PSYB57H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Traumatic Brain Injury, Zolpidem, Echoic Memory
Document Summary
A medical definition of consciousness is very different from other definitions in psychology. Neurological definition of consciousness ! to be fully conscious is to be both awake and aware. If you"re not awake, you"re not aware of what is happening. Just being awake is not sufficient for consciousness ! to be fully conscious you have to be awake as well as aware: awareness is the ability to understand your environment. Through this definition, we can classify different impairments of consciousness. Concussion is another word for mild traumatic brain injury ! at the most basic level, concussions can affect consciousness. In the context of consciousness, when someone is in a coma, they are not awake and they are not aware. You can"t just come out of a coma if you want to, so it"s not the same as being asleep. In some situations, people"s condition may get worse and result in death.
