Understanding Consciousness

Consciousness Overview

• Consciousness is a subjective experience of the world resulting from brain activity.
  • The brain and the mind are inseparable
  • Each person experiences consciousness personally, also known as "Qualia"
  • It is impossible to know if two people experience the world in the exact same way.

Conscious Awareness

• At any given time, a person can only consciously notice or pay attention to a limited number of things.
• Automatic processing involves tasks that are so well-learned they require little attention, such as riding a bike when there is no traffic.
• Controlled processing refers to difficult or unfamiliar tasks that demand significant attention, such as speaking, solving math problems, or driving in Davis.

Selective Attention

• Donald Broadbent developed the "gate theory" to explain the selective nature of attention.
• Attention operates like a gate, opening for important information and closing for irrelevant information.
• Some stimuli demand attention
• Decisions about what to attend to is made early in perception.
• Selection is flexible and can occur at any point in perception.
  • Some things can pass the gate even when not directly attended, such as hearing your name.
• Selective attention operates more like a volume control, boosting important/relevant things for processing.

Inattentional and Change Blindness

• Inattentional blindness refers to the failure to notice something obvious in one's environment.
• Change blindness refers to the failure to notice large changes in one's environment.

Unconscious Processing

• Thought and behavior can be influenced by stimuli without conscious awareness
• Choice behavior is guided by implicit familiarity.
• Word associations can arise from previous exposure.
• Subliminal perception involves processing information by sensory systems without conscious awareness.

Altered Consciousness

• States that can be altered by hypnosis, meditation, immersion in an action (i.e., flow), and drugs.

Hypnosis for pain

• Hypnosis is a social interaction where a person responds to suggestions and experiences changes in memory, perception, or voluntary action.
• Induction is when the hypnotist makes a series of suggestions.
• Posthypnotic suggestion might be "You will forget X".
• Hypnotic analgesia may treat immediate (e.g., surgery, burns) and chronic (e.g., arthritis, cancer) pain.
• It may alter your perception of pain – not the sensation of it.
• Self-hypnosis can improve recovery from surgery.
• Hypnotherapy is used to treat addictive behaviors, but its effectiveness varies.

Meditation

• Meditation involves focusing attention on an external object or on a sense of awareness.
• Concentrative meditation focuses attention on one thing.
• Mindfulness meditation lets thoughts flow freely while monitoring them.
• Meditation is used to help deal with stress and anxiety.

Immersion

• Engaging in activities allows individuals to lose themselves and enter an altered state.
• Exercise and religion can facilitate immersion.
• Flow is total engagement in an act for its own sake, not focused on reward or escaping problems.
• Escapist behaviors, like excessive TV watching, gaming, web surfing, and drug abuse, serve as distractions from problems.

Psychoactive Drugs

• Drugs have medical benefits
• Recreational drug use has negative implications.
• Psychoactive drugs are mind-altering substances that affect the brain's neurochemistry.
  • Addiction is compulsive drug use despite negative effects.
• Drug use during adolescence can be particularly harmful.

Stimulants

• Stimulants increase behavioral and mental activity and activate the sympathetic nervous system.
• Examples include caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, and cocaine.

Amphetamines

• Amphetamines and Methamphetamine have been historically used for weight loss and staying awake.
• Seldom used for legitimate medical purposes
• Meth causes considerable brain & physical damage
• Adderall is used for ADHD & Narcolepsy

Cocaine

• Cocaine is a stimulant derived from the leaves of the coca bush.
• Cocaine increases alertness, confidence, and sociability.
• It elevates dopamine levels at synapses.
• Habitual cocaine use in large quantities may cause paranoia, psychotic behavior, and violence.

How Stimulants Work

• Stimulants block dopamine reuptake, inhibiting DA transporters - increasing dopamine.

Depressants

• Depressants reduce behavioral and mental activity by depressing the central nervous system (anxiolytic effect).

Alcohol

• Alcohol, like anxiolytics and sleeping pills, produces its effects by activating GABA receptors.
• Occasional consumption differs from excessive use.
• Expectations shape how people believe alcohol affects their emotions and behavior.
• Expectations are formed early in life through observation.
• Gender affects alcohol metabolism (slower in women) and tolerance and reporting (higher in men).

Opiates

• Opiates come from the poppy plant.
• Opiates such as Heroin, Morphine, Codeine, and Fentanyl are pain relievers.
• Like endorphins, they activate endogenous opioid receptors, leading to euphoria.

Hallucinogens

• Hallucinogens (psychedelics) alter cognition, mood, and perception.
• Examples include LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and peyote cactus.

Marijuana

• Marijuana comes from the cannabis plant.
• Marijuana is not easily categorized as a stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogen.
• Marijuana produces a relaxed mood and more vivid perceptions.
• The psychoactive component is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), activating endogenous cannabinoid receptors. Heavy, long-term use leads to loss of receptors and shrinking of brain regions in memory and emotional regulation.
• The non-psychoactive extract Cannabidiol (CBD) has therapeutic uses.

MDMA

• MDMA "Ecstasy" has been popular since the raves of the 1990's
• Increases empathy and compassion
• Users may feel energized and may hallucinate
• MDMA lowers dopamine, raising serotonin activity.

Addiction

• Addiction is drug use that remains compulsive despite negative consequences.
• Drugs that quickly enhance dopamine signaling are more addictive.
• Tolerance involves needing increasing drug amounts.
• Withdrawal includes anxiety, tension, and cravings.
• Classical conditioning affects tolerance and withdrawal.

Causes of Addiction

• Physiological: Brain activation and hereditary
• Psychological: High sensation-seeking personality and social learning
• Context: Environmental influence