PSYC 100A Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Flashlight, Cognitive Neuroscience, Parallel Computing

• School: University of Victoria
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100A
• Professor: Martin Sherer Smith

Document Summary

Consciousness is our awareness of ourselves and our environment. Cognitive neuroscience (perception, thinking, memory and language) is the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked wit out mental processes. Our brain work occurs off stage, and out of sight. Perception, memory, thinking, language, and attitudes all operate on two levels a conscious, deliberate high road and an unconscious, automatic low road . High road is reflective, low road is intuitive. The human brain is a device for converting conscious into unconscious knowledge. The minds decision and the brains activity, are like a computer problem solving and its electronic activity, as simultaneous and parallel. Information is simultaneously processed on separate conscious (high road, explicit) and unconscious (low road, implicit) tracks. Parallel processing enables your mind to take care of routine business. Without fail, when you are talking to your best friend about something important, she continues to check facebook on her phone and watch the foot traffic for people she knows.