines cognitive psychology, neurology, biology, computer
science, and linguistics
Conscious Mind
- Mind must focus sequentially on ONE thing and then another → multitasking is NOT a
thing *in the conscious mind*
- Explicit processing: processing conscious through and focusing your full attention at
the task on hand → effortful processing → hyperaware
- Common when you’re dealing with a NEW task
Nonconscious Process
- Implicit processing: processing that happens without conscious awareness
- You can perform an action before you even become aware of it → automatic
processing
- Parallel processing: multitasking; handling many streams of info at same time
- Ie. Walking while chewing gum while breathing
- Conscious mind can only focus on one task VS unconscious mind has no restrictions
,Functions of Consciousness (3)
1. Consciousness restricts our attention
- Prevents overstimulation of brain through selective attention → processing things
serially and limited what we notice and think
2. Consciousness provides a mental “meeting place”
- Place where sensation combines with memory, emotions and motives → binding
problem
- Ie. you SEE an italian restaurant, TASTE pizza, and SMELL pasta → you
conclude that you are IN an italian restaurant
3. Consciousness creates a mental model of the world that we can manipulate
- Allows us to process the world
- We are the only animal that can set goals → we can plan ahead, reflect on the
past, make a mental map of our life
- Unlike simpler organisms, we don’t just act reflexively to stimulation
Mental Imaging
- We can use our conscious mind to “zoom in” or manipulate an image
- Ie. imagine a cat in your head
- The smaller the detail, the longer people take to respond because we go through
the levels of consciousness
Levels of Consciousness → Levels that exhaust BEYOND conscious level:
- Mere-exposure effect or familiarity principle: we tend to develop a preference for
things merely because you are familiar with it
- Ie. if you have black cat, you would probably imagine a black cat
- Ie. you would typically stick with drinks you’re used to or when you try something
new, you find flavors you like (ie. mango flavor)
- Blind sight: ability to respond to visual stimuli w/out having any conscious visual
experience → occur after brain damage
- Condition where people can still process visual stimuli despite being cortically
blind (damage to primary visual cortex)
- Eyes are still working but brain processing is damaged
- Visual abilities in blindsight patients are limited and specific → some things can
still be interpreted even without primary visual cortex
- Types of blindsight → vary between people:
- Action-blindsight: point at moving object or follow with their eyes
- Attention-blindsight: sense an object in visual field despite not seeing it
- Agnosopia: can state color, shape or category of object
- Affective-blindsight: process bodily and facial expressions → has to do
with amygdala
- Ie. a man walking through a room with objects blocking his way → can
subconsciously sense and maneuver around them → but can’t identify those
objects
, Levels of Subconscious Mind
- Preconscious memories: information that is not currently in consciousness but can be
recalled voluntarily
- Unconscious: cognition (thought) without awareness
- Involves brain systems ranging from autopilot to subtle influences on
consciousness and behavior
Priming
- Where psychologists influence the answer people give
- Asking “leading questions” or framing questions in a certain to which increases the
likelihood of certain answer
- Ie. instead of saying “describe the person” → you say “describe the MAN”
- Ie. by saying the word “define” before, we prime the reader to fill in the blanks with the
word “define”
Freud's View of Consciousness
- According to Freud, there are three levels of consciousness
1. Conscious: part of mind that holds what you’re aware of
- Can verbalize this conscious experience and can think about it in a logical
fashion
2. Presconcious: ordinary memory
- Things stored here aren’t in the conscious but can be readily brought into
conscious
3. Unconscious: Freud believed this part was not directly accessible to awareness
- Dump box for deep urges, feeling and ideas tied to anxiety, conflict and
pain → deepest darkest desires
- These feelings and thoughts have not disappeared → they still have
influence on our actions and conscious awareness
- Ie. according to Freud, if a murderer killed a bunch of women, maybe
deep down they had bad experiences or hate to women
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