PSYCHOLOGY
Third Edition
by
Drew Westen
PowerPoint  Presentation
Chapter 9
CONSCIOUSNESS
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Lecture Outline
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Nature of Consciousness
Perspectives on Consciousness
Sleep and Dreaming
Altered States of Consciousness
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Consciousness
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William James (1890):
 Consciousness is a constantly moving stream of
thoughts, feelings, and emotions
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Consciousness can be viewed as our subjective
awareness of mental events
Functions of consciousness:
 Monitoring mental events
 Control: consciousness allows us to formulate and
reach goals
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Consciousness may have evolved to direct or
control behavior in adaptive ways
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Cortex and Consciousness
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The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is
activated during conscious control tasks
 Subjects asked to name the ink color in the
Stroop task below have difficulty when the
word name and color are different
 This color-naming task was associated with
activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Attention
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Our conscious awareness is limited in capacity
and we are aware of only a small amount of the
stimuli around us at any one time
Attention refers to the process by which we focus
our awareness
Three functions of attentional processes:
 Orienting function toward the environment
 Control of the content of consciousness
• I will think about this issue but not that one…
 Maintaining alertness
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Divided Attention
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Divided attention refers to a
task in which a person is
asked to attend to two tasks
at the same time
 Subject may be asked to listen
to one conversation
(shadowing) delivered via the
left ear
 Some information on the other
channel (right ear) is
processed (as shown in
priming tasks)
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Flow of Consciousness
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Day-dreams are shifts in attention
toward internal thoughts and imagined
scenarios
 College students may spend as much as
50% of their waking time in a day-dream
(uhh, are you folks paying attention out
there????)
 Beeper studies of high-school students
have noted the predominance of negative
thoughts when students are with their
families as opposed to others
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Psychodynamic View of
Consciousness
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Freud argued that three mental
systems form consciousness
 Conscious: mental events that you
are aware of
 Preconscious: Mental events that
can be brought into awareness
 Unconscious: Mental events that are
inaccessible to awareness; events
are actively kept out of awareness
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Subliminal Perception
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Notion that brief exposure to sub-threshold
stimuli can influence awareness
Study: subjects are shown aggressive (A) or
positive (B) stimuli
 and then rate a neutral stimulus (C)
 Subjects shown panel A first subsequently rated the
boy in panel C more negatively
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
(Figure adapted from Eagle, 1959)
Unconscious Cognitive Processes
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Information-processing view can be extended to
analyses of unconscious processes
Notion is that many brain mechanisms operate
in parallel
 Some of these mechanisms operate outside of the
level of consciousness
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Functional significance of unconscious
mechanisms:
 Are efficient and rapid
 Can operate simultaneously
 Operate in the absence of consciousness?
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Blindsight
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People with damage to the central portion
of the occipital cortex
 are blind in the sense that they are unable to
see objects placed before them
 are able to provide partial information about
the geometric shape of an object (blindsight)
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Blindsight may involve a primitive visual
system in the midbrain
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Neurology of Consciousness
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Consciousness is distributed
throughout the brain
 Hindbrain and midbrain are
important for arousal and for
sleep
 Damage to the reticular
formation can lead to coma
 Prefrontal cortex is key for
conscious control of
information processing
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sleep and Dreaming
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Behavioral characteristics of sleep
 Minimal movement
 Stereotyped prone posture
 Require a high degree of stimulation to
arouse organism
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Physiological characteristics of sleep
 Brain wave activity (seen in the EEG)
 Paralysis of muscles (seen in the EMG)
 Cardiovascular changes (alternating cycles
of arousal)
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Species Variation in Sleep
(Figure adapted from Kripke et al., 1979)
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Function of Sleep
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Memory consolidation
Energy conservation
Preservation from predators
Restoring bodily functions
 Sleep deprivation can alter immune
function and lead to early death
 Sleep deprivation can also lead to
hallucinations and perceptual disorder
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Mortality Rates and Sleep
(Figure adapted from Kripke et al., 1979)
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
EEG Stages of Sleep
(Figure adapted from Cartwright, 1978)
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
REM Sleep
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Characteristics of REM sleep
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Presence of rapid-eye-movements
Presence of dreaming
Increased autonomic nervous system activity
EEG resembles that of awake state (beta
wave)
 Motor paralysis (except for diaphragm)
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Dreaming
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Psychoanalytic view: Dreams represent a window
into the unconscious
 The latent content (meaning) can be inferred from the
manifest content (the actual dream)
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Cognitive view: Dreams are constructed from the
daily issues of the dreamer
Biological view: Dreams represent the attempt of
the cortex to interpret the random neural firing of
the brain during sleep
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sleep Disorders
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Insomnia is the inability to achieve or maintain
sleep
Many causes for insomnia:
 Stress
 Depression
 Sleeping pills (iatrogenic means physician-caused)
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Some suggestions for treating insomnia
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Only use your bed for sleeping
Avoid physical activity prior to sleep
Avoid consumption of caffeine and alcohol before bed
Keep a regular sleep schedule
Go to bed when you are ready(do not force sleep)
Do not sleep during the day if you have insomnia
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Other Sleep Disorders
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Nightmares are vivid fear-evoking dreams
 Occur during REM sleep
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Night Terrors: are episodes of intense panic
 Occur during delta sleep (early in night)
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Sleep apnea: refers to awakening brought on by
cessation of breathing during sleep
Narcolepsy: falling asleep during the day
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Altered States of Consciousness
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Changes in consciousness can be
brought on by
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Meditation
Hypnosis
Drug ingestion
Religious experiences
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hypnosis
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Hypnosis is a state of consciousness
characterized by
 Deep relaxation
 Suggestibility
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Effects observed during hypnotic state:
 Age regression
 Change in pain perception
 Ability to recall memories into consciousness
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Changes in Pain Perception
during Hypnosis
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Hilgard’s
demonstration of the
“Hidden Observer”
 Subjective pain report
depends on the aspect
of consciousness that
is reporting on pain
(Figure adapted from Hilgard, 1986, p. 190)
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Drug-Induced States of
Consciousness
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Drug effects on consciousness depend on:
 Biological actions of the drug
• Usually involve drug action at brain synapses
 Expectations of drug effect (what effect are you
expecting from the drug?)
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Drug classes
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Depressants (including alcohol)
Stimulants (amphetamine, cocaine)
Hallucinogens (LSD)
Marijuana
© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New
York, NY. All rights reserved. No part of the
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© 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.