The Biology of Consciousness Module 13

What purpose does consciousness serve? Consciousness – Awareness of ourselves & our environment Must offer an evolutionary advantage Helps us consider long-term ramifications of our actions Helps us anticipate others’ actions by allowing us to understand what they may be thinking

Cognitive Neuroscience – Studying Brain Activity linked with mental processes Conscious experience is produced by coordinated activity cross the brain. Example: Brain regions still activate when vegetative patient told to “imagine” playing tennis Strong stimuli engage other areas of brain involved in language, attention and memory. This is the sign of conscious awareness. Weak signals only trigger sensory area and then fade out.

Dual Processing: conscious & unconscious processing Computers run on serial processing – one task is accomplished before another begins Human Brain can process multiple things at once. Perception, memory, thinking, language all operate consciously and unconsciously. Conscious “high road” of deliberate, purposeful thoughts and actions Unconscious “low road” of automatic processing of sensory information and memories. Consciousness deals with current challenges while routine business is taken care of by our unconscious processor.

Blind Sight: evidence of our dual processing mind 2 Visual Tracks: Visual Perception Track – allows us to recognize things and plan future actions – What Pathway (conscious) Visual Action Track – guides our moment to moment movements – Where Pathway (unconscious) Damage to Occipital Lobe (Visual Perception Track) can cause one to not be consciously recognize what their eyes are seeing yet they don’t run into things because unconsciously, their minds using alternative visual pathways (Visual Action Track) to make sense of objects orientation in relation to themselves allowing them to reach out and grasp objects they are not consciously aware of. Information is there but conscious mind cannot access it (Secrets of the Mind Clip (7 min) See the research that is being done in this area to further your understanding (6 min) View this quick video (2 min) on alternative visual pathways that we’re not consciously aware of and how they’re being researched.

So, we must be good multitaskers, right? Not necessarily… As long as you are focused on ONE thing at a time with your consciousness awareness, your unconscious can work on other things. When asked to do 2 focused things at once, you typically fail because your consciousness works to sequentially process things one at a time. Example: Move your right foot in a counterclockwise circle and write the number 3 repeatedly with your right hand. Could you do it? Both require your conscious attention which can only do one thing at a time!