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Consciousness Summary - Numerus Fixus RuG Psychology
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Summary of the Consciousness chapter for the numerus fixus test of the psychology course at the University of Groningen.
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INTRODUCTIE IN DE PSYCHOLOGIE HOOFDSTUK 4: CONSCIOUSNESSWHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?
Consciousness consists of a person’s moment-by-moment personal, subjective experiences. It involves senses,
memory, thoughts and anything else you experience in the moment. The subjectivity of consciousness makes it
difficult to study empirically. Subjective experiences of sensations are called qualia, meaning the qualitative
experiences of your consciousness state. We cannot measure if the qualia of two people are the same. Most
things your body and mind do are not done conscious.
4.1 CONSCIOUSNESS IS LIMITED
Most of the time your subjective thoughts or perceptions make sense, they flow from one to another.
Consciousness is often described as a continuous stream, and thoughts flow on that stream. You are able to
fully process only a limited amount of the information available to you at any given time.
That means that we also miss some important things because we focus on different things. This is known as
change blindness. Major changes in environment can go unnoticed because the consciousness is focused on
different things. We can consciously only perceive a limited amount of information. Large discrepancies exist
between what most of us believe we see and what we actually see. Thus, our perceptions of the world are
often inaccurate, and we have little conscious awareness of our perceptual failure.
4.2 ATTENTION IS THE GATEWAY TO CONSCIOUS AWARENESS
Attention involves being able to focus selectively on some things and not others. Attention and consciousness
are different but go hand in hand. Attention selects what you are consciously aware about and makes it so that
you can fully perceive and process it. Some information gets processed because you want to focus on it. Other
information gets through because it is personally relevant (your name, loud, meaningful or physically obvious).
Theories about information-filtering have been revised a lot the last few years. Every theory says one thing is
for sure. There is some gateway that prioritizes processing and awareness of relevant information.
Intentionally directing your focus on something is called endogenous attention. Emotional factors of for
example a cramp can change the direction of your focus to something else that has a priority. If the focus of
your attention is driven by a stimulus or event, it is called exogenous attention.
The impact of attention on how the brain processes stimuli happens early in the perceptual process. The brain
responds to some unattended stimuli, suggesting it is perceived at some level, but attending to and becoming
consciously aware of a stimulus enhances and expands the brain’s response to that stimulus. It might be
possible to observe conscious experiences by looking at brain activity. People share common patterns of brain
activity that provide insights into their conscious experiences.
4.3 LAPTOPS IN THE CLASSROOM
Consciousness is limited, and attending the classroom while being active on social media can lead to
distraction. It makes the student more prone to miss valuable information.
4.4 UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING CAN INFLUENCE BEHAVIOR
People can fail to attend to or consciously perceive information in their environment. This does not mean the
information is always irrelevant. Look at behavior for example, the classical Freudian slip occurs when an
unconscious thought is suddenly expressed at an inappropriate time or in an inappropriate social context.
Freud compared consciousness to the tip of the iceberg and unconsciousness to the whole extend of the
, iceberg. Studies of selective listening show that unattended information might still be processed to some
degree.
Priming occurs when the response to a stimulus is influenced or facilitated by recent experiences with that (or
related) stimulus. It even occurs when the previous event is not consciously processed. Subliminal perception
occurs when stimuli are processed by sensory systems but, because of their short durations or subtlety, do not
reach consciousness. But evidence shows that subliminal massaging (in music, movies or ads) has very little
effect on most behavior. Even if the material presented has very little effect on complex actions, it can subtly
influence behavior. But when used, they are most powerful in an emotional or motivational context. Many
stimuli in our environment nudge us in one or another, but such a modest effect is not enough to improve our
self-image or persuade us into buying things we do not want.
4.5 AUTOMATIC PROCESSING REDUCES DEMANDS ON CONSCIOUSNESS
Automatic processing occurs when a task is so well learned that we can do it without much attention.
Controlled processing is slower, but helps people perform in complex or novel situations (driving versus driving
in a rainstorm). Automatic processing is beneficial in that it allows us to devote our limited consciousness to
other tasks. Too much attention can even interfere with automatic behavior. Automatic processing has a cost in
some situations, for example when driving in a different country where you drive on the left side of the road.
WHAT IS ALTERED CONSCIOUSNESS?
A person’s subjective sense of consciousness varies over the course of a day (focused or zoned out). A state
that changes your subjective perception of consciousness from how you typically experience it is referred to as
altered consciousness. There are three ways (along with being under the influence of drugs) of naturally
altering consciousness: meditation, immersion in an action and hypnosis.
4.6 MEDITATION PRODUCES RELAXATION BY GUIDING ATTENTION
During meditation a person focuses on an external object, an internal event, or a sense or awareness to create
a state of altered consciousness. Concentrative meditation is done by focusing on one thing (sometimes called
mantra). Mindfulness meditation is when you let your thoughts flow but try not react to them. In Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Sikhism different forms of meditation are popular. In the west it is mainly done to relief people
of stress. Early studies have found number of health benefits from meditation, but the results were debated
because of the sample-size. A later study showed an improvement in health for the experimental group. But it
could not be said that the positive results were due to the meditation or simply reducing stress. Studies also
showed meditation improved cognitive brain functions.
4.7 DOES MEDITATION CHANGE THE STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN?
There are documented changes in psychological states when meditating. A corresponding change of brain
activity patterns underlie these psychological states. Some research states that meditation has long-term
positive health benefits. Grey matter wouldn’t decrease as fast in older adults who meditate regularly. So,
meditation might help preserve brain integrity and associated cognitive functioning as people age. But
correlation does not equal causation. There are lots of factors that could have influenced the studies.
4.8 PEOPLE CAN LOSE THEMSELVES IN ACTIVITIES
Several activities and behaviors change how we are aware of the world around us. The activities can sometimes
change the way our conscious experience in such a way that we are less aware of other things.
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