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Consciousness, pt 1.
Jason Bell Consciousness Lecture May 20
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Today

Consciousness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo
What is it? Lets watch this short video and reflect…
– Levels of consciousness
– What influences it?

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Consciousness

• Consciousness: our moment-to-moment

awareness of ourselves and our environment
• Consciousness is:

‒ subjective and private

‒ dynamic (ever changing)
‒ self-reflective and central to our sense of self
‒ intimately linked to selective attention

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Levels of consciousness

• The Freudian viewpoint

• Three levels of awareness:
– Conscious mind contains thoughts and
perceptions of which we are aware
‒Preconscious mental events that are outside
current awareness; can easily be recalled
‒Unconscious events cannot be brought into
conscious awareness under ordinary
circumstances
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Levels of consciousness

• The cognitive viewpoint:

– Controlled (conscious) processing: conscious
use of attention and effort
– Automatic (unconscious) processing: can be
performed without conscious awareness or
effort

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Unconscious perception

• Visual agnosia: inability to visually recognise

objects
– Propoagnosia: faces

• Blindsight: reported blindness in part of the

visual field; individuals still respond to stimuli
• Priming: exposure to a stimulus influences how
you subsequently respond to that same or
another stimulus
• An interesting perspective: split brain patients
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo
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Why do we have consciousness?

• Summarises external and internal stimuli

– Aids in planning and decision making
• Allows us to override potentially dangerous
behaviours
• Allows us to deal with novel tasks and
situations

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Neural basis of consciousness

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Neural basis of consciousness

• No single place in the brain where consciousness

resides
• The mind is a collection of separate but
interacting information-processing modules
• Consciousness is a global workspace

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Neural basis of consciousness

• No single place in the brain where consciousness resides

• However, in vision there are two pathways
• Perception and action
• Some theories relate these pathways to consciousness
• Perception pathway said to support conscious
recognition of objects
• Action pathway to support
unconscious guidance of movement

The prefrontal cortex is almost

certainly involved in consciousness
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Can consciousness be altered?

Drugs alter consciousness by modifying brain chemistry

– In the medical context this is the cornerstone of
pharmacological treatment of mental disorder
– In the illicit context this is altering the way the brain functions-
with potential long term consequences

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Drugs and the brain

• Drugs are carried throughout the brain by

capillaries
– Blood-brain barrier: a lining of tightly packed
cells that lets vital nutrients pass through so
neurons can function
 Screens out many foreign substances, but
various drugs can pass through
Once inside they alter consciousness by
facilitating or inhibiting synaptic transmission
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Drugs and the brain

Drugs modify synaptic transmission

Either by changing the amount of neurotransmitter distributed or the rate
at which it is up taken

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Drugs and the brain

• Agonist: a drug that increases the activity

of a neurotransmitter
– Enhances a neuron’s ability to synthesise,
store, or release neurotransmitters
– Binds with and stimulate postsynaptic receptor
sites
– Makes deactivation more difficult

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Drugs and the brain

• Antagonist: a drug that inhibits or

decreases the action of a neurotransmitter
– Reduces a neuron’s ability to synthesise, store
or release neurotransmitters
– Prevents neurotransmitters from binding with
the postsynaptic neuron

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A specific example

Amphetamines
– Powerful stimulants that boost energy and mood
– Amphetamine use linked to increased dopamine levels in the
brain
– Some schizophrenic symptoms, including hallucinations,
delusions and thought disorder are mimicked in amphetamine
psychosis & also exacerbated by amphetamine use

– Chlorpromazine (Dopamine antagonist) treats both types of

Psychoses

– This Led to the hypothesis that Schizophrenia results from

either excessive levels of Dopamine, or increased postsynaptic
sensitivity
– Its not that simple however… 1
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Summary

OK, so its an interesting topic but its also hard to define terms and to agree
on defined terms. But we tried:

Summary of today:
• We discussed levels of consciousness from different perspectives
• We described instances where unconsciously processed information has a
consequence of behaviour or performance.
• E.g. blindsight & split brain patients
• We described the influence of drugs on consciousness
• Linking action potentials and synapses to our conscious experience

• On Wednesday we will consider the case of sleep

• Stages of sleep
• The nature of dreams