Psychology Chapter: Consciousness and Qualia

<p>If subjective experiences are reducible to objective brain information. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The unconscious. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>90% (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Wakefulness with no signs of awareness (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Paralysis of all muscles except the eyes, but with intact higher cognitive functions (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Cause is head injury (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Supplementary motor area (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Anterograde amnesia where he could not form new memories during the PVS (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The brain interprets the signal from the remaining nerves as coming from the missing limb (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Pain mostly affects parts of the body farthest from the body, such as the foot of an amputated leg. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The face area takes over the limb area in the somatosensory cortex (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Mirror therapy where the patient sees a reflection of their intact limb (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>By creating a visual representation of movement that reduces the pain (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Parahippocampal place area (PPA), posterior parietal cortex, and premotor cortex (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Persistent vegetative state (PVS) (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Monocular neurons in V1 (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Consciousness is an optional or unnecessary aspect of a system. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The subjective, qualitative feel of an experience. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>P-consciousness is the subjective experience itself, while A-consciousness is the ability to attend to a piece of information. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A direct perception of stimuli as they exist in the world. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It fills in the missing information using surrounding details. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The initial perception of a gap that then disappears. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Higher visual areas like V3 and V4 are more involved than V1 and V2. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Filling-in can be a complex process affected by object details and distance. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Change Blindness (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A person’s own attentional goals. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Identifying neural activities that align with conscious experience. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Correlation does not imply causation and there could be alternative explanations. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The perception changes while the stimulus is constant. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The explanation of an entire system based on its individual components. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A blind spot within the visual field. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The brain anticipates the moving object's future position, compensating for neural delays. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Calculating the motion trajectory <em>after</em> the two dots have occurred. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The brain interpolates the tap sequence into a continuous series of movement. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Attention is required to link different features of an object into a unified experience. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Often have deficits in cognitive processes such as intelligence (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Cross-wiring within brain regions, causing activation of multiple areas. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Whether physical knowledge is sufficient to encompass all forms of understanding. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The V4 region, due to its role in colour processing. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>problems that can be studied using standard cognitive science methods and those involving subjective experience. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Gamma wave oscillations within the various areas of cortex involved in processing each of those features. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The challenge of bridging the divide between objective physical brain activity and subjective conscious experience. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A deficit of attention resulting in the failure to attend to one side of space. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>They avoid discussing consciousness or subjective experiences altogether, focusing solely on stimulus and response. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Training patients to rapidly alternate their gaze from side to side. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>verifying and agreeing on the subjective experiences of others. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It explains their ability to perceive the world from a shared visual perspective. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>These neurons responded to images, drawings, and even the written name of a specific celebrity. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Monism proposes that there is only one fundamental substance, whereas dualism proposes two separate substances. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Physical events produce mental states, but mental states have no causal effect on the physical. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>To establish a foundation of certainty in philosophy, starting with the statement 'I think, therefore I am'. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It posits a site for interaction but does not explain how the mind and body interact. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Qualia are part of a distinct, non-physical mental world. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Qualia is a brain process. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>That all knowledge is derived from physical facts. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>He came to believe Mary would not be surprised by color. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Distributed processing across multiple brain regions, each responsible for different aspects of consciousness. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Consciousness associated with different specific processing sites in the brain. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Specific areas of the brain outside the primary visual cortex can generate conscious visual experience. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Color is perceived before motion by approximately 80 milliseconds. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A metaphor for consciousness that involves a mental screen onto which images and feelings are projected for viewing by an inner self. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>People sometimes report not being aware of forming and subsequently rotating an image during mental rotation tasks. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The issue of a hypothetical 'inner' observer within consciousness that leads to infinite regress. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Consciousness is like a 'bright spot' on a stage, focusing attention on specific information, while unconscious processes shape the events of the spotlight. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It represents the degree of integrated information within a system, measured in bits. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Although it has many potential patterns it lacks sufficient integrated information. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The location for numerous unconscious processes shaping conscious events. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It leads to the homunculus problem and an infinite regress. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Because when these areas are damaged, corresponding qualia are lost. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>By 'looking at' sensory systems in the back. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Consciousness can happen at different places in the brain and at different times. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Draw the object with their left hand, but not verbally identify it. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Transfer of attention and higher cognitive information. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The non-neural communication between the two hemispheres through behavioral cues. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>To give feedback on the accuracy of the guess. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The inability to form new long-term memories. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The inability to form new long-term memories, but with intact recall of old memories. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The patient may produce unintelligible sounds and have issues with speech. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Anton's syndrome (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A person's lack of awareness of their own disability. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Damage to the frontal lobe or the corpus callosum. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Verbally express that they can smell nothing, but point to garlic with their left hand. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A lack of coordination between thought and the ability to carry out an action. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>To facilitate communication and information transfer between the two hemispheres. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>They will be able to ‘hm’ the pattern correctly but will not describe it verbally. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Copenhagen interpretation assumes that superposition collapses upon observation, while the Many-Worlds interpretation rejects collapse. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Right parietal lobe (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>From quantum processes in microtubules. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Procedural memory and classical conditioning. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The prevention of seizures spreading from one hemisphere to another. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Functions as the 'interpreter', constructing narratives to explain actions. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>That split-brain patients essentially have two separate conscious minds. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It proposes that the random nature of quantum collapse contributes to the existence of free will. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Only the left hemisphere possesses high-level consciousness, responsible for language and beliefs. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Drugs that affect microtubules do not directly correlate with changes in consciousness. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The simultaneous existence of a particle or system in multiple possible states. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A phenomenon where two or more particles are linked, affecting each other regardless of distance. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A type of seizure that manifests as a brief period of loss of awareness. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It fails to explain how subjective experiences arise from the sum of individual components. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The left hemisphere can process the information and give a correct verbal answer. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The left brain is more of an interpreter, and constructs the reason behind an action. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

The subjective experience of something, like the smell of coffee or the feeling of warmth. Qualia focus on what it's like to experience something, not just the physical mechanisms behind it.

The difficulty in explaining how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences, like qualia. It's like trying to bridge the gap between the objective world of the brain and the subjective world of our inner experience.

The idea that consciousness is a fundamental problem in philosophy that cannot be solved simply by understanding the brain. It's a mystery of how physical matter can give rise to subjective experience.

The difference between experiencing something directly (first-person) and observing someone else experience it (third-person). It highlights the subjective nature of consciousness and the difficulty of understanding it from an external perspective.

A thought experiment that explores the idea that even with complete knowledge of the brain, we might not fully understand the subjective experience of colors. Mary, a color scientist, knows everything about color but has never seen color. The question is: will she experience color differently when she finally sees it, even if she knows everything about its mechanics?

The idea that there is a fundamental gap between physical processes in the brain and our subjective conscious experience.

The philosophical view that only physical matter exists, and consciousness is a product of brain processes.

The philosophical view that only mental states exist, and the physical world is a product of our minds.

The philosophical view that the mind and body are separate substances.

The philosophical view that mental states are caused by physical processes in the brain but have no causal effect on the physical world.

The ability to experience the world from one's own perspective, as opposed to an objective, third-person viewpoint.

The ability to observe and describe the world from an objective, third-person viewpoint, focusing on things that can be verified and agreed upon by others.

A thought experiment involving a color-blind scientist named Mary who is confined to a black and white room. Mary learns all the physical facts about color but has never experienced color directly. The question is whether she would learn something new when she finally sees color, specifically, the qualitative experience of color.

A type of dualism that proposes that the mind and body interact at a specific point in the brain, such as the pineal gland.

Problems in the study of consciousness that can be addressed using standard research methods in cognitive science, such as understanding attention, memory, and motor control.

Problems in the study of consciousness that are difficult to address using standard scientific methods, such as understanding subjective experience and how physical processes in the brain give rise to consciousness.

The study of the brain and its relationship to behavior, including consciousness.

A philosophical claim suggesting that knowing all physical facts about color, including the neural mechanisms of vision, would not be sufficient to understand what it is like to see color.

The philosophical view that only one type of substance exists.

The idea that consciousness is optional – zombies, beings identical to us in every way but lacking consciousness, are theoretically possible.

A thought experiment that explores the possibility of beings who act just like conscious individuals but lack subjective experience.

The attempt to explain complex phenomena by breaking them down into their individual components.

The idea that we can fully understand consciousness by understanding the individual neurons and their interactions.

The subjective experience of something; what it's like to have that experience.

The ability to attend to and be aware of something; what we can actually think about and use in our reasoning.

The brain's internal representation of the external world, formed through sensory input.

A discrepancy between what we perceive and the actual reality, often used to understand how the visual system works.

The ability to perceive stimuli accurately as they exist in reality.

The area on the retina where the optic nerve leaves the eye, resulting in a blind spot in our visual field.

The brain's ability to fill in missing information, often in the blind spot, to create a continuous visual experience.

The theory that filling in occurs at the level of early visual processing, involving low-level neural mechanisms.

The theory that filling in is a higher-level cognitive process, involving conceptual understanding and interpretation.

The phenomenon where we fail to detect changes in a visual scene, especially when our attention is focused elsewhere.

A condition where a person is awake but not aware of their surroundings. They may open their eyes and show some reflexes but lack conscious thinking or awareness. It occurs due to damage to higher brain areas.

A neurological disorder where a person is paralyzed except for eye movements. This is often caused by damage to the brainstem, leaving higher functioning areas intact.

The experience of feeling sensations, like pain, heat, or cold, in a limb that has been amputated.

The area of the brain responsible for processing pain signals.

The change in neural activity that occurs when a person's perception of an ambiguous image switches back and forth between two different interpretations.

The ability of the brain to make sense of sensory information, even when it is incomplete or ambiguous.

The part of the brain that processes information about the location of objects in space.

The region of the brain responsible for planning and executing movements, especially those involving complex coordination.

A state where consciousness is altered or reduced, but the person shows signs of wakefulness, like opening their eyes.

An approach to understanding consciousness that focuses on identifying and explaining the neural mechanisms underlying conscious experience.

A neurological condition where individuals neglect one side of their visual field, often the left, due to an attentional deficit.

The brain's ability to predict the future position of moving objects, which can lead to misperceptions of timing.

An illusion where two flashing dots on opposite sides are perceived as a single dot moving back and forth, even though they are stationary.

An illusion where a series of taps on different parts of the body are perceived as a continuous movement up the arm, even though the taps are simultaneous.

The challenge of explaining how different features of a single object, like color and motion, are combined into a unified perception.

An error in perception where features from different objects are incorrectly combined, often occurring when attention is overloaded.

The theory that the synchronization of neural oscillations in different brain areas, particularly gamma waves (40 Hz), plays a role in binding sensory features.

A neurological condition where individuals experience cross-sensory perceptions, such as seeing colors associated with letters or numbers.

A test used to distinguish real synesthesia from learned associations, involving the presentation of mixed numbers that should be perceived differently due to color associations.

The proposed explanation for synesthesia, suggesting that there are cross-connections between brain regions responsible for different sensory experiences.

A condition where the two hemispheres of the brain seem to operate independently, often resulting in the feeling that one's hand acts on its own, even against the individual’s will.

The thick band of nerve fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain, allowing them to communicate.

A surgical procedure to sever the corpus callosum, often performed to treat severe epilepsy, limiting the spread of seizures between hemispheres.

The ability to learn and execute a new skill without conscious awareness, often seen in amnesia patients who can learn new skills even though they have no memory of the learning process.

A neuropsychological test that involves temporarily putting one hemisphere of the brain to sleep, allowing researchers to study the functions of each hemisphere independently.

A disorder characterized by profound memory loss, usually caused by chronic alcohol abuse and thiamine deficiency.

The inability to form new long-term memories. People with anterograde amnesia can have intact short-term memory, allowing them to hold conversations but unable to remember them later.

The loss of memory for events that occurred before the amnesia-inducing event.

A condition characterized by a lack of awareness of one's own disability, often seen in patients with neglect syndrome.

A type of neglect where a person denies ownership of their own body parts, often occurring alongside anosognosia.

A rare condition where a person is blind but insists they can see, sometimes claiming to still be able to watch TV.

An experimental technique where a stimulus is presented below the threshold of conscious awareness, influencing subsequent responses without the individual being consciously aware of the initial stimulus.

A process where the brain makes a connection between two stimuli, such as a puff of air to the eye and a sound, leading to a learned response to the sound alone.

There isn't one central command center in the brain responsible for consciousness. Instead, multiple brain areas work in parallel, exchanging information constantly. Think of it as a vast network of interconnected processors.

The claustrum is a small, sheet-like structure in the brain. Studies reveal that neurons from the claustrum connect with various brain regions involved in consciousness. This suggests the claustrum might play a significant role in integrating and coordinating conscious experiences.

Research shows that consciousness isn't a single, unified event happening simultaneously in the brain. Instead, different aspects of consciousness arise in different parts of the brain at different times. This is called the 'disunity of consciousness'.

V4, located in the visual cortex, is responsible for processing color information, and damage to this area leads to achromatopsia (color blindness). Similarly, V5, responsible for motion processing, can be damaged, resulting in akinetopsia (visual motion blindness). Importantly, these specialized areas also contribute to our conscious experience of color and motion.

It's not merely that brain areas process information; they also give rise to our conscious experience of that information. For example, the amygdala generates the qualia of fear, and the olfactory cortex generates the qualia of smell.

Patient GY suffered damage to V1, leading to blindness in one half of their visual field. However, they could still perceive motion in that blind area, demonstrating that visual information can bypass V1 and reach the specialized motion processing area (V5) directly.

When GY was presented with a stationary object in their blind area, they were not consciously aware of it. However, when the same object was moved, GY became aware of it. This shows that conscious awareness is not just about processing but also about specific activations in specialized areas like V5.

fMRI scans of GY's brain revealed that activity increased only in V5 when they became conscious of the moving object, supporting the idea that specific brain areas are involved in generating particular aspects of consciousness.

We experience the world as a continuous flow, but studies show that different aspects of consciousness are processed and perceived at slightly different times. For example, color information is processed before motion information, but our brain merges these experiences together seamlessly.

The 'theatre of the mind' metaphor likens consciousness to a stage where thoughts, images, and feelings are presented to an 'inner you' through a 'mental screen'. But this metaphor has its limitations.

Mental rotation involves mentally manipulating objects in space. We can objectively measure the time it takes to make a decision, and it's correlated with the time it would take to physically rotate the object. This suggests that mental images are not static pictures but involve active processing.

Researchers have found that the right posterior parietal lobe is active during mental rotation. However, the question remains: who or what is 'looking at' this mental screen? This leads to the homunculus problem.

The homunculus problem is the idea that within our brains, there's a smaller 'person' observing our thoughts and experiences. This leads to an infinite regress – who is observing the homunculus? Crick and Koch suggest that the frontal lobes of the brain could be the 'observer.'

GWT views consciousness as a dynamic process where information is selected and highlighted, similar to a spotlight illuminating different actors on a stage. This process creates a 'bright spot' of conscious awareness.

IIT suggests that consciousness is a measure of a system's 'integrated information'. Higher integration leads to a higher level of consciousness. The quantity of integrated information is measured in bits, with greater bits indicating greater consciousness.

Camera sensors are made up of many individual photodiodes that are independent of each other. Although they can capture information separately, they lack the ability to process and interpret the information as a whole, similar to a single photodiode.

This theory proposes that consciousness arises from quantum processes within microtubules, tiny tube-like protein structures found in all cells. These structures are believed to exist in superposition, a state where they occupy multiple states simultaneously, potentially allowing for non-computable processes essential for consciousness.

The process where a quantum particle exists in multiple states simultaneously, like a coin spinning in the air before landing heads or tails.

This interpretation suggests that during observation, multiple states collapse into a single reality. The choice of which state becomes our reality is completely random, like rolling a dice.

This interpretation proposes that instead of collapsing to a single reality, all possible states continue to exist in separate parallel worlds.

Penrose's theory suggests that this randomness, also known as quantum indeterminacy, is responsible for free will, allowing for unpredictable choices and decisions.

This phenomenon occurs when two particles become linked, regardless of their distance. It is proposed that this interconnectedness contributes to a sense of unity and oneness, potentially explaining the experience of a single 'self'.

A surgical procedure that involves severing the corpus callosum, the thick band of nerve fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. It was commonly performed in the past for patients with severe epilepsy to prevent seizures from spreading from one hemisphere to the other.

This experiment involves flashing a word to the right field of view, which is processed by the left hemisphere, the dominant side for language. Patients can verbally report the word they saw.

In this variation, a word is flashed to the left field of view, which is processed by the right hemisphere. Since the right hemisphere lacks language abilities, patients cannot verbally report the seen word but can draw it.

It refers to the idea that the left hemisphere acts as a central interpreter, attempting to create a coherent narrative to explain the actions and thoughts of the right hemisphere, even when they are unconnected.

The left hemisphere, associated with language and logic, is believed to be responsible for high-level consciousness, involving complex cognitive functions such as reasoning, planning, and decision-making.

Even though the right hemisphere lacks advanced language abilities, it possesses rudimentary linguistic skills and reasoning capacities comparable to a young child. It also exhibits some degree of understanding and can solve simple problems.

The concept of the right hemisphere possibly being devoid of consciousness, despite its cognitive abilities.

A thought experiment where separate hemispheres of a split-brain patient are presented with different visual stimuli. The question arises: how many distinct streams of consciousness are present when each hemisphere experiences a unique reality?