Barron's: Chapter 5 - States of Consciousness

Question 1

Consciousness

Answer 1

• our level of awareness about ourselves and our environment

Question 2

Levels of consciousness

Answer 2

• we experience different levels of consciousness in our daily life without being totaly aware of the experience

Question 3

Conscious level

Answer 3

• The information about yourself and your environment you are currently aware of. Your conscious level right now is probably focusing on these words and their meanings

Question 4

Nonconscious level

Answer 4

• Body processes controlled by your mind that we are not usually (or ever) aware of. Right now, your nonconscious is controlling your heartbeat, respiration, digestion and so on

Question 5

Preconscious level

Answer 5

• Information about yourself or your environment that you are not currently thinking about )not in your conscious level) but you could be. If I asked you to remember your favorite toy as a child, you could bring that preconscious memory into your conscious level

Question 6

Subconscious level

Answer 6

• Information that we are not consciously aware of but we know must exist due to behavior. The behaviors demonstrated in examples of priming and mere-exposure effect suggest some information is accessible to this level of consciousness but not to our conscious level

Question 7

Unconscious level

Answer 7

• Psychoanalytic psychologists believe some events and feelings are unacceptable to our conscious mind and are repressed into the unconscious mind. Many psychologists object to this concept as difficult or impossible to prove.

Question 8

Sleep

Answer 8

• a state of consciousness because, while we are asleep, we are less aware of ourselves and our environment than we are when we are in our normal awake state

Question 9

Sleep cycles

Answer 9

• our typical pattern of sleep

Question 10

Sleep stages

Answer 10

• 4 stages which starts from falling asleep then end with waking up

Question 11

REM sleep

Answer 11

• dreams usually occur

Question 12

Sleep disorders

Answer 12

• isolated periods of disruption in our sleep

Question 13

Insomnia

Answer 13

• a person who has persistent problems getting to sleep or staying asleep at night

Question 14

Narcolepsy

Answer 14

• people who suffer from periods of intense sleepiness and may fall asleep at unpredictable and inappropriate times

Question 15

Sleep apnea

Answer 15

• causes a person to stop breathing for short periods of time during the night

Question 16

Night terrors

Answer 16

• usually affect children, and most do not remember the episode when they wake up

Question 17

Dreams

Answer 17

• series of story-like images we experience as we sleep

Question 18

Freudian dream interpretation

Answer 18

• a method to uncover the repressed information in the unconscious mind

Question 19

Activation-synthesis dream theory

Answer 19

• looks at dreams first as biological phenomena

Question 20

Information-processing dream theory

Answer 20

• points out that stress during the day will increase the number and intensity of dreams during the night

Question 21

Hypnosis

Answer 21

• the induction of a state of consciousness in which a person apparently loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction

Question 22

Posthypnotic amnesia

Answer 22

• when people report forgetting events that occurred while they were hypnotized

Question 23

Posthypnotic suggestion

Answer 23

• a suggestion that a hypnotized person behave in a certain way after he or she is brought out of hypnosis

Question 24

Role theory of hypnosis

Answer 24

• states that hypnosis is not an alternate state of consciousness at all

Question 25

State theory of hypnosis

Answer 25

• hypnosis meets some parts of the definition for an altered state of consciousness

Question 26

Dissociation theory of hypnosis

Answer 26

• hypnosis causes us to divide our consciousness voluntarilyo

Question 27

Psychoactive drugs

Answer 27

• chemicals that change the chemistry of the brain (and the rest of the body) and induce an altered state of consciousness

Question 28

Agonists

Answer 28

• drugs that mimic neurotransmitters

Question 29

Antagonists

Answer 29

• drugs that block neurotransmitters

Question 30

Tolerance

Answer 30

-a physiological changed that produces a need for more ot the same drug in order to achieve the same effect

Question 31

Withdrawal

Answer 31

• getting symptoms when stopping the use of a drug you are addicted to

Question 32

Stiumlants

Answer 32

• speed up body processes, such as caffeine, cocaine, amphetamines, and nicotine

Question 33

Depressants

Answer 33

• slow down the same body systems that stimulants speed up, such as alcohol, barbiturates, and anxiolytics

Question 34

Hallucinogens (also called psychedelics)

Answer 34

• drugs that cause changes in perceptions of reality including sensory hallucinations, loss of identity, and vivid fantisies

Question 35

Opiates

Answer 35

• act as agonists for endorphin and thus are powerful painkillers and mood elevators, such as morphine, heroin, methadone, and codeine

Question 36

William James

Answer 36

• author of the first psychology textbook

Question 37

Sigmund Freud

Answer 37

• he emphasized dream interpretation as a method to uncover the repressed information in the unconscious mind

Question 38

Ernest Hilgard

Answer 38

• he created the dissociation theory of hypnosis

Question 39

mere-exposure effect

Answer 39

• occurs when we prefer stimuli we have seen before over novel stimuli, even it we do not consciously remember seeing the old stimuli