States of Consciousness

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness

that created it.”Albert Einstein

What is consciousness?• Awareness of one’s own mental activity & environment

– Personal– Can be selective– Consciousness is continuous and ever-changing

• Phenomenal consciousness (P-consciousness) simply experience

• Subconscious-part of mind below level of conscious perception

• Preconscious-memories or feelings not part of one's immediate awareness but recalled through conscious effort.

Persistent vegetative state (PVS) condition in which individual loses higher cerebral powers of brain,

but maintains sleep-wake cycles with full or partial autonomic functions.

involves complete or near-complete lack of responsiveness

Fainting Coma

Sleep PVS

Attentional Processes• Selective Attention

– ability to focus awareness on single stimulus to exclusion of other stimuli

– Cocktail party phenomenon

• Divided attention– ability to distribute one’s attention and

simultaneously engage in two or more activities

– Multi-tasking

Mental Control & Thought Suppression

• Wegner and colleagues (1987)– Can we at suppress our thoughts?

• IV: 2 (order:expression/suppression X suppression/expression)

• DV: # of rings of bell (to indicate thinking of ‘white bear’) and mentions of ‘white bear’

– Rebound effect• Stereotypes, dieting

• participants who suppressed anxious or depressing personal thoughts showed significant rebound effect compared to those who expressed thoughts from outset

– Generally good control but

sometimes we fail

later changed to objective psyche.

common to everyone; has better sense of self's ideal than ego or conscious self

Analytical psychology, part of unconscious mind, shared by society, people, or all humankind, product of ancestral experience, contains concepts such as science, religion, and morality.

“Daydream Believer”

• Imaginary scenes & events that occur while awake

• Possible functions:– Mental rehearsal– Mental arousal when bored– Problem solving (practical & creative)– Pleasure

Biological Rhythms

• Periodic fluctuations in physiological functioning

• Four cycles:– Yearly– 28-day– Circadian (24 hours)– 90 minutes

Circadian Rhythm

• Influences sleep & wakefulness• Blood pressure• Hormones• Body temperature

• Humans drift toward 25-hour cycle because of advances in technology

• Syprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN)– Controls our timing device for

circadian rhythm

Meditation

• Procedure that uses mental exercises to achieve highly focused state of consciousness– TM transcendental meditation– Relaxation response

• Effects include:– Increased self esteem & sense of control– Overcoming insomnia, preventing smoking

Near-Death Experiences (NDE)

altered state of consciousness reported after close brush with death

often similar to drug-induced hallucinations

As NDE intensity increases according to Rasch scale* — peace, joy and harmony, followed by insight and

mystical or religious experiences – increase.

Measuring (proving) NDEs

*(Rasch Scale – more credible person = more believable)

Interest in NDE originally spurred by research of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (Swiss-born psychiatrist & author On Death and Dying) where she first discusssed what is known as Kübler-Ross model.

Near-Death Experiences

Dualism presumption that mind and body are two

distinct entities that interact

Monism presumption that mind and body are

different aspects of the same thing

In the field of Artificial Intelligence, there is a movement to create digital computer programs that can

simulate consciousness.

Turing Test

Test to determine whether or not computer satisfied operational definition of "intelligent" (which is actually quite different from test for consciousness or self-awareness). This test is commonly cited in discussion of artificial intelligence.