PSYC 256 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Occipital Lobe, Episodic Memory, Qualia
13 Jun 2018
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UNCONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness
• State of awareness of sensations or ideas, such that we can
o Know what it feels like to experience these sensations and ideas
o Report to others that we are aware of these sensations and ideas
• Qualia: internal, subjective experience; what you are aware of; phenomenological
experience
o Nagel: what is it like to be a bat?
The Cognitive Unconscious
• NOT the Freudian unconscious (unknown, id, ego, etc.)
• Mental activities that occur below the level of awareness but that make cognition
possible
Blindsight
• Subjective phenomenology of blindness but behavioral awareness (based on
unconscious processes) of visual stimuli
o Guess object identity correctly
o Navigate around obstacles successfully
• Due to injury/illness/tumors in occipital cortex
• Consciousness is not necessary for visual perception
Memory in Amnesia
• Showed amnesic patients fragmented pictures, then complete picture
• Patient recognized the fragmented image after the first trial
The Cognitive Unconscious
• Aware of the products of cognition but unaware of the processes
o Retrieving information such as name from long-term memory
o Seeing and reading a written word, making inferences about missing features
o Recalling an episodic memory and perhaps committing a memory error
Processing Fluency
• Some aspects of processing are available to conscious experience
• Often interpreted as familiarity or accuracy of memories, emotions, beliefs, …
Cognitive Errors
• Brief presentation of letters → CORN or CQRN
• Both perceived as corn
• Participants were unaware of the error
• Knowledge of the illusion does not alter the experience of perception
• Association occurring outside of consciousness
• unconsciously , getting confirmation vs disconfirmation affects confidence
perception
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
The cognitive unconscious: not the freudian unconscious (unknown, id, ego, etc. , mental activities that occur below the level of awareness but that make cognition possible. Blindsight: subjective phenomenology of blindness but behavioral awareness (based on unconscious processes) of visual stimuli (cid:498)guess(cid:499) object identity correctly, navigate around obstacles successfully, due to injury/illness/tumors in occipital cortex, consciousness is not necessary for visual perception. Memory in amnesia: showed amnesic patients fragmented pictures, then complete picture, patient recognized the fragmented image after the first trial. Introspections about why we thought or behaved as we did are often incorrect. Cognitive unconscious: unconscious processing is strongly guided by familiarity, generally appropriate but inflexible, heuristics are useful because they"re, fast, efficient, reasonable, allow for multitasking. Executive control: mental process used to set goals and negotiate conflicts among competing responses. Internal representations of tasks: external implementations of plans. Metacognition: monitoring and controlling own mental processes, metamemory: beliefs about memory, useful for studying and test taking.
