Chapter 7 States of Consciousness
What is consciousness?
In every science there are
concepts so fundamental they
are impossible to define
 Biology— life
 Physics— matter & energy
 Psychology…
The story of anesthesia
Waking Consciousness
 Consciousness
is generally
defined as your awareness of the
outside world and of your thoughts,
feelings, perceptions, and other
mental processes ( Metzinger, 2000;
Zeman, 2001)
 Our awareness of ourselves and
our environment (textbook, p. 86)
Psychologists have long explored ~
 Eagerly—ψ
as “the description
and explanation of states of ~
 Warily— behaviorism
 Now with renewed vigor—
advance in neuroscience made it
possible to relate brain activity
to various mental states
Psychologists study ~ more directly
by addressing 3 central questions

1.
2.
Mind-body problem: What is
the relationship between the
conscious mind and the physical
brain?
Dualism-Descartes
Materialism - mind and brain are one
and the same.
“the mind is what the brain does”
( Marvin Minsky, 1986)
A unified phenomenon or several
different ones

1.
2.
Does consciousness occur as a
single “point” in mental processing
or as several parallel mental
operations that occur
independently?
The theater view: ~ is a single phenomenon,
a kind of “stage” on which all the various
aspects of awareness converge to play before
the audience of your mind.
Parallel distributed processing (PDP) models:
the mind process many parallel streams of
information, which interact somehow to create
the unitary experience we know as
consciousness (Devinsky,1997; John,2004;
Lou et al., 2004).
The relationship between conscious
and unconscious mental activities



Sigmund Freud’s theory
Most aspects of Freud’s theory are not
supported by modern research, but
studies have shown that many
important mental activities do occur
outside of awareness
Dual processing: the principle that
information is often simultaneously
processed on separate conscious and
unconscious tracks
Selective attention
Cognitive Neuroscience
Some possibilities
Electroencephalograph EEG
The first EEG recording, (obtained by Hans Berger, 1924)
Computerized Axial
Tomography (CAT or CT) Scans
High resolution
magnetic
resonance
image of
normal brain
with CAT scan
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Positron Emission Tomography
(PET) Scans
The gray outer
surface is the surface
of the brain from
MRI and the inner
colored structure is
cingulate gyrus(扣带
回), part of the
brain’s emotional
system visualized
with PET
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
MEG machine,
University of
Utah
Levels of Information Processing
 Subconsciousness
information processing
occurs simultaneously on
many parallel tracks
 Consciousness information
processing take place in
sequence (serially)
Sleep and Dreams
 Circadian
rhythm — the
biological clock, regular
bodily rhythms (for
example, of temperature
and wakefulness) that
occurs 24-hours cycle
Biological Rhythms and Sleep
 Circadian
rhythm — the
biological clock, regular
bodily rhythms (for example,
of temperature and
wakefulness) that occurs
24-hours cycle
Jet lag—disturbed body rhythms
caused by repaid travel east or west
Sleep and Dreams

Measuring sleep activity
The Rhythm of Sleep
 About
every 90 or 100
minutes we pass through
a cycle of five distinct
sleep stages
Brain Waves and Sleep Stages

Alpha Waves


Delta Waves


slow waves of a
relaxed, awake
brain
large, slow waves
of deep sleep
Hallucinations

false sensory
experiences
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Awake but relaxed state — alpha wave
Stage 1 ~ — (light sleep,2 minutes).
Theta waves prominent, brain wave slow
further and show the irregular waves
Stage 2~—(relax more deeply,20 minutes)
periodic appearance of sleep spindles
Stage 3~ —( a few minutes) brain emits
large, slow delta waves
Stage 4~—( 30 minutes) slow-wave sleep
slow delta waves
Repaid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep
 About
10 minutes
 Eye—move rapidly every half
minutes or so ……
 Heart rate—rises
 Breathing—becomes rapid and
irregular
 Genitals—aroused
 Paradoxical sleep — dream
Stages in a Typical Night’s Sleep
Why Do We Sleep?

Some sleep-loss effects
2.
Thwart our having an energized feeling of wellbeing
Suppress immune system
3.
Impaired creativity and concentration……

Sleep suits our ecological niche
1.
3.
Sleep protects
Sleep helps us recuperate
Sleeps also feeds creative thinking
4.
Sleep play a role in the growth process
1.
2.
Less sleep,
more accidents
Accident
frequency
More sleep,
fewer accidents
2,800
2,700
4,200
2,600
4000
2,500
3,800
2,400
3,600
Spring time change
(hour sleep loss)
Monday before time change
Fall time change
(hour sleep gained)
Monday after time change
Sleep Deprivation

Effects of Sleep
Loss




fatigue
impaired
concentration
depressed immune
system
greater
vulnerability to
accidents
Sleep disorders
 Insomnia
 Narcolepsy（嗜睡症）
 Sleep
apnea（睡眠呼吸暂停）
 Night terrors
Daydreams and Fantasies


1.
2.
3.
4.
Fantasy-prone personality
Adaptive value of daydreaming
Helps us to prepare future
events
Enhance the creativity
(for children) Feeds social and
cognitive development
Substitute for impulsive
behavior
Why we dreams—the function of dreams
To satisfy our own wishes
 To file away memories
 To develop and preserve
neural pathways
 To make sense of neural static
 To reflect cognitive
development

Hypnosis