MODULE 10.

1
CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS PROCESS

Learning Objectives

After studying this module, you should be able to: When people were conscious of a briefly
flashed word, it activated the
areas colored in the brain on the left. When masking prevented consciousness, the word
activated only the areas colored on the right
● Explain why early psychologists abandoned the study of consciousness and why new
developments now make such a study possible.
● List methods of presenting a stimulus while preventing conscious perception
of it.
● Describe how a consciously perceived stimulus activates brain areas differently
from the same stimulus when not consciously perceived.
● Cite evidence that the brain processes some information unconsciously.
● Discuss cases in which people in a vegetative state showed evidence of
consciousness.
● Describe and evaluate evidence that brain activity responsible for a
movement begins before the conscious decision to make that movement

Psychology began in the late 1800s as the scientific study of the conscious
mind. However, researchers soon abandoned that effort. (Someone quipped
that psychology had “lost its mind.”) The behaviorists argued convincingly that
consciousness is an internal, private experience that researchers cannot ob-
serve or measure. At the time they were certainly right, as they had no method
to measure brain activity or anything else that might correlate with a private ex-
perience. Therefore, psychologists redefined their field as the study of behavior. Many
behaviorists went well beyond saying that consciousness could not be
studied, saying that it was not important. Consider these quotes:

1. The essence of behaviorism is the belief that the study of man will reveal nothing
except what is adequately describable in the concepts of mechanics and chemistry.
(Lashley, 1923a, p. 244)

2. The behaviorist may go his way . . . with the conviction that the inclusion of “mind”
will add nothing to scientific psychology. (Lashley, 1923b, p. 352)

3. The epoch of the I is drawing to a close. . . . Consciousness contains almost no

information. (Norretranders, 1991/1998, pp. ix–xi)
So before Several scientists and philosophers have gone even further, suggesting
that consciousness doesn’t even exist and sinasabi nila na it was not important.
,that’s why early psychologists abandoned the study of consciousness.they aslo
think that consciousness can not be studied scientifically because it is undefined
and undefinable. but today we can be able to study consciousness beacause
research is possible naman because of an operational definition and some limited
research questions, methods of measuring brain activity

What is Conscious and Unconscious

Conscious- The definition of conscious is the awareness that something is happening
or is the normal state of being awake. An example of conscious is waking up in the
morning.
( Consciousness refers to your individual awareness of your unique thoughts,
memories, feelings, sensations, and environments. Essentially, your consciousness
is your awareness of yourself and the world around you. This awareness is
subjective and unique to us. Our Consciousness also allows us to take in and
organize information from many sources and senses at once. Base on my research
An American psychologist William James Thought of consciousness as a
continuously moving, shifting and unbroken stream, hence the term "stream of
consciousness" The point here is your conscientiousness experience is forever
shifting for example right now hopefully you're focused on the words coming out of
my mouth, but with a little shift your mind might wander to how you really should
shower today or you suddenly have to pee.Beyond that moment- to moment shifting
consciousness allows us to contemplate life.Our conscientiousness also helps us
plan our futures consider consequences and reflect on the past.Its kinda like the
force but for the little universes inside our heads. And our cerebrum is the part of the
brain that receives and processes conscious sensation, it generates thought, and controls
conscious activity.)

Unconscious-Interruption of awareness of oneself and one's surroundings, lack of

the ability to notice or respond to stimuli in the environment. A person may
become unconscious due to oxygen deprivation, shock, central nervous system
depressants such as alcohol and drugs, or injury.
(lack of the ability to notice or respond to stimuli in the environment at
kakulangan ng kakayahang mapansin o tumugon sa kanyang kapaligiran.
example of being unconscious is when you are in a coma Kapag ikaw ay na-
coma, ikaw ay buhay ngunit ikaw ay hindi gising at hindi din nagpapakita ng
palatandaan ng kamalayan ang isang tao kapag nacoma and they also have
minimal brain activity
The person's eyes will be closed and they'll appear to be unresponsive to their
environment.but some Doctors and healthcare professionals they use different
assessments to measure and assess levels of consciousness naman .)

Modern Methods to Measure Brain Activity)

researchers today have several methods to record brain activity without invading
the brain.
The simplest are EEG and MEG or fMRI,- which use detectors on the scalp to measure
rapid changes in the brain’s electrical or magnetic activity.
The simpliest method here is the (EEG (electroencephalography) and MEG
(magnetoencephalography) and FMRI( Functional magnetic resonance imaging)
Ito ay ang mga detectors sa anit na ginagamit upang sukatin ang mabilis na
pagbabago sa aktibidad ng utak natin
are non-invasive brain imaging methods that allow tracking of brain activity in
real time. They are using these tools to measure time courses of activity during
various speech perception tasks.)

Ways of Controlling Consciousness of a Stimulus

( let us study first what Is stimulus.
Ang stimulus ito ay mga pangyayari sa kapaligiran na nakakaimpluwensya sa
ating pag-uugali
Stimulus are events in the environment that influence behavior.so When someone is
conscious of a stimulus, the stimulus activates
neurons more strongly, and their activity reverberates
One method is masking -a word or other stimulus appears on the
screen for a fraction of a second, preceded and/or followed by an interfering stimulus. If
the interfering stimulus follows it but doesn’t precede it also, we call the procedure
backward masking
(one method of controlling Consciousness of a Stimulus is masking. Masking is
the The presentation of a similar but irrelevant stimulus immediately following
presentation of a memory item.Masking is known to reduce performance on
working memory tests. This is the type of memory used to hold information in
mind for brief periods of time for use in ongoing cognition.)
second method is called flash suppression-Suppose you see a yellow dot surrounded
by blue dots on a computer screen. Then the blue dots start moving rapidly in
haphazard directions. They will grab your attention so strongly that the yellow dot
actually disappears from your sight for seconds at a time.
(Flash suppression is a phenomenon of visual perception in which an image
presented to one eye is suppressed by a flash of another image presented to the
other eye.The image to the first eye disappears, even though it is still presented,
and only the new image is perceived.imagine you see a yellow dot surrounded
by blue dots on a computer screen. Then the blue dots start moving rapidly in
haphazard directions. They will grab your attention so strongly that the yellow dot
actually disappears from your sight for seconds at a time.
third method is called binocular rivalry-The alternation between seeing the pattern in the
left retina and the pattern in the right retina
(The retina is the sensory membrane that lines the inner surface of the back of
the eyeball.
Binocular rivalry is a visual phenomenon that occurs when dissimilar monocular
stimuli are presented to corresponding retinal locations of the two eyes. Yung
mga taong may normal binocular vision they do not usually experience rivalry
alternations under ordinary viewing conditions, even though many local regions
in each eye may undergo suppression.

Masking, flash suppression, and binocular rivalry are among the methods to
present a stimulus while preventing conscious.
perception of it.
PICTURE
(This picture is one example To produce binocular rivalry,by looking through
tubes and alter the focus of your eyes until the two circles seem to merge.
Mapapansin nyo dito na yung paningin nyo will alternate between seeing red
lines and seeing green lines. but most people perceive one stimulus and then the
other,alternating.

Brain Activity, Conscious or Unconscious

PICTURE
(this pcture naman is When people were conscious of a briefly flashed word, it
activated the areas colored in the brain on the left as you can see hear in the
picture and When masking prevented consciousness, the word activated only the
areas colored on the right)

Consciousness as a Construction
(brain constructed an experience of a 50-ms stimulus, even though it had to wait until
the later part of the stimulus to perceive the first part)
(When we see or hear something po kasi we assume that we really see or hear it
as it happens. However, various studies cast doubt on that assumption.
Psychological constructs are used to understand or explain things that we
believe exist but cannot see, touch, or measure in any way. Consciousness is a
psychological construct because it is believed to exist, but we are unable to
physically measure it,)
Unconscious Processing of a Suppressed Stimulus-During binocular rivalry the
information doesn’t spread enough to become conscious, it does spread enough
for the brain to process it to a certain degree.
Unconscious responses to stimuli occur when a person is either not awake or not
aware that s/he is responding.One example of an unconscious response to
stimuli is priming,it is occurs when the exposure to one stimulus impacts the way
a person reacts to a different stimulus. This unconscious processing of
subliminal visual information is also evident in healthy human observers, where
visual stimuli rendered invisible can be discriminated at above-chance accuracy

PICTURE
(The brain areas marked in red and yellow showed increased activity after
instructions to imagine playing tennis or imagine walking through the house.So A
brief masked stimulus is not perceived consciously, but a slightly longer one is
perceived as lasting the entire duration.Also,the perception of a first stimulus can
be altered by a stimulus that follows it. (Note the similarities between a patient in a
persistent vegetative state and uninjured people. SMA5 supplementary motor cortex,it is
an area important for planning complex movements.) PMC, PPC, and PPA this are the
three areas that is responsible for spatial imagery and memory.

Can We Use Brain

Measurements to Infer
Consciousness?
Physicians distinguish various gradations of brain activity that relate to
arousal,responsiveness, and presumed consciousness.
ex.
brain death- the brain shows no activity and no response to any stimulus.
(yes,they can use Functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI because fmri
measures changes in blood flow in the brain, which can be used to infer the
relative levels of neuron activity.Since the fMRI signal can occur after a report
about consciousness has been made.
ex.
brain death- the brain shows no activity and no response to any stimulus. Most
people consider it ethical to remove life support for someone who remains
steadily in this condition.like also In a coma,caused by traumatic brain damage,
the brain shows a steady but low level of activity and no response to any
stimulus, including potentially painful stimuli

Consciousness and Action

Benjamin Libet and his associates measured the time when people made a
conscious
decision to act, the time when brain activity preparing for the movement started, and
the time of the act itself.
( it is like conscious action is being fully awake in the world, while unconscious
reaction is pretty much being asleep and letting other people create your world
for you.)
The researchers considered three hypotheses(1) Someone becomes aware of a
decision to act before relevant brain activity begins, (2) awareness starts at the same
time as the brain activity, and (3) the brain activity responsible for a movement starts
before a conscious decision.

Method People were instructed to make a simple movement, to flex the wrist.
Although they had no choice of movement, they had complete freedom for the timing.

Interpretation These results imply that your brain starts producing a voluntary
movement before you are conscious of a decision to move. If so, your consciousness
does not cause your action.

PICTURE
(Here in the picture Measurable brain activity came first so Someone becomes
aware of a decision to act before relevant brain activity begins,
then the second is the perception of the conscious decision so here the
awareness starts at the same time as the brain activity,
and then the third is the movement, the brain activity responsible for a movement
starts before a conscious decision)

What Is the Purpose of Consciousness?

Many theorists seem to see the role of consciousness as an either–or question. Either
consciousness is useless, or it evolved to serve a special purpose. However, the
identity position on the mind–brain relationship suggests another possibility: If a certain
type of brain activity is mental activity, then they are inseparable. You cannot have
consciousness without brain activity, but you also cannot have certain kinds of brain
activity without consciousness
(Many theorists seem to see the role of consciousness as an either–or question:
Either consciousness is useless, or it evolved to serve a special purpose, You
cannot have consciousness without brain activity, but you also cannot have
certain kinds of brain activity din kasi without consciousness.so our Brains didn’t
evolve consciousness to solve a special task any more than brains evolved mass
to solve a special task. Rather, they couldn’t operate without it. The questions will
keep both scientists and philosophers busy for much time to come.But at least
we now see consciousness as a legitimate topic for research.