PSY 1101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Sensory Neuron, Stroop Effect, Frontal Lobe

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

Document Summary

The study of consciousness has a long history in psychology and for many centuries before that, in. Many of the problems have arisen because we cannot seem to agree on just how to define consciousness. And as in any scientific endeavour, we need to operationally define what we hope to measure. To adequately define consciousness would require that all of us agree that whenever we observe a specific conscious action, behaviour or perhaps a brain response, we would all agree that this is consistent with consciousness . Thus, an experimenter might present a tone that sounds like beep . Every time it is presented, a participant in the experiment is asked to push a button. Almost all of us will agree that if the participant does indeed push the button, she/he must have been conscious of the tone. The behaviour, the pushing of a button, can thus be used as evidence that the participant detected the tone consciously.