Core Notes PDF

Class 1 e u c n fC y r to is H Consciousness as a psychological concept ➔ Rene Descartes - Proposed dualism (aka separating the physical from the mental) - Body: characterized by spatial extension & motion - Mind: characterized by though...

Class 1 e u c n fC y r to is H Consciousness as a psychological concept ➔ Rene Descartes - Proposed dualism (aka separating the physical from the mental) - Body: characterized by spatial extension & motion - Mind: characterized by thought, is private, leading to the first/third-person perspective distinction - Believed: - Non-human animals were mindless, only having brains - Physical world impacts the senses, which translates into conscious experiences Enlightenment & Consciousness Timeline The emergence of psychophysics - Weber-Fechner Law- describes the relationship between physical stimuli & perceived intensity of these stimuli - Psychophysics: - Investigates relationship between physical stimulus & perception elicited (at different intensities) - Describes the relationship between actual change in stimulus intensity & perceived change Absolute & Just noticeable difference Experimental psychology & neuroscience Hermann von Helmholtz - Nerve physiology: measured speed at which is a signal travels along a nerve fiber - Sensory physiology: visual & auditory processing Wilhelm Wundt - Opened first lab of psychological studies Gestalt Psychology (Wertheimer, Koffka, Keohler) - Gestalt psychology- perception is the sum of processing patterns & configurations - Conscious perceptions?: whole is different that the sum of its parts - Brain is trying to make sense of what is perceived & create meaningful perception - Certain principles enhance these “making sense” illusions Information Processing - EEG marks beginning of neuroimaging & measure brain activity - Information theory: basis of modern cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience: - Constructing a conscious perception → leading to subjective experience Class 2 u c fC o n im D & ls v e L Levels of Consciousness - Stems from clinical tools to gauge brain damage patients - Glasgow coma scale - Property of being conscious Minimally conscious state - Partial awareness - Fragments of meaningful interaction - Caused by traumatic brain injury Vegetative state - Long term or chronic state - Cerebral cortical function is lost while brainstem functions are preserved or resumed Coma - Prolonged state of unconsciousness  - Patients fail to respond to sensory stimuli, pain & have no wake-sleep cycle - Brain death- absence of all brain function demonstrated by profound coma, apnea & absence of all brain-stem reflexes –vital function can be maintained for a specific time period Global State Debate - Distinguished on cognitive, behavioral & physiological grounds - Spectrum from wakeful alertness states to disordered states (sedative, inhibited states) to post-comatose states - Can be synonyms with levels of consciousness, global modes, background states or aspects of consciousness States ★ GLOBAL - States of consciousness that characterize an organism's overall conscious condition - Can only be in ONE global state at time - Distinguished based on physiological, behavioral & cognitive criteria ➔ Multidimensional global states - (Global states) can exist in different dimensions: content gating, verbal report, memory, attention, action, reasoning etc. ★ LOCAL - Individuated in terms of their contents or phenomenal character (conscious content) - Perceptual experiences of any kind, bodily sensations, occurrent thoughts iu s o c n U e h T Unconscious & Implicit Processes - Operations that appear outside of our awareness & often automated  - Learning, pattern recognition, repeated processes are anchored in the unconscious - Information can register in absence of directed attention ADHD - Sensory processing overload - Hypersensitivity - ADHD patients show enhanced neural activity in response to novel but behaviorally irrelevant stimuli as well as reduced habituation to familiar items - Linked to distractibility Daniel Kahneman - Factors & behaviors that form our choices & decisions - Loss Aversion/Prospect theory - Cognitive biases SYSTEM 1 (IMPLICIT) - Operates automatically & quickly, with little or no effort & no sense of voluntary control - Ex. reading a known word SYSTEM 2 (EXPLICIT) - Allocates attention to effort mental activities that demand it, including complex computations - Ex. recalling details BOTH - Describe different modes of thinking/behavior (based on behavioral observation) - Hypothetical modes that are NOT rooted in any neural processes or neural substrates - Can interact & are shaped by your experiences Unconscious Biases & Heuristics - Anchoring bias- tendency to rely on an “anchor” when making decision - Availability bias- mental shortcut by using information with greater “availability” in memory/mind - Ex. plane crashes (when in fact, flying is more safer than driving) - Conjunction fallacy- inference that conjoint events are more likely to appear together than when they are presented separately - Ex. shark attacks & ice cream sales - Framing- biased by context piece of information is presented in - Loss aversion/prospect theory- bias to feel losses greater than gains of same proportion - Sunk cost fallacy- continued investment despite loss  - Ex. investing in a property knowing that you don’t make money - Confirmation bias- seeking information confirming one’s believes - Self-assessment/dunning-kruger effect- not knowing what you don’t know –aka feeling you’re smarter than you actually are Class 3 t n g lC ia c o S Social Cognition & Social Exchange - We are social beings & social interactions shape greatest part of our lives - We form groups to perform certain tasks - Our relation to others are the cause for happiness & suffering - Social cognition: significant & large part of cognition - Most of what we know we know from other humans or has been made available by other humans Understanding another person’s actions ★ WHAT - What is this person doing? = externally observable ★ WHY - Why is the person doing that? = not externally observable - Inferring mental states - What can this person see/do/hear? = PERCEPTION - What do they want? DESIRE (Goal, intentions, etc) - What do they believe (is going to happen)? BELIEF Inferring Mental States = Theory of Mind - Unique to humans - Even for Al/LLM/open AI still quite difficult to do - Can be manipulated (unconscious biases/mentalists/deception) - No animal can infer mental states (controversy around used paradigms) - Develops around 5 years old - Can be delayed in children with autism - False-belief task - Has been shown to be distinct function of cognition - fMRI studies suggest that the RTPJ (temporo-parietal junction) & MPFC (medial prefrontal cortex) are involved when reasoning about another person’s belief False-Belief Task - Tests ability to attribute mental states (beliefs, intents, desires, etc.) to others & understand that those mental states may be different from one’s own - Commonly used in child development research to address social understanding or ToM ➔ Why would you fail the task? - Inability to attribute thoughts - Competing representation of false belief & reality - Dominance/saliency of reality False Photograph Task - Where is the marble in the photo? → not asking about a mental representation but physical representation → children with ASD can solve the task Neural Correlates of False Belief - Saxe & Kanwisher 2003: demonstrated that rTPJ & MPFC are implied in false belief based on comparing a false belief story with a false photo story - But the question becomes: what in the false belief triggers the activation? - Thinking of a person - Representation of an internal state - Thinking of other people thinking/desires - Results: - MPFC: activated by the topic “person” (all 3 stories) - RTPJ: activated attributing belief to another person (ONLY thinking about another person thinking) Moral Belief & Intent Attribution - RTPJ: show distinct patterns of activation when contrasting intentional harm versus accidental harm in control group - Individual differences in patterns predict moral judgment (when looking at behavioral responses = judgment)  - These differences were absent in ASD individuals (which makes it difficult to attribute intention but its not due to lack of morality) Irony, Sarcasm & Manipulation - Saying one thing but meaning the opposite (irony) - Criticizing somebody by saying the opposite of what you mean (sarcasm) - Making someone believe the opposite of your intentions in order to misguide them or manipulate them I L A U Q Qualia - Mental representation of subjective experience - Qualia = mental event (sensed experience, thoughts, desire, emotions) Is a mental state a brain state? - Identity theory: mental state you have when you experience pain is so unique to you that is equal with your brain state - If this is fully the case, then we cannot prescribe an experience to nobody else (or other species) Functionalism - Functionalism: recognizes that there’s more to a mental state than what happens during brain state or cognitive process - Mental state is a function of carious internal & external inputs & has an output - Mental state = internal state + stimulus (internal/external) causing behavior/output (external/internal) Functionalism vs Conscious Experience - Functionalism claims that a mental state is caused by an external state - Brain functions like software; if you have the same external input → you should have the same/similar mental state - But what about pain? Are qualia intrinsic to who experiences them or can they be elicited by a causal-functional role? Qualia - None of these theories can fully explain the subjective experience/qualia  - You can have qualia about sensory perception as much as about emotions or thoughts - The common argument is that you need a non-physical property to have a conscious experience - A physical property is NOT enough - Subjective experience/mental representation Class 4 iu n fc lm b o p ty s v d r a H e h T D R A H Is it psychical? - Chlamers argues that you, your environment & your cognitive processes (activity in V1 when seeing an apple) are objective - What is objective (& physical) can be measured - But OUALIA cannot be measured because they are private & ineffable - So are qualia physical? → that’s the hard problem The hard problem - We can feel that we are conscious → why does consciousness feel like anything? (zombie case) - Dennet argues that qualia and the hard problem are not the same - In neuroscience, we don’t tackle the hard problem but we can the easy problem Y S A E The easy problem is not so easy Attention & Consciousness - Attention: CRUCIAL part of consciousness & conscious perception (concepts are related) - Attention schema theory: a set of information that describes the act of focusing resources on something - Top down & bottom effects of attentions on consciousness fc p U :B s m v -M y E & io n te A Eye-movement - Saccades- rapid eye movement (scanning environment, reading, etc.) - To perceive image consciously: one needs to scan various parts via moving eye from one point to next point - Smooth pursuit movements- moving fixation (need a target) - Vergence movements- align fovea of each eye with targets located at different distances - Vestibulo-ocular movements- stabilize the eyes relative to external world Smooth Conscious Perception - Using investigation into saccadic eye-movements to understand conscious perception: - Conscious snapshots - Movement between snapshots are not conscious - What you perceive is smooth, effortless perception Class 5-6 Functionalist Theories Theories of Consciousness - 1. Experience is subjective while brain state is objective - 2. NCC try to locate the substrate, ToC try to explain the link between different substrates - 3. How different states of consciousness differ from each other Higher Order Theories - Explanation: - Claim that mental state is conscious if you’re aware of it - Conscious experience is reflexive as you’re aware of higher order representation = meta representation - Visual input → possessed → if you get meta representation → conscious - Strength: explains why certain representations are conscious & others aren't - Weaknesses: doesn’t explain subjectiveness of representation - Are supported by lesion studies albeit the fact they apply to all consciousness Types of HOTs Actualist - Mental state is conscious when you have higher order thought about it Dispositional - Mental state is conscious when you have access to higher order thought about it Higher order self-representing theory - Mental state is conscious when you experience identity as part of higher order representation Global Workspace Theory Global Workspace Theory - Local processors (sensory processing regions) compete for entering workspace - Ignition or spotlight within working memory promotes broadcasting into fronto-parietal network - Only then mental state becomes conscious - Spotlight has limited temporal capacity What can functionalism not explain? - Conscious perception but not conscious experience/character of experience - Mental representations outside of unconscious input - Posterior cortical regions predicting conscious dream experience, across both REM & non-REM sleep stages - Prefrontal & parietal areas being involved in behavior Integrated Information Theory  - Claims that consciousness is identical to certain kind of information, the realization of which requires physical, not merely functional, integration & can be measured mathematically - Consciousness requires a grouping of elements within system that have physical cause-effect power upon another - A system is considerate conscious if it possess high degree of differentiation & integration Class 7 u c s C & io n te A Hemispatial Neglect - Hemispatial neglect- disorder caused by interrupted attention to visual stimuli within one hemifield contralateral to acute lesion - Patient B: - Had a stroke in the right hemisphere - Couldn’t attend to any visual differences in left - Said that the house they want to live in Attention - Cognitive process that allows us to highlight & select relevant stimuli - Attentions allows us: - Process relevant information - Environmental differences - Be cost effective - Control what we are attending to Different types - Overt attention- turning head/eyes towards stimulus - Ex. someone saying your name - Convert attention- focusing on stimulus - Bottom-up attention- stimulus evoked attention - Ex. fire alarm - Top-down attention- directed attention - Spatial attention- attention on spatial processes/details - Ex. waiting for someone to come into the room - Sensory-specific attention- attention on sensory input (visual attention) Biased competition model of attention  - Every stimulus is competing for attention, needs neural processing, but the visual system only has so much capacity - The brain choices what it attends to & what it processes (via attention) - You can shift attention & its shift via bottom up or top-down ❖ Arguments against biased competition - Oversimplification of attention - Interaction between bottom-up & top-down processes - Integration with other cognitive processes (learning, planning) - Doesn’t necessarily aid/explain subjective experience Attention Schema Theory - Brain constructs consciousness/subjective experience based on schematic model of attention - Brain processes information → competing against each other (external = sensory input; internal = memories) - Is model/representation based on its own attentional process - Self model: being able to predict its own attentional states - Constructing awareness: by having a model of attention, the brain creates a simplified, high-level representation of what it’s attending to, which we experience as awareness or consciousness Class 8 Damaiso’s Model of Consciousness - Waking up every morning = return of conscious mind & complete sense of self - No sense of self & consciousness → NO access to time, pain, love, no knowledge about us or of humanity - 2 main players: mind & self What is a conscious mind? - Simple answer: what we lose when we fail into coma, anesthesia, deep sleep (without dreams) & what we regain - Mind: flow of mental images - Conscious mind: a mind with a self in it - Fully conscious: when self comes to mind – make mind subjective to us - Self: introduces a subjective perspective The Mind - Creation of mental images = underlying neural basis for flow of mental images - Construction of neural maps:  - Neural patterns needed to encode vision - Neural maps corresponding to auditory encoding/frequencies - Mental image & neural map are very closely related - Neural mapping in cortex: - Primary sensory cortices: visual cortex, auditory cortex, somatosensory cortex, motor cortex The Self - Self is a continuous reference point (body/outside world → representation of body map = reference) - Body map as reference - We have a single body = 1 reference point - Body has an internal system that has an in-built mechanism to keep us healthy/alive = continuity - Tight coupling between regulation of our body within the brain & the body itself (homeostasis) Mind & Self - Mind: neural patterns associated with processing internal or external stimuli (primary cortices) - Self: constant updating of your body/entity & its topography via the brain stream & its recursive connections (thalamus, neocortex) Representation of Feelings - Protoself → body mapping (you’re not aware of it, it happens in the background) - Thing → change in neural patterns (which creates emotions that you are not aware of yet) - Emotions are physical expressions in change in neural patterns - Once emotions become aware, they are feelings → when you identify that they are unique to yourself → become conscious - Extended self provides context to put conscious experience & give rise to metacognition Feelings, the mind & the self - Body states = tight coupling between the brain stem & the body - Feelings = Mental experiences of body states - Emotion = body state evoked by an external stimulus - Feelings = mental experience of emotions Are animals conscious? - Argument:  - Vertebrates have brain stem - Conscious experiences - Have emotions & feelings - Have some sort of self - NO due to the lack of autobiographical self Class 9 r s a M u S & tiv c je b O Objective Measures - Measure the ability to discriminate between stimuli - Inability to discriminate between stimuli is taken as evidence that participants had no conscious perception - Based on believe of Signal detection theory (sensitivity in discriminating between signal & noise is above a predefined level) Measures ➔ Signal detection theory - Hit rate & false alarm rate: measures how often person correctly stimulus (hit) versus how often they incorrectly report seeing stimulus when one is present (false alarm) - D-prime: a calculation that quantifies a person’s sensitivity to a stimulus, differentiating between their ability to detect it & their bias toward saying they perceive it ➔ Reaction time - Speed with which person responds to stimulus can indicate whether stimulus was consciously perceived - Faster reaction = conscious awareness ➔ Percentage correct - A basic metric used to quantify accuracy in tasks or experiments - Represents proportion of correct responses or outcomes relative to total number of trials, expressed as percentage Objective paradigms Threshold detection paradigms Signal detection theory Forced-choice paradigms Staircase procedure Matching paradigm r a m s tiv c je b u S Subjectives measures - Measure (presumably) introspection report their perceptual experience on each trial - Always in combination with SDT: - Perceptual awareness scale - Confidence rating - Post-decision wagering Perceptual Awareness Scale - Introspection: - No experience: no subjective experience of stimulus, not even “faintest sensation” that anything was presented at all - Brief glimpse: just experience of something being there - Almost clear experience: a somewhat blurry & not very clear experience of stimulus, however with some idea about its nature - Clear experience: an experience of seeing the entire stimulus without problems Neurophysiological measure - Often combined with behavioral measures (SDT, subjective measure, strategic control) - Temporal signals: EEG, MEG - Spatial signals: fMRI - Synchrony of temporal signals - Assumes degrees of complexity & reentrant neural activity in thalamocortical system gives rise to conscious experience No Task Experiments - Conscious perception without requiring participants to perform overt tasks - Direct measurement of neural correlates of consciousness by focusing on spontaneous brain activity or brain responses to passive stimuli ❖ Why? - Minimizing bias - Ecological validity - Studying pre-conscious processing - Exploring baseline consciousness flv r p x e iu c s n o C Methods - Neuroscience of love explores how the brain processes romantic, familial & platonic love  - Researchers have employed techniques such as fMRI, EEG & hormonal analysis to study neural & biochemical processes that underlie feelings of love - Paradigms include mainly passive viewing tasks Kinds of Love - Romantic: activation of brain areas associated with reward, desire & motivations - Maternal/family: activation of areas related to empathy, caregiving & attachment; orbitofrontal cortex & periaqueductal gray - Platonic/friendship: oxytocin & serotonin system play a stronger role in non-romantic, social bonding, creating long-term feelings of trust & affection; actives areas related to social behavior & affectionate touch Associated Regions - Overlap with systems associated with reward, motivation & attachment, emphasizing love’s role in driving social bonding & reinforcing relationships - Ventral tegmental area: - Associated with brain’s reward circuitry, rich in dopamine neurons - Becomes activated when people are shown images of their romantic partners - Reflects feelings of pleasure & motivation that love induces - Caudate nucleus & putamen: - Part of striatum, involved in reward processing - Suggests a link between romantic attachment & brain’s reward pathways - Insula: - Linked to emotional experiences & bodily states - Integrates sensory input & emotional context, reflecting deeply emotional & physical nature of love - Anterior cingulate cortex: - Involved in empathy, emotion regulation & social bonding - Highlighting love’s emotional complexity