Psych 101 (Online) PDF

CONSCIOUSNESS I Oct 1 Awareness of external events and internal sensations, including awareness of the self and thoughts about experiences - Santrock, 2003 Contents of awareness change from moment to moment Stream of consciousness - continuous flow of changing sensations, images, thoughts,...

CONSCIOUSNESS I Oct 1 Awareness of external events and internal sensations, including awareness of the self and thoughts about experiences - Santrock, 2003 Contents of awareness change from moment to moment Stream of consciousness - continuous flow of changing sensations, images, thoughts, feelings Levels of awareness 1. Higher level of consciousness Controlled processes ○ Individual can focus on specific goals ○ Selective attention (e.g. cry of the baby than the noise of washing machine) ○ E.g. writing a paper, cooking, reviewing for an exam 2. Lower level of consciousness Automatic processes - because you’re so used to it ○ Require minimal attention and does not interfere with ongoing activities ○ E.g. pag nagtatali ng sapatos Daydreaming Lie between active consciousness and dreaming Mind wandering 3. Altered states of consciousness Mental states that bare noticeably different from normal awareness Can be caused by drugs, trauma, fatigue, hypnosis, and sensory deprivation ○ A state in which you do not receive any information from the world ○ Can happen in laboratory settings/prison cells 4. Subconscious awareness Waking subconscious awareness - incubation of ideas ○ E.g. during class discussions, you know that there’s brewing in your mind, an answer to a problem that was posed to you, but it simply cannot like move out ○ E.g tip of the tongue phenomenon, but in incubation nasa mind sya before sa tip of the tongue Sleeps and dreams ○ Sleeps - Some parts of what is happening outside, is actually still being monitored by the brain ○ Lucid dreaming - this is when you’re dreaming and you know that you’re dreaming You are actually kind of aware that this is just a dream You can control the content of your dream  5. No awareness Freud: unconscious thought - reservoir of unacceptable wishes, feelings, thoughts that are beyond conscious awareness ○ Freud theory: he compares the human mind into an iceberg Most is submerged in water Parts that are submerged in water = unconscious thought Unacceptable wishes - not allowed by the society It will always go out in the forms of dreams, mannerisms, slip of the tongue SLEEP altered state of unconsciousness Why do we sleep? a. Evolutionary perspective: to conserve energy at night b. Sleep restores energy and replenishes our brain and body Onset of REM stops the release of neurotransmitters (monoamines) REM - rapid eye movement stage, happens right after your deep sleep Once we enter the REM stagge, the neurotransmitters are not released = since no information, brain rests c. Assists physical growth and brain development in children Release of growth hormone related with deep sleep Kids have more REM Growth hormone, related with deep sleep BIOLOGICAL RHYTHMS Periodic physiological fluctuations in the body ○ E.g. rise and fall of hormones in the bloodstream; accelerated and decelerated cycles of brain activity Controlled by biological clocks ○ Annual or seasonal cycles (migration of birds, hibernation of bears, fluctuation of eating habits) ○ 28-day cycles ○ 24-hour cycles ○ Circadian rhythms Daily behavioral or phhysiological cycle E.g. sleep/wake cycle, body temperature, blood pressure Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) - monitors the change from day to night; synchronizes its own rhythm with the daily cycle of light and dark based on inputs from the retina Located in our brain Monitors the changes from day to night SLEEP DEPRIVATION  Affects alertness and cognitive performance Decline in the complexity of brain activity Affects decision making SLEEP STAGES Stage 1: Theta waves (slower in frequency than alpha waves) ○ when we are about to sleep Stage 2: Theta waves and sleep sindles (sudden increase in wave frequency) Stage 3 and 4: Delta waves; deep sleep ○ Big and regular brain waves Stage 5: REM sleep (rapid eye movement) ○ Dreaming occurs ○ Fast brain waves ○ All the memories are gathered together and come up with a full story SLEEP DISORDERS 1. Insomnia - difficulty to fall asleep, has something to do with the quality of your sleep 2. Somnambulism - occurs in deep sleep (sleep walking), caused by stress, things that one wants to do when they are not allowed to during the day 3. Sleep talking - caused by stress 4. Nightmare - frightening dream that awakens a person from REM sleep a. Night terror i. sudden arousal from sleep; intense fear ii. Accompanied by physiological reactions iii. Less common than nightmares 5. Narcolepsy - overpowering urge to sleep; people with this disorder enter REM sleep right away instead of progressing from stage 1 90-minute cycle - sleep 6. Sleep apnea - individuals stop breathing while asleep DREAMS Wish fulfilment theory ○ Manifest content - dream’s surface content ○ Latent content - hidden content, interpretation Cognitive theory ○ Same cognitive concepts that are used in studying the waking mind ○ A mental realm for solving our problems and think creatively Activation-synthesis theory ○ Dreaming occurs when the cerebral cortex synthesizes neural signals generated from activity in the lower part of the brain ○ Brain’s effort to make sense of the neural activity that happens in sleep ○ Synthesizes ideas  Dream-for-sruvival theory ○ Has an evolutionary root CONSCIOUSNESS II Oct 3 - Notes Hypnosis Trancelike stage of heightened susceptibility to the suggestions of others ○ Susceptible - easily influenced Follows a series of steps: 1. Person made comfortable in a quiet environment 2. The hypnotist explains what is going to happen e.g. that person will be in a relaxed state 3. Hypnotist tells the person to concentrate on a specific image or object 4. 4. Once the person is in a relaxed state, the hypnotist gives suggestions that the person interprets as being in a state of hypnosis People do not lose all will of their own Will not perform anti-social behavior WIll not carry out self-destructive acts Differences in people’s susceptibility to hypnosis ○ 5% of the population cannot be hypnotized at all ○ 15% are very easily hypnotized People who are easily hypnotized are those who easily gets absorbed while reading books or listening to music, becoming unaware of what is happening around them, spends a lot of time daydreaming Views about hypnosis: 1. Divided consciousness High suggestibility, increased ability to recall and construct images, acceptance of suggestions Hypnosis brings about a dissociation, a divided state of consciousness into two simultaneous components (Hilgard) ○ One part, following the commands of the hypnotist, the other part, as “hidden observer”, aware of what is happening around them. 2. Hypnosis is not a signficantly different state of consciousness Altered brain waves not a sufficient evidence; no other physiological changes occur  Little support that adults can remember childhood experiences Hypnosis state lies in a continuum - not totally a different state of consciousness, not totally similar to a normal waking state. Value of hypnosis 1. Controlling pain Childbirth and dental procedures 2. Reducing smoking Suggest that the smell and tatse of cigarettes are unpleasant 3. Treating psychological disorders Heighten relaxation, reduce anxiety, increase expectations of success, modify self-defeating thoughts 4. Assist in law enforcement Victims and witnesses better able to recall details of a crime 5. Improving athletic performance Improve concentration Meditation A learned technique for refocusing attention that brings about an altered state of consciousness Repetition of a mantra- a sound, word, or syllable - over and over Focus on a picture, flame, or a specific part of the body Key technique is to become unaware of any outside stimulation to reach a different state of awareness Benefits 1. Gain new insights into themselves and problems 2. Long term practice may improve health because of the biological changes it produces - Oxygen usage delcines, heart rate and blood pressure decline, brain wave patterns change (Barnes, et al) Drug use can lead to: 1. Physical dependence - physiological need for a drug that causes withdrawal symptoms when it is discontinued 2. Tolerance - need to take increasing amounts of a drug to ge the same effect 3. Psychological dependence - strong desire to repeat the use of drugs for emotional reasons LEARNING Oct. 8 - A relatively permanent change in behavior that is brought about by experience. Maturation - biological process usually in human development/biological unfolding of certain processes in human development - E.g. birth may timeline yan There are changes brought up by maturation - Due to practice and experience Habituation Decrease in response to a stimulus that occurs after repeated presentations of the same stimulus Permits us to ignore thinngs that have stopped providing new information Most learning is more complex than habituation E.g. rattle Classical Conditioning (learning) Ivan Pavlov - dog experiment Type of learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to bring about a response after it is paired with a stimulus that naturally brings about that response. Basic Concepts in CC A. Neutral Stimulus (NS) A stimulus that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring about the response we are interested in. B. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) A stimulus that naturally brings about a response without having learned E.g. food C. Unconitioned Response (UCR) A natural innate response tat occurs automatically and needs no traning E.g. salivation D. Conditioned Response (CR) A response that, after conditioning, follows a previously neutral stimulus E.g. salivation at the ringing of the bell The sequence and timing of the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus is particularly important  Conditioning is most effective if the neutral stimulus (which will become a conditioned stimulus) precede the UCS by between a half second and several seconds, depending on what kind of response is being conditioned. Applications Emotional responses: fear of mice, spiders; phobias (Little expt.) Food with colors of McDo or jollibee Avoidance of dentists because of associations of dentists with pain Post traumatic stress disorder Pleasant experiences: smell of a certain perfume: brings about happy thoughts Desensitization/Counter Conditioning - is a process by which we reverse the associations done by classical conditioning Extinction Occurs when a previously conditioned response decreases in frequency and eventually disappears Occurs when the association between a conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimuli Spontaneous recovery: reemergence of an extinguished conditioned response after a period of time and with no further conditioning Stimulus Generalization A process in which, after a stimulus has been conditioned to produce a particular response, stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus produce the same response. The greater the similarity between two stimuli, the greater the likelihood of stimulus generalization Stimulus Discrimination Occurs if two stimuli are sufficiently distinct from each other one evokes a conditioned response but the other does not. Provides the ability to differentiate between stimuli Operant Conditioning Form of learning in which voluntary responses come to be controlled by their consequences Skinner: organisms tend to repeat those responses that are followed by favorable consequences (reinforcement) ○ White rats and sometimes pigeons ○ Skinner box Basic Processes in Operant Conditioning 1. Acquisition and shaping Acquisition Formation of a new response tendency  Operant responses are typically established through a gradual process called SHAPING Shaping is necessary when the organism does not, on its own, emit the desired response 2. Extinction Gradual weakening and disappearance of a response tendency because the response is no longer followed by reinforcement. Reinforcement - is anything that increases the desired response Negative Reinforcement - removal of an aversive stimulus so that a desired response is going to happen Positive Reinforcement - presentation of a positive stimulus to increase the likelihood