PSYC 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Response Bias, Power Law, Change Blindness

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Caroline F Pukall

Document Summary

[neuroscience iii: consciousness: evaluate what it means to be conscious. Dualism: the philosophical belief that reality consists of two distinct entities: mind and matter (body) Descartes pondered the problem of consciousness and concluded that consciousness must depend on a substance distinct from physical matter. Materialism: philosophical belief that reality can be known only through an understanding of the physical world of which the mind is a part (consciousness is only one kind of substance in the universe) Only the materialist interpretation lends itself to the scientific study of consciousness. Operational definition of consciousness: person is conscious when he or she is able to report his/her own mental state. Neural correlates of consciousness: minimal neuronal mechanisms required to produce a specific conscious precept (studies how areas of the brain are involved in producing certain kinds of conscious experience) Blind sight: the ability to interact behaviorally with objects while remaining consciously unaware of them (visual cortex is necessary for conscious visual perception)