Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - Department of Psychological ...

Greg Francis 1/2/13ConsciousnessPSY 200Greg FrancisLecture 25Do you see red like I see green?What is consciousness?Awareness of events, stimuli, thoughts,selfA sequence of meaningful itemsStream of thoughtsDistinct from unconscious processing(e.g., hearing a sentence, retrievinginformation from memory,…)Purdue UniversityPurdue UniversityHistoryDescartes dualism (Cartesian dualism) pineal gland link between body and spirit how they could connect was a real problemMaterialismNearly all scientists are materialists, butold ideas die hardA lot of work (PET scans, fMRI,…) looksfor the site of consciousness a special physical transformation thalamusMind-body problemMaterialism (the brain is the mind) or the mind derives from the brain reticular formation quantum mechanics distributed awarenessPurdue UniversityPurdue UniversityBeforeconsciousnessA turning pointA common view is that there is a moment/place which/where before something wasnot conscious and which after it isconsciousBut this is not true in the brainConsciousnessAfter consciousnessDistributed processingInformation processing is spatially andtemporally distributed in the brainProcessing changes with new stimuliThere really is no moment ofconsciousness different brain areas know different things atdifferent timesPurdue UniversityPurdue UniversityPSY200 Cognitive Psychology 1