Unconscious Determinants Of Consciousness

Attention is thought to be selective-focused on one subject at a time. Traditionally, it has been assumed that automatic processing is involuntary, it does not require attention, and is relatively fast; whereas, controlled processing is voluntary, does require attention, and is relatively slow. We can conclude from this that the more we repeat a certain material or tasks the more it becomes automatic and effortless to us.

BibliographyBooks1.Burt, C. (1962). The concept of consciousness. British Journal of Psychology, 53, 229-2422.Carlson, N., & Buskist, W. (1997). Psychology: The science of behavior (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

The fascination with consciousness dates back to the time of Plato and Descartes. Since those times the term “consciousness” has spurned controversy in many scientific fields, including the fields of biology, psychology, and neuroscience. However, with the recent advancements in brain imaging technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), human consciousness has shifted from being a subjective, abstract idea into being a observable scientific phenomenon. As neuroimaging capabilities progress, the public interest in consciousness also grows.

After this activity, they were asked to do a “lexical decision task” (a standard approach for measuring unconscious responses) in which they were shown a series of words and nonwords in random order and had to press “C” if it was a real word or “N” if not. Half of the real words were related to autonomy (e.g., freedom, choice) and half were neutral (e.g., whisper, hammer). The key focus of the study was on how long it took people to press the button *(“response latency”) for each kind of real word, averaged over the many words of each type. The table below

Neurons' firing while observing an action can be helpful in planning one's actions, as the consequences of those actions can also be observed.

In psychology there are many different approaches to understanding the complexity of human behaviour, all of which have different methods of testing what factors can influence behaviour, varying from scientific to pure assumption in an attempt to understand human behaviour. This essay with explain the key ideas of the behaviourist, biological and humanistic approaches and will compare and contrast their assumptions on human behaviour.

There are many thoughts or factors that go into how we judge and treat others that we may not be aware of. The book breaks them down into two categories unconscious and conscious thoughts. Our unconscious brain is gathering information from a very small age and continues to constantly work to help you understand what is going on in the world around you. Our unconscious brain is programed to stereotype from birth. An example of this is how infants at three months can distinguish faces of different races from their own. They tend to prefer the faces of their own race over others which was determined by how long the infant looks at the different faces (p128). This was not taught by a parent or others which brings to our attention that some stereotyping

Libet then took that time that they decided to move and the time of the brain activity and compared the two times. He found that there was a delay, with the brain activity coming first, and the conscious decision coming about 200 milliseconds

Libet performed an experiment in which subjects wore an EEG net that measured electrical activity across their scalp, indicating brain activity. They were asked to flex their wrist whenever they felt like it while also watching a clock-like timer. They were then asked to report when they first had the conscious intention of moving their wrist. Libet found that there was neural activity in the motor cortex before the subject reported having a conscious decision do act. These results suggest that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of volitional acts, and free will therefore plays no part in them. This has us urging the question, if unconscious brain processes have already begun taking the steps to commence an action before the conscious mind is aware of any desire to perform it, then is the causal role of awareness refuted? Libet finds that conscious free will is used in the form of having the ability to veto an action; the idea that conscious agreement is required to allow thoughts of consideration of performing an action to turn in to actually performing the action. While consciousness plays no part in the motivation of voluntary acts, Libet suggests that it may still have a part to play in concealing or fighting certain acts brought about by the unconscious mind, often referred to as a “veto”. It is stated that “All of us, not

It is proposed that one's behaviour is an involuntary act that is directly linked to the

After the EEGs, the participants were given a computerized task. The main role of the experiment was to see whether the participants could control the flow of images on a screen by using a sequence of key commands. When controlling the flow of images, they could press the space bar to check or confirm the key sequence. The participle that was told they had a high risk of losing control over their thought and action were more eager in checking the feedback than those who were told they had a low risk of losing control over their thought and action.

Donder’s decision-making experiment was very simple. He measured the relationship between the presentation of the stimulus and the subject’s response to the stimulus using reaction time. The experiment showed that reaction time was relative to the required task. It was evident that when the request was simple, the participants' reactions were sudden, but when it was complex, the participants' reactions were much slower. Additionally, another aspect to this experiment introduced several stimuli and the participant’s had to

Cognitive psychology is concerned with the internal processes involved in making sense of the environment and deciding what action may be appropriate. These processes include attention, perception, learning and reasoning, (Eysenck and Keane, 2010).There are a number of approaches which can be used within this field, however for the purposes of the essay only two will be compared; cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology. The aims of cognitive neuroscientists are often similar to those of cognitive psychologists; they are both interested in the brain and cognition, (Medin and Ross, 1996). Nevertheless, it could be argued that there are also some fundamental differences between the two approaches, especially in the research methods

It is difficult to determine whether or not the unconscious has a large influence on our free will. While we have seen experiments conducted that prove a conscious goal to act begins unconsciously moments before, it is more difficult to prove what the unconscious wills us to do without the conscious recognizing it. Theories such as Freud’s and Jung’s have set up the basis for what the unconscious mind consists of; however, these theories appear to be unfalsifiable and the methods for testing cannot be fully trusted. Their methods, such as interpreting a patient’s repressed dreams through hypnosis, may create false memories. Although they may be a good beginning to the idea of how the unconscious may function, both Jung and Freud’s theories

For starters consciousness is a mystical network. It has several different extraordinary characters. One David Chalmers says it has a “unified and a differentiated character”, that he feels defines consciousness and makes it simple. But is it really that simplistic?? I mean consciousness is something everyone is aware of at every waking moment of life until death. Never has it been something