Psychology
Defining consciousness
Defining consciousness refers to the attempt to understand and explain the state of being aware of and able to perceive one's surroundings and experiences. It involves exploring the nature of subjective experiences, self-awareness, and the ability to process information. This concept is central to the study of human cognition and behavior.
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10 Key excerpts on "Defining consciousness"
No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- White Word Publications(Publisher)
At one time consciousness was viewed with skepticism by many scientists and considered within the domain of philosophers and theologians, but in recent years it has been an increasingly significant topic of scientific research. In psychology and neu-roscience, the focus of most research is on understanding what it means biologically and psychologically for information to be present in consciousness—that is, on determining the neural and psychological correlates of consciousness. The majority of experimental studies use human subjects and assess consciousness by asking subjects for a verbal report of their experiences (e.g., tell me if you notice anything when I do this). Issues of interest include phenomena such as subliminal perception, blindsight, denial of imp-airment, and altered states of consciousness produced by psychoactive drugs or spiritual or meditative techniques. In medicine, consciousness is assessed by observing a patient's arousal and res-ponsiveness, and can be seen as a continuum of states ranging from full alertness and comprehension, through disorientation, then delirium, then loss of any meaningful communication, and ending with loss of movement in response to painful stimuli. Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill, comatose, or anesthetized people, and how to treat conditions in which consciousness is impaired or disrupted. Etymology of the word and history of the concept The origin of the modern concept of consciousness is often attributed to John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding , published in 1690. Locke explicitly defined consciousness as “the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind.” His essay had much influence on the 18th century view of consciousness, and his definition appeared in Samuel Johnson's celebrated Dictionary (1755).
- Lorelle J. Burton, Drew Westen, Robin M. Kowalski(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
These neural methods have allowed us to measure that’ (Maguire, 2021). We begin this chapter by discussing the nature and functions of consciousness, examining the way attention focuses consciousness at any given time on a narrow subset of the thoughts and feelings of which a person could be aware. We then examine multiple perspectives on consciousness and explore the neural basis of con- sciousness. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to states of consciousness — qualitatively different patterns of subjective experience, including ways of experiencing both internal and external events. We start with the most basic distinction, between waking and sleeping, exploring the stages of sleep and the nature of dreaming. We conclude by examining several altered states of consciousness — deviations from the normal waking state — including meditation, religious experiences, hypnosis and drug- induced states. Throughout, we focus on a central question. How do the psychodynamic, behavioural, cognitive and evolutionary perspectives in psychology contribute to our understanding of consciousness? To this end, we will examine how Freud’s model of consciousness compares with cognitive models of consciousness and examine the neuropsychology of Pdf_Folio:356 356 Psychology consciousness, identifying the neural structures that pro- duce conscious awareness and regulate our states of consciousness. We will also examine how evolutionary psychologists argue that consciousness functions to max- imise adaptation of the self and the environment. As we will see, these seemingly incompatible vantage points may be starting to fnd some common ground. 8.1 The nature of consciousness LEARNING OUTCOME 8.1 Describe the two main functions of consciousness. Consciousness, the subjective awareness of mental events, is easier to describe than to define. William James (1890) viewed consciousness as a constantly moving stream of thoughts, feelings and perceptions.
eBook - PDFConsciousness and Perceptual Experience
An Ecological and Phenomenological Approach
- Thomas Natsoulas(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Persuaded by the case Sellars developed in this connection, I embark here independently of any single theoretical approach or special scientific ideology. And, I continue to tread lightly even beyond this chapter: wary of views incompatible with principles manifested by our experiences in common. This book’s main topic consists of consciousness kinds that are impli- cated, though not exclusively, in our having perceptual occurrent 1 awareness. Therefore, before I turn more theoretically partisan, I discuss in this first chapter six concepts The Oxford English Dictionary defines in its entries for consciousness and conscious. All six of these OED concepts are central to my general purposes as a psychologist of consciousness: though they will not all be playing equally important roles in this book. Neverthe- less, I want to emphasize this view of mine: it is not the case that any of them fails of relevant disciplinary reference. There is no need to choose among these ordinary senses those that are faithful to the phenomena of current interest to the psychological sub-field of consciousness. In the present instance, simplification by narrowing down the range of pertinent phenomena is not desirable, as psychologists sometimes assume. Of course, to address less is simpler, but simpler does not make it better. Thus, I expect it to prove difficult ever to reason effectively to the conclusion that some referents of the six OED concepts are less than substantial parts of the subject matter the psychology of consciousness must address to avoid incompleteness. I . The concept of consciousness 1 : an interpersonal cognitive relation The first of those particular six concepts of consciousness identified in the OED diverges from the remaining five concepts as follows. All of the latter have reference to mental states belonging to a single individual without their implying that there has to be someone else involved in the very event together with that individual.
eBook - ePub- Cronin(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Pickwick Publications(Publisher)
In teaching I used to approach the topic of consciousness with some trepidation, laden with bibliographies, references, definitions, and distinctions. The students would be equally in awe, brows furrowed, furiously taking notes, grappling with this most difficult of concepts. In my more mature years, I now begin with an exercise in awareness, a simple meditation, usually the one suggested at the beginning of this chapter. Students reported that it is quite difficult to attain complete stillness of the mind; it is easy enough to suspend thinking, but not so easy to stop images, memories, fantasies, and feelings that are flitting about, attracting us like little sprites. The point of the exercise is that whatever success you can have in arresting activities, there always remains some activity, with a conscious self, trying to be silent. Assuming that the students do not fall asleep, there is always a self that is aware—a subject that is conscious. The self is still around, whether that self is silent or distracted by plans for a night out. Consciousness is first and foremost a simple experience of awareness, of being conscious. That simple experience must be identified before moving on to the definitions! Consciousness is such a basic, simple, primordial, pervasive experience that it is difficult to put into words and articulate correctly. It is like what St. Augustine said about time: “We all know what it is but nobody can define it.”In conscious cognitional acts, such as thinking or deliberating, we are clearly aware of what we are thinking or deliberating about. But at the same time, in the same activity, we are immanently aware of the self, who is the subject of the activities. Consciousness is a quality of activities. Some activities such as thinking and deliberating are conscious; some activities such as digesting and growing are usually not conscious. To be conscious is simply to be aware of the subject at the same time as being aware of the object of the activity. Consciousness is not another activity added on to the activity of thinking; it is immanent in thinking.There is one awareness, which is normally focused on the object, with the subject implicit in the background. Consciousness is one awareness but it has two poles, namely, a primary awareness of the object and a concomitant accompanying awareness of the self as the subject of the awareness. If I am aware of typing on this computer, my main concentration is on the thoughts, sentences, keyboard, screen, and so on. But there is a concomitant awareness that it is I who is the self who is typing, I who is the self who is thinking, I who is the self who is looking. The key characteristic of consciousness is this experience of the subject concomitant with the experience of the object. It is nothing more complicated than the experience of watching a football match, but at the same time being aware that it is I
eBook - PDF- Antti Revonsuo(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
So far there is not enough data, but at least scientists are now seriously working on these open questions. Chapter summary The science of consciousness studies our subjective mental lives from simple everyday color sensations that enter consciousness to complex, globally unified, and even altered and mystical, experiences that only occur under special circum-stances. Although the variety of conscious phenomena studied is broad, similar questions can be asked about all of them: What kind of information processing is going on when a particular type of experience occurs in consciousness? What kind of brain activity is involved and where in the brain is it localized? What kind of theo-ries of the brain and consciousness should we use to describe and explain these phenomena? What are the best experiments and the best data collection meth-ods that would tell us more about the subjective contents of consciousness on the one hand, and more about the objective processes in the brain and behavior on the other? It is the bold mission of the future science of consciousness to provide the answers to these questions. Suggestions for discussion topics • Try and define the word “consciousness” or the state of “being conscious” in your own words. What do these words and ideas mean to you? Ask someone else to do the same: Can you agree about the meaning of these words? • What did you know about consciousness and psychology before picking up this book? • Can you recall having a zombie moment recently? Have you noticed when, how often, and under what circumstances they take place? • What are the strangest altered states of consciousness that you have expe-rienced (weird dreams; being hypnotized; meditating or having mystical experiences; having high fever and hallucinating; and so on?) Do you think that there could be a scientific explanation for these experiences? Reference Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83 (4), 435–450.
- Thomas Natsoulas(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
It would seem that only the sixth one of these twelve definitions and thus the one that the Dictionary refers us to in its third subentry under consciousness encompasses the function of one’s being conscious of mental occurrences now transpiring within one. And the sixth definition does so only by making reference to the concept’s The concept of consciousness 3 217 being employed by certain specialists within their own field. Thereby these authors would be extending the concept’s meaning to include having direct apprehension of one’s mental occurrences. The sixth OED (1989) definition of the word conscious speaks of “inter- nal perception or consciousness” while as we have seen the third definition of the word consciousness with which it is to be compared speaks of a person’s consciousness as the person’s “being mentally conscious or aware of anything.” I take it this kind of consciousness possesses a very broad range of items one can thereby apprehend and thus have a con- sciousness of. And I should think one’s potential objects of such conscious- ness include among much else one’s sensations, feelings, thoughts, and the like at the points of their occurrence. Consistently with what we have found with regard to the OED’s (1989) treatment of the word conscious, such consciousness as of the items identi- fied in the preceding sentence is implied by the fourth subentry for consciousness to be the referent of only a philosophical concept and perhaps of other specialized concepts. But I must inquire, does there not exist as well an ordinary concept which also has reference to such a consciousness? And does not the concept of consciousness 3 itself so qualify by virtue of its having according to the third OED definition “anything” at all as its potential object? A comparison between the illustrative quotations corresponding to the third OED definition of consciousness versus the fourth such definition would seem to be quite pertinent.
eBook - PDF- Robert Lerner, Althea K. Nagai, Stanley Rothman(Authors)
- 1995(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
As with Werner's example, this may show, rather, that the impalpable aspect of felt meaning entails and actually illustrates ongoing processes of positive synesthetic fusion (see chap-ters 4 and 7). Again, the phenomenology of a conscious awareness system may not offer clues to the nonconscious operations it synthesizes, but may show instead the rather different cognitive processes involved in the synthesizing activities of con-sciousness itself. The Conscious Awareness System and Its Multiple Manifestations The major recent attempts to develop a cognitive psychology of consciousness as a capacity in its own right have been made by the cognitive psychologist Bernard Baars, the neuropsychologists L. Weiskrantz and Daniel Schacter, and, from a more clinical neurological perspective, Norman Geschwind and M. Mesulam. In A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness Bernard Baars defines consciousness as the capacity for selection, serial integration, and volitional direction necessary within a complex nervous system that must integrate multiple and parallel auto-matized unconscious processes. Consciousness is responsible for the selectivity of experience, attunement to novelty, and system-wide activation or publicity. It is the global workspace for ongoing synthesis. In terms of localization of cortical function, Baars suggests that it is the reticular-thalamic projective system, func-tionally manifested in the orientation response based in the brain stem, that receives the maximum input from all other neural areas (see chapter 4). It alone is broad enough in its synthesizing potential to be the neural locus of consciousness. Cortical activity per se is not conscious. Rather, consciousness is indicated by the 300 millisecond wave of activation that constitutes the cortical evoked response (CER), and requires the engagement of the thalamic projection system in order to arouse and orient the cortex. The orientation response is associated with a CER that
eBook - PDF- Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould, Adrian Furnham(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
The matter is further complicated by another question: Just how aware is ‘aware’? We will see next that there may be levels of alert con- sciousness at which we are not fully aware of all our thoughts. Hello there. When babies look into a mirror and realize they are looking at themselves, it means that they finally experiencing a sense of self. That is, they are aware of themselves as separate beings from others. Source: Charles Gullung/Getty Images, Inc. Preconscious and Unconscious States LEARNING OBJECTIVE 6 Summarize the ideas of preconscious and unconscious states, including Freud’s thinking on the unconscious. Theorists often talk about different levels of consciousness or degrees of consciousness, and some believe that consciousness should be distinguished from two alternative states: precon- sciousness and unconsciousness. Preconsciousness is a level of aware- ness at which information can become readily available to consciousness if nec- essary. Have you ever tried to remember something that you are certain you know but just cannot recall at the moment? preconscious- ness the level of awareness at which information can become readily avail- able to consciousness if necessary. Before You Go On What Do You Know? 7. List the core cognitive processes of consciousness. 8. What is blindsight? What Do You Think? What characteristics do you believe are essential to define alert consciousness? At what point in an infant’s life would you consider it to be conscious? Why? CHAPTER 8 CONSCIOUSNESS 216 When something is on the tip of your tongue, it is in your preconsciousness. When (or if) you finally do remember it, the memory has reached conscious awareness. Most of our most familiar behaviours occur during pre- consciousness.
eBook - PDF- Gerald E. Myers(Author)
- 1985(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
CONSCIOUSNESS MINDANDBODY James has often been called an introspective psychologist, but he was also a representative of physiological psychology, which had been developing rapidly in Europe. The movement of psychology away from philosophy and toward the labora-tory resulted from its new alliance with physiology, which promised to illuminate the study of perception, emotion, thought, memory, attention, will, and association through discoveries about functions of the central nervous system. A striking feature of James's Principles of Psychology is its abundant references to continental and British research in human physiology; as a result, the book continues to be the classic—and most interesting—source for understanding the rise of nineteenth-century physio-logical psychology. James has sometimes been called a behaviorist, with justification to the extent that he identified the varieties of consciousness with their functions and sometimes identified emotions with their manifestations. But unlike B. F. Skinner's concept of psychology today, physiological psychology in James's day required going under the skin. Whereas Skinner and other contemporary behaviorists view psychology as independent of physiology and see its central job as correlating sched-ules of reinforcement with their behavioral effects, James saw its task as improving our knowledge of mind-body relationships by drawing upon the new science of human physiology. James's very definition of psychology reveals its subject matter to be the relation between mind and body: it is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena, feelings, desires, cognitions, reasonings, etc.
eBook - PDF- Sofia Miguens, Gerhard Preyer(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
On the first construal, a mental state’s being conscious is a matter of its exhibiting a qualitative character or sensuous quality, such as redness or bit-terness. 18 On this construal, it is simply false that all personal-level states and processes are conscious.Thus, there need not be a sensuous quality implicated in calculating a tip. 19 More generally, while many states are conscious in this sense, it is difficult to see how processes could be said to be. Furthermore, even among states, there may well be personal-level states that are unconscious in the relevant sense. Thus, the occurrent personal-level thought that 2+2=4 need not exhibit any qualitative character. 20 On the second construal of the consciousness approach, conscious states are those that satisfy what Rosenthal (1993) calls “the transitivity principle”: conscious states are states we are aware of. In this sense, the claim that all conscious states are personal and all unconscious ones are sub-personal is much more plausible, and does not obviously return wrong results. But it is not interestingly different, perhaps not different at all, from the awareness approach already discussed. Thus we can, in fact, take this brief discussion of the consciousness ap-proach to the personal/sub-personal distinction to provide further support for the awareness approach. There is also the possibility that the notions of the personal and the sub-personal are cluster notions, in which all or most of the features considered above play some role or another. Thus, we might hold that prototypical personal-level states and processes are agentive states/processes of a global cognitive system that constitutes a person and of which the person is aware or conscious; and that non-prototypical personal-level states and processes are those that resemble the prototypical ones to a sufficient degree. Call this the cluster approach to the personal/sub-personal distinction.
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