Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Subliminal Stimuli, Unconscious Mind, Preconscious

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

Intimately connected with the process of selective attention: selective attention focuses on some stimuli to the exclusion of others. Must operationally define private inner states in terms of measurable responses. Self-report: people describe their inner experiences, offer the most direct insight into a person"s subjective experiences, not always verifiable. Physiological: establish correspondence between bodily states and mental processes, eeg recordings of brain activity help identify different stages of sleep, objective, but not subjective. Behavioral: objective, but still must infer the person"s state of mind. Unacceptable urges, sexual drives, emotional conflict, etc. Behaviorists do not agree with freud; they sought to explain behavior without invoking mental processes. Studies of placebo effects, split-brain patients, and subliminal perception suggest that mental processes can affect our behavior without conscious awareness. Cognitive psychologists reject the notion of an unconscious mind: they view conscious and unconscious mental life as forms of information processing. Controlled (effortful) processing: voluntary use of attention and conscious effort.