Psychology - Vce Unit 3 - States Of Consciousness And Sleep

Front 1

Consciousness

Back 1

Is awareness of objects and events in the external world and our own existence and mental experience at any given moment

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Normal waking consciousness (NWC)

Back 2

Refers to states of consciousness associated with being awake and aware of our thoughts, feelings, memories and sensations we are experiencing from the outside world.

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Altered state of consciousness

Back 3

Any state of consciousness that is distinctly different from normal waking consciousness in terms of level of awareness and experience and quality or intensity of sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories

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Controlled process

Back 4

Involves conscious, alert awareness and mental effort in which the individual focuses their attention on achieving a particular goal

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Automatic process

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Requires littler conscious awareness and mental effort

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Attention

Back 6

Is a concentration if mental activity that involves focusing on specific stimuli

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The Stroop effect

Back 7

Is the observation that it take longer to name the colour of the ink in which a word in printed if the word spells the name of a different colour than to identify a block of colour. The automatic process of reading interferes our attempt to name the colour.

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The Stroop effect experiment conditions

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4 conditions
1) names of colours in black ink
2) names of colours in different(conflicting) coloured ink
3) blocks of colour
4) random words in coloured ink

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The cocktail party phenomenon

Back 9

Refers to the our ability to hear out name mentioned in someone else's conversation when we are in our own conversation/ there is music and other stimuli present.
- If a stimulus is personally important to us we are more likely to notice it

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Content

Back 10

What you are thinking about in conscious thought

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Content limitation

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Content (what we are thinking about) is more restricted in NWC than in ASC, that is we have more control over it

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Characteristics of ASC

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Distortions of perception and cognition
Time orientation
Changed in emotional awareness
Changes in self-control
Daydreaming

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Daydreaming

Back 13

Shift of attention from external stimuli to internal thoughts, feelings and imagined scenarios. The shift usually happens naturally and more often while stationary

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Distortions of perception and cognition

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Senses are either dulled or more receptive
- In meditation external stimuli is blocked out
Cognitive functioning can be impaired
- Thoughts and memories an become disorganised, illogical and lacking sequence

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Time orientation

Back 15

Time seems to pass at a different speed than it actually is

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Changes in emotional awareness

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Feelings are put in turmoil resulting in uncharacteristic responses
OR emotions may be severely dulled

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Changes in self control

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Difficlting coordinating and controlling movements and maintaining control of emotions

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4 types of brain waves

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Beta waves
Alpha waves
Theta waves
Delta waves
(Beiber Always Takes Drugs)

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Beta waves

Back 19

Alert and active during NWC
High frequency and low amplitude

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Alpha waves

Back 20

Extremely relaxed or meditative
High frequency and low amplitude (but higher than beta waves)

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Theta waves

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Early stages of sleep
Medium frequency and a mixture of high and low amplitude

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Delta waves

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Deepest stages of sleep
Low frequency and high amplitude

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Methods to study alertness in NWC

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EEG
Heart rate
Body temperature
Galvanic skin response (GSR)

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Sleep

Back 24

Can be described as a regularly occurring altered state of consciousness that typically occurs spontaneously and is primarily characterised by a loss of conscious awareness

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Methods to study sleep

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EEG - detects, records and amplifies electrical activity in the brain (brain waves)
EMG - '' '' electrical activity in muscles
EOG - " " eye movements
GSR - " " perspiration
Also - heart rate, body temperature, video monitoring and self report methods

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Polysomography

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An intensive study of s sleeping person involving simultaneous monitoring and recording of various physiological changes that occur as we fall alseep and during sleep itself

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NREM stage 1

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5-10 minutes
Transition from alpha to theta waves
Hypnic jerks may occur
If woken, won't feel sleep has occurred at all

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Hypnic jerk

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Occur in stage 1 NREM sleep as our muslces relax we sometimes experience a 'jerking' senstations

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NREM stage 2

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10-20 minutes
Mainly theta waves with sleep spindles and k-complexes
Midway, we stop responding to external stimuli
Still light sleep and if woken, may feel sleep has not occurred

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NREM stage 3

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10 minutes
The start of deep sleep/slow wave sleep
Less responsive
If woken, people are disorientated
20-50% delta waves
Sleep walking, talking, night terrors and bed wetting

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NREM stage 4

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Up to 20 minutes
More than 50% delta indicates the start of stage 4
Muscles so relaxed, can barely move
Very difficult to wake, if woken sleep inertia occurs
Sleep walking, talking, night terrors and bed wetting

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Physiological changes though stages 1-4 NREM sleep

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Heart rate, respiration, body temperature, and muscle tension all decrease

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Sleep spindles

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Brief burst of higher frequency brain waves that occurs during stage 2 NREM sleep

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K complexes

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Burst of low frequency and slightly higher amplitude brain waves

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REM sleep

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Eyeballs rapidly move back and forth and up and down in jerky movements beneath closed eyelids
Beta waves present and increase in blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, sleeper appears paralysed
Dreaming occurs

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Paradoxical sleep

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Another term from REM sleep because sleeper appears paralysed but brain waves are similar to those during alert consciousness

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Sleep over the lifespan

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Newborns- 16 hours- 50% REM
Infancy- 12-13 hours- 35-30% REM
Early adolescence- 9 hours- 20% REM
Late adulthood- 6-7 hours- 30% REM
Elderly- much lighter sleep with more awakenings

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Sleep-wake cycle shift

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A hormonally induced shift of the body clock forward by 1-2 hours that occurs during adolescence

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Circadian rhythm

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= Biological clock
The cycle of hormones produced to control bodily functions such as sleep

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Sleep debt

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Accumulated hours of missed sleep that need to be 'made up for', but not completely hour for hour

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Restorative theories

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Propose sleep provides 'time out' to help us recover from depleting activities during waking time that use up the body's physical and mental resources

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REM rebound

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Involes catching up on REM sleep by spending more time in REM sleep when next asleep

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Survival theory
(or evolutionary, preservation or protection theory)

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Proposes that sleep evolved to enhance survival by protecting an organism through making it inactive at night, the most risky time to move about.
Criticism: doesn't explain loss of awareness

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Partial sleep deprivation

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Involves having less than what is normally required
Side effects - tiredness, lapses in attention, inability to concentrate for a long period of time, reduced motor skills, low motivation, irritability, headaches

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Total sleep deprivation

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Involves not having any sleep at all
Side effects - excessive heat loss, immune system collapses, depression, hallucinations, paranoia, hand tremors, difficulty focusing eyes, no energy, slurred speech, increased sensitivity to pain, microsleeps

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Microsleep

Back 46

A very short period of drowsiness or sleeping that occurs while a person is apparently awake, brain waves resmeble early NREM sleep