States of Consciousness

Dual Processing, Sleep, and Dreams: Module 5

Selective Attention

Levels of Information Processing

History of Consciousness

Psychology began as a science of consciousness. At it’s beginning, psychology was “the description and explanation of states of consciousness” (Ladd, 1887). The difficulty of scientifically studying consciousness led many psychologists to turn to behaviorism (to directly observe behavior). By the 1960s, psychology lost consciousness as part of its definition and was then defining itself as the science of behavior.

Behaviorists argued about alienating consciousness from psychology. After the 1960s, mental concepts began to reemerge. Advances in neuroscience made it possible to study the different states of consciousness. Psychology was regaining consciousness.

Consciousness, modern psychologists believe, is an awareness of ourselves and our environment.

Waking Consciousness: Forms of Consciousness

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Waking Consciousness: Forms of Consciousness

Consciousness assembles information from various sources, enabling us to reflect on our past and plan for our future. It also focuses our attention when we learn a complex concept or behavior—such as driving a car—making us aware of the car and the traffic around us.

Waking Consciousness: Selective Attention

Our conscious awareness processes only a small part of all that we experience. We intuitively make use of the information we are not consciously aware of.

Take the example of driving a car again. With practice, driving no longer requires our undivided attention, freeing us to focus our attentional spotlight on other things. This illustrates that: Our conscious attention is selective.

Through selective attention, our awareness focuses, like a flashlight beam, on only a limited aspect of all that we experience.

Your 5 senses pick up 11,000,000 bits of information per second. We consciously process only 40 bits of this and the remaining is unconsciously processed. Take your shoes for example, you don’t realize the pressure your shoes have on your feet until you become consciously aware of it.

Show clips! Awareness 1,2,3

Waking Consciousness: Inattentional Blindness

Inattentional blindness refers to the inability to see an object or a person in our midst.

Simons & Chabris (1999) showed that half of the observers failed to see the gorilla-suited

assistant in a ball passing game.

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Waking Consciousness: Inattentional Blindness

During an experiment, participants were shown a one minute videotape. On the video were 6 individuals tossing a ball. 3 were in black shirts and 3 were in white shirts. Every time a player in a black shirt tossed the ball, the viewers were supposed to press a designated key. Half-way through the video, an individual dressed in a gorilla suit was sent to walk through and stand amidst the players. It even thumped its chest.

Half of the viewers failed to notice the gorilla. They exhibited inattentional blindness. Because they were so completely focused on the game they failed to take notice.

Show clip change blindness.

Waking Consciousness: Change Blindness

Change blindness is a form of inattentional blindness in which two-thirds of individuals giving directions failed to notice a change in

the individual asking for directions.

© 1998 Psychonomic Society Inc. Image provided courtesy of Daniel J. Simmons.

Show clip choice blindness

Waking Consciousness: Change Blindness

In this scenario, a man is giving directions to a construction worker. All of a sudden, two people, carrying a door, rudely pass them. At this point the construction worker and one of the people carrying the door switch places (while the door is separating the view from the person who is giving the directions).

In this experiment, 2/3 of the people who were giving directions, did not notice the switch. This is a very good illustration of change blindness.

Waking Consciousness: Levels of Information Processing

Consciousness enables us to exert voluntary control and to communicate our mental states to others.

We register and react to a vast number of stimuli we do not consciously perceive, all the while performing tasks automatically, changing our attitudes, and reconstructing our memories without conscious awareness.

Perception, memory, thinking, language, and attitudes all operate on two levels—a conscious, deliberate “highroad” and an unconscious, automatic “low road”. This is what is referred to as dual processing—we know more than we know we know.

Unconscious parallel processing (low road) frees your conscious mind to deal with new challenges. All of this unconscious information processing occurs simultaneously on multiple parallel planes. For example: Traveling a familiar route, your hands and feet do the driving while your mind is elsewhere.

Waking Consciousness: Levels of Information Processing

Serial conscious processing (the processing of several pieces of information one at a time, in succession—aka the “high road”) is slower, yet skilled at solving new problems, which requires focused attention.

Try this: move your right foot in a counterclockwise circle and with your right hand, write the number 3 repeatedly. (switch the right foot and hand to left if you are left handed.) You are probably able to do this but not at the same time.

Try this: with your left hand tap 3 times and with your right hand tap 4 times—all beginning and ending at the same time.

Both tasks require conscious attention, which can really be only in one place at one time.

So, if time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once, then consciousness is nature’s way of keeping us from thinking and doing everything at once.

States of Consciousness

Sleep and Dreams: Module 5

Biological Rhythms and Sleep

Why Do We Sleep?

Sleep Disorders

Dreams

Sleep & Dreams

Sleep – the irresistible tempter to whom we inevitably succumb.

Mysteries about sleep and dreams have just startedunraveling in sleep laboratories around the world.

How do our biological rhythms influence our daily functioning and our sleep and dreams?

Biological Rhythms and SleepCircadian Rhythms occur on a 24-hour cycle and

include sleep and wakefulness. Termed our “biological clock,” it can be altered by artificial light.

Light triggers the suprachiasmatic nucleus to decrease(morning) melatonin from the pineal gland

and increase (evening) it at night fall.

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Biological Rhythms and Sleep

In Latin circa means “about” and diem (for -dian) means “day”.

Bright light in the morning tweaks the circadian clock by activating light sensitive retinal proteins. These proteins trigger signals to the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus (located in the hypothalamus, controls the circadian clock). This causes the pineal gland to decrease melatonin in the morning and increase it at night.

Melatonin is a hormone that is important for sleep. It helps to induce sleep.

Being bathed in light (even artificial light) disrupts our 24 hour biological clock. This is why it is easy to forget about time—for example, in Las Vegas. The lighting inside of the casinos fools the biological clock.

video circadian rhythms

Sleep has its own biological rhythm. Sleep is the periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness—as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a

coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation. About every 90 minutes, we pass through a cycle of five distinct sleep stages.

Sleep Stages

Hank Morgan/ Rainbow

Awake but Relaxed

When an individual closes his eyes but remains awake, his brain activity slows

down to a large amplitude and slow, regular alpha waves (9-14 cycles/second). A meditating person exhibits an alpha brain

activity.

During early, light sleep (stages 1-2) the brain enters a high-amplitude, slow,

regular wave form called theta waves (5-8 cps). A person who is daydreaming shows

theta activity.

Sleep Stages 1-2

Theta Waves

During deepest sleep (stages 3-4), brain activity slows down. There are large-

amplitude, slow delta waves (1.5-4 cps).

Sleep Stages 3-4

Stage 5: REM Sleep

After reaching the deepest sleep stage (4), the sleep cycle starts moving backward

towards stage 1. Although still asleep, the brain engages in low- amplitude, fast and regular beta waves (15-40 cps) much like

awake-aroused state.

A person during this sleep exhibitsRapid Eye Movements (REM)

and reports vivid dreams.

90-Minute Cycles During Sleep

With each 90-minute cycle, stage 4 sleep decreases and the duration of REM sleep

increases.

Some Amazing Things that Occur During REM

Except during very scary dreams, your genitals become aroused during REM sleep, and you have an erection or increased vaginal lubrication and clitoral engorgement, regardless of whether the dream’s content is sexual.

Even though the brain’s cortex is active during REM, your brainstem blocks its messages, leaving muscles relaxed, that you are essentially paralyzed—moreover, you cannot be easily awakened. This is why REM sleep is sometimes called paradoxical sleep because the body is internally aroused, yet externally calm.

Why do we sleep?

Why do we sleep?We spend one-third of

our lives sleeping.

If an individual remains awake for

several days, immune function and concentration

deteriorates and the risk of accidents

increases. We need sleep to thrive appropriately.

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Sleep Deprivation

1. Fatigue and subsequent death.

2. Impaired concentration.

3. Emotional irritability.

4. Depressed immune system.

5. Greater vulnerability.

Show clip Sleep deprivation

Accidents

Frequency of accidents increase with loss of sleep

Sleep Theories1. Sleep Protects: Sleeping in the darkness when

predators loomed about kept our ancestors out of harm’s way.

2. Sleep Recuperates: Sleep helps restore and repair brain tissue.

3. Sleep Helps Remembering: Sleep restores and rebuilds our fading memories.

4. Sleep and Growth: During sleep, the pituitary gland releases growth hormone. Older people release less of this hormone and sleep less. Growth hormone is important in protein anabolism (creation) and fat and carbohydrate catabolism (break-down) as well as our physical growth.

1. Insomnia: A persistent inability to fall asleep. Afflicts 10% - 15% adults. Sleeping pills and alcohol (the so-called quick fixes) reduce REM sleep and cause us to still feel tired the next day no matter how much we had slept.

2. Narcolepsy: Overpowering urge to fall asleep that may occur while talking or standing up.

3. Sleep apnea: Failure to breathe when asleep.

Sleep Disorders

Children are most prone to:

Night terrors: Night terrors are not nightmares. They are the sudden arousal from sleep with intense fear accompanied by physiological reactions (e.g., rapid heart rate, perspiration) which occur during Stage 4 sleep (nightmares occur during REM sleep).

Sleepwalking: A Stage 4 disorder which is usually harmless and unrecalled the next day.

Sleeptalking: A condition that runs in families, like sleepwalking. (Stage 4)

Sleep Disorders

WE NEED SLEEP!Some things that can help promote a good nights

sleep:• regular exercise (before evening hits)• avoidance of caffeine after late afternoon• avoidance of rich foods before bedtime (milk is

good before bed because it helps—catabolizes into materials that help manufacture serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that helps facilitate sleep.

• relax before bedtime, dim the lights• establish a regular sleep schedule and avoid

naps

WE NEED SLEEP!

• hide the face of the clock so that you are not tempted to look at it through the night

• don’t stress over occasional or temporary sleep loss—it’s normal. Stressing only causes more sleep loss.

• any type of stress experienced during the day will manifest itself with a “fitful” sleep. Try to avoid stress! Or try to deal with it appropriately so that you don’t take it to bed with you.

• Show fatal familial insomnia clip if time permits (10 min)

Dreams

The link between REM sleep and dreaming has opened up a new era of

dream research. Dreams have been

referred to as “hallucinations of the

sleeping mind”. 80% of our dreams are marked by negative emotions.

What We Dream

We spend 6 years of our life in dreams!1. Negative Emotional Content: 8 out of 10

dreams have negative emotional content.2. Failure Dreams: People commonly dream

about failure, being attacked, pursued, rejected, or struck with misfortune.

3. Sexual Dreams: Contrary to our thinking, sexual dreams are sparse. Sexual dreams in men are 1 in 10; and in women 1 in 30.

Manifest Content: A Freudian term meaning the story line of dreams.

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Manifest Content and Latent Content

The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli (1791)

Manifest content of a dream includes the actual images, thoughts and content contained within the dream; the elements of the dream that we remember upon awakening. Sigmund Freud suggested that the content of dreams is related to wish fulfillment and manifest content serves to disguise the latent content

Latent content of a dream is the hidden psychological meaning; Freud believed that latent content is suppressed and hidden by the subconscious mind in order to protect the individual from thoughts and feelings that are hard to cope with. By uncovering the hidden meaning, Freud believed that people could better understand their problems and resolve issues that create difficulties in their lives.

What We Dream

More often than not, the story line of our dreams incorporate traces of our previous days’ non-sexual experiences and preoccupations:

• After suffering a trauma, people commonly report nightmares. Sept 2001: increase in threatening dreams following 9/11.

• After playing “Tetris” for 7 hours and then being awakened repeatedly during the first hour of sleep, 3 out of 4 people reported images of the game’s falling blocks.

• Compared with non-musicians, musicians report twice as many dreams of music.

Why We DreamWhat is the function of dreaming? Dream theorists

have proposed several explanations:1. Wish Fulfillment: (To satisfy our own wishes)

Sigmund Freud suggested that dreams provide a psychic safety valve to discharge unacceptable feelings. The dream’s manifest (apparent) content may also have symbolic meanings (latent content) that signify our unacceptable feelings.

2. Information Processing: (To file away memories) Dreams may help sift, sort, and fix a day’s experiences in our memories.

Why We Dream

3. Physiological Function: (To develop and preserve neural pathways) Dreams provide the sleeping brain with periodic stimulation to develop and preserve neural pathways. Neural networks of newborns are quickly developing; therefore, they need more sleep.

Why We Dream

4. Activation-Synthesis Theory: (To make sense of neural static) Suggests that the brain engages in a lot of random neural activity. Dreams make sense of this activity.

5. Cognitive Development: Some researchers argue that we dream as a part of brain maturation and cognitive development.

All dream researchers believe we need REM sleep. Whendeprived of REM sleep and then allowed to sleep,

we show increased REM sleep called REM Rebound.

Dream TheoriesSummary

Show tripp clip if time allows