CAS PS 101 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Melatonin, Pineal Gland, Preconscious

• School: Boston University
• Department: Psychological & Brain Sciences
• Course: CAS PS 101
• Professor: Robert Reinhart

Document Summary

Consciousness: our moment-to-moment awareness of ourselves and our environment. Dynamic (what you are aware of this second, is different from the last second) always changing. Consciousness is intimately connected with selective attention process. Conscious what we are in the moment aware of . Preconscious you know about but not instant aware but can easily be called into your awareness. Unconscious lack of awareness takes extraordinary means to bring these up. Measuring states of consciousness: self-reports, physiological means (eeg, behavioral measures (e. g. , counting # of yawns, sobriety tests) Science does not like subjective information to draw conclusions from, they like objective data. The cognitive unconscious: conscious and unconscious processes are complementary, work in harmony. Controlled processing: conscious use of attention, effort (e. g. , learn to ride a bike) Automatic processing: perform tasks with little or no conscious awareness or effort (e. g. , riding a bike while talking) over practiced, conscious effort unneeded.