PSYC 2410 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Barbiturate, Narcolepsy, Hallucinogen

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2410
• Professor: Dan Meegan

Document Summary

Consciousness is connected to process of selective attention. Selective attention focuses on conscious awareness on some stimuli and excludes others. The most common measure is self-report in which people describe their inner experiences. Physiological measures establish the correspondence between bodily states & mental processes. Eeg records brain activity & helps identify different stages of sleep throughout night. Behavioural measures are used, including performance on special tasks. Sigmund freud proposed human mind has 3 levels of awareness: Conscious mind: contains thoughts perceptions & other mental events of which we are aware. Preconscious mental events are outside of current awareness but can easily be recalled. Unconscious events can"t be brought into conscious awareness under ordinary circumstances. Some unconscious events such as aggressive drives, past trauma, emotional conflict are kept out of conscious awareness b/c it could arouse negative emotions. Behaviorists disagree b/c they aim to explain behaviour without invoking conscious & unconscious processes. Research supports freud"s view as non-conscious processes influence behaviour.