PSY 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Cortisol, Narcolepsy, Leptin

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Najwa Haddad

Document Summary

Consciousness: our awareness of ourselves and our environment. Allows us to assemble info from multiple sources as we reflect on past and plan for future. Evolutionary psychologists speculate the consciousness offers a reproductive advantage. Helps us act in our long term interests (by considering consequences) rather than seeking short term pleasure that can lead to harm. Promotes our survival by anticipating how we seem to others and helping us read their minds. States of consciousness spontaneous daydreaming, drowsiness, physiologically induced psychologically induced dreaming hallucinations, orgasm, food or oxygen starvation sensory deprivation, hypnosis, meditation. Def: interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with our mental process. If a stimulus activates enough brain-wide coordinated neural activity, with strong signals in one part of the brain triggering activity in another part, it crosses the threshold for consciousness. Different stimulus strengths activate different areas of the brain.