Conscious Thought, Unconscious Thought

Unconscious reasoning

-D.B. developed a tumor in occipital cortex.
-After removal, D.B. could not see anything
in the left half of the world in front of him.
-D.B. insisted he could not see items, but he
could guess their identity and location correctly

Consciousness

is a state of awareness of
sensations or ideas,

reflect on these sensations

know what it feels like to experience sensations and ideas

report to others that we are aware of these sensations

cognitive unconscious

mental activities below the level of awareness that make cognition possible

“This name seems familiar, so it must be
someone famous.

Framing effects (how many people were
saved or how many people died?) of a problem-solving set are largely unconscious

Amnesia can impair explicit memory but not
implicit memory.

Blind Sight

Results from damage to the primary visual cortex

Patients have no visual awareness

Correctly “guess” the locations of objects and
can reach for them

Our unconscious judgments and inferences
are fast, efficient, and reasonable

Action slips

When trying to do something different, you
end up doing what is normal or habitual

Executive Control

Needs things it can do, actions it can initiat

Means of representing its goals and subgoal

metacognitive skills

Monitoring and controlling own mental processes
Metamemory, Metacognition useful for control during test
taking, for example, Metamemory: includes beliefs about memor

neural correlate

is an event in the
nervous system that occurs at the same time as, and may be the biological basis of, a specific mental event or state.

Neuronal workspace hypothesis

Workspace neurons” link the activity of
various specialized brain areas.
Linking stimuli into a dynamic, coherent
representation leads to consciousness