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Unit 4: Consciousness

Explore various states of consciousness, including waking consciousness and altered states, and their influences on behavior. Learn about subconscious processing, the history of consciousness in psychology, the evolutionary reasons for consciousness, Freud's tripartite theory, and the stream of consciousness. Discover the role of daydreaming and fantasy in our lives.

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Unit 4: Consciousness

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  1. CHS AP Psychology Unit 4: Consciousness Essential Task 5.7: Describe various states of consciousness and their impact on behavior.

  2. Consciousness • Waking consciousness • Our awareness of ourselves and our environment • Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that occur when we are awake and alert • Allows us to reflect and plan • Altered States of Consciousness • A mental state that differs noticeably from normal waking consciousness

  3. Subconscious processing • Well-learned tasks become automatic • Driving • Typing • When you meet people you unconsciously react to their gender, age and appearance • Subconscious processing • Bird (color, form, movement, distance) • Unconscious processing is parallel while conscious is linear but good at novel problems

  4. Forms of Altered-Consciousness Sleep

  5. History of Consciousness • Psychology began as a science of consciousness. (Titchner and Structuralism) • Behaviorists argued about alienating consciousness from psychology. • However, after 1960, mental concepts (consciousness) started reentering psychology.

  6. Evolutionary Reason for Consciousness • Consciousness as an adaptation allowing us to get along with others in our group (humans) • Allows us to ‘see’ ourselves and therefore moderate our behavior.

  7. Tripartite Theory - Freud

  8. The Stream of Consciousness • Consciousness results from the activity of the thalamus which analyzes and interprets information in the cerebral cortex. • “sweeping or scanning” total a rate of 40 times per second • Each sweep results in a single image or “moment of consciousness” • Intralaminar nucleus, a kind of doughnut of cells within the thalamus, has nerve cells that send out long axons that reach to every part of the cerebral cortex. Significantly, there are also returning axons that come down from all areas of the cortex back to the intralaminar nucleus.

  9. Neuroscientists believe that consciousness emerges from the interaction of individual subconscious brain events much like a chord that is created from different musical notes. Move wrist - 0.2 seconds prior to moving your wrist, you must decide to move the wrist since it takes that long to travel to the wrist. But it isn’t until 0.35 seconds after that your brain waves jump If told to hit a button after a tone you can respond in 1/10th of a second, but won’t show the jump in brain waves until .35 seconds. You live in the past – but only by a bit Consciousness as a Chord of Subconscious brain events.

  10. Daydreaming and Fantasy • Spontaneous shifts attention away from the here and now into a make-believe world • Urge to daydream peaks about every 90 minutes and is highest between 12:00 and 2:00pm • Almost half of your waking hours? • Daydreams may provide stress relief and encourage creativity

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