Sunday, March 3, 2024

Consciousness in psychology

 


Consciousness is a person’s awareness of oneself and one’s context. This subjective state is studied scientifically by searching for brain activity correlated with the experience of consciousness.

Clinically, consciousness is experienced in terms of the common cognitive-behavioral triad (Affective, Behavior, Cognition or ABC) and two contexts. The internal context of physiological processes and the external context of social space and time. Briefly, consciousness includes thoughts, feelings, and action patterns contextualized by physiological processes of which we are sometimes aware and an external social space-time context such as where and when an experience occurs and who and what were prominent features in that context. These components of the psychological self are summarized elsewhere in the SCOPES model of functioning.

Consciousness is an emergent property of brains. Researchers have looked for the Neuronal Correlates of Consciousness (NCCs). The entire brain is an NCC but we do not appear to be aware of the basic processes that capture audio or visual stimuli. Brain imagery research suggests the proximal source of consciousness lies within the posterior part of the cortex called the hot zone. Electrical stimulation of cortical tissue in the hot zone elicits reports of flashing lights, shapes, distorted faces, feelings, urges, and hallucinations. The removal of parts of the posterior cortex has resulted in losses of selective consciousness such as an awareness of motion, color, or space.

Measurement

A technique called zap and zip allows neuroscientists to send a pulse of energy to the brain and measure activity using EEG sensors. The results were zipped like a computer zip file. Analysis yielded an index (perturbational complexity index) that has distinguished between consciousness in patients unable to communicate and those who were unconscious—a vegetative state.

Two Approaches to Understanding Consciousness

Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW)

GNW is associated with the work of psychologist Bernard J. Baars and neuroscientists Stanislas Dehaene and Jean-Pierre Changeaux. The idea is that when our brains process a stimulus, many of the brain’s cognitive subsystems access the information. Theoretically, a neural network in the frontal and parietal lobes is activated and the information enters consciousness. In contrast, unconscious processes occur when people carry out automatic behavior like walking while talking on their mobile phones.

 

Integrated Information Theory (IIT)

IIT was developed by Giulio Tononi and others. The focus is on the processing of whole experience scenarios analogous to a video clip. Consciousness of experience is quantified from zero as unconscious with higher numbers representing a more complex integration of information. The quantitative index is phi. The zap-zip meter estimates phi.

Status of Theories

At this point there is no acceptable theory explaining consciousness. This may be in part because of the subjectivity of the experience we call consciousness. Schurger et al. (2022) offer a critique of extant theories, which they view as descriptions of activity rather than an explanation. These authors suggest Attention Schema Theory (AST) as a possible candidate for a scientific theory. AST has been criticized as not explaining consciousness. A quote from the authors may help:

Consciousness, according to AST, is a special kind of percept that arises due to the workings of a hypothetical mechanism called an ‘attention schema’. The attention schema helps to guide, stabilize, and control selective attention, and having an attention scheme can lead to an adamant belief in an ineffable something extra that we might call qualia.

  

 

 

References

Koch, C. (2018, May 9). What is consciousness? Nature. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05097-x

Neuroscience News (2023, May 20). Unlocking the mind: The neuroscience behind our conscious reality. Neuroscience News. Retrieved from https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-neuroscience-23299/

Schurger, A. & Graziano, M. (2022). Consciousness explained or described?, Neuroscience of Consciousness, 1, niac001, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niac001

 Sutton, G. W. (2024, March 3). Consciousness in psychology. Psychology Concepts and Theories. Retrieved from https://suttonpsychology.blogspot.com/2024/03/consciousness-in-psychology.html




Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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2 comments:

Doug Olena said...

Thanks Geoff for these insightful remarks.

Geoffrey W Sutton said...

You are welcome. There's so much to learn.