Hot answers tagged consciousness
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Modern homunculus arguments don't assert that there is physically a little man in your head. This would be a completely vacuous argument, and nobody would make it in the present day. When people make the homunculus fallacy today, they usually do it in the same fashion as you do: all the sensory information is assembled 'somewhere' and then 'some brain ...
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This is a complicated and loaded question. As Neuroskeptic noted, our understanding of consciousness is very poor (in fact, we don't know how to define it most of the time). To see some of the best current definitions, take a look at:
What are current neuronal explanations and models of 'consciousness'?
We definitely can't infer arbitrary properties of ...
5
The presentation of flickering lights usually leads to so-called steady-state visual evoked potentials, that is, oscillatory responses in the visual cortex with the frequency of the stimulus as well as its harmonics. See for example:
Herrmann CS. (2001)
Human EEG responses to 1-100 Hz flicker: resonance phenomena in visual cortex and their potential ...
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This is an interesting idea, but I do not think it's correct. One piece of information that goes against the idea is this: auditory information is encoded by both frequency and amplitude modulation of neural spiking. The idea of spiking rate directly correlating with frequency is at odds with the idea of spiking rate containing this sort of "meta" ...
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Parallel processes are often studied in a so called 'dual task' paradigm, where participants are drawing a picture and reciting a poem or, as in your example, counting and thinking about other things.
Often this method is used to demonstrate limits in attention and find insights into how the brain works (in a serial versus parallel manner). Training is an ...
4
This is just a sketch of an answer.
It is important to clarify how we define "self-awareness".
The self: There is a huge social psychological literature on the self.
For a scientific review, see for example Ellemers et al (2002).
Even the concept of self-awareness is contentious in that it posits that there is a self to be discovered whereas I assume most ...
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Don't know the answer (I think no one does), but you should have a look at this paper: A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. O'Regan JK, Noë A., BBS 2001 PUBMED
In short the proposed answer is that modalities are subject to different sensory-motor contingencies. For example, when you move forward the visual input undergoes very ...
4
I'm not sure what you're asking. If it's found that there's awareness of the relationships in the experiment then typically it's argued that's not conditioning and the behaviour is modified through insight. It's been a bone of contention with respect to classical conditioning and humans in the past. You might want to look at Lovibond and Shanks (2002). I ...
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I have to partly disagree with schultem here-- he is right that the dual task paradigm is used to study multitasking, but the idea that we can truly do two cognitive tasks at the same time is still contentious. In particular, the opposing view might say that we can't really do two cognitive processes at the same time, but we are in fact switching between the ...
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I don't think the scientific literature would necessarily describe the process as "shifting thought between subconscious and conscious awareness" but putting exact definitions aside, obviously this does occur.
When I recall information, in some sense information is being moved from the unconscious to the conscious part of my mind. By focusing on a different ...
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I am not aware of any neuroscience papers that link breathing and self-confidence. One review that touched on breathing in yoga was Jerath et al. (2006). They discuss how deep breathing increases parasympathetic autonomic activity. This can change the physiological state of the body, leading to changes in affective state.
One area of the brain that may be ...
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Probably just a part of the story, but the locus coeruleus is known to be implied in the wake-sleep cycle.
Furthermore, an experiment on cats demonstrated that removing this structure cause actual (but nonsensical) behaviors replacing normal REM sleep phases: cats have no more REM sleep and instead hunt non-existing rats (or something else who knows).
...
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To answer your questions (as to inspire you to do your own research and to avoid writing a book):
Yes, there is a TON of research on circadian rhythms... There are also many ongoing research projects. I might suggest doing a google scholar search. You might also try getting access to academic peer reviewed journals through your local library, ...
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Deep breathing changes your posture. People with an upright, confident posture do feel higher levels of confidence.
Side note: It's okay to sulk after defeat. Research also shows that people who slump down after defeat recover from negative feelings quicker than people who try to remain upright.
But yes, adopting a more confident posture in general will ...
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If you are searching specific part of the brain, I think that frontal regions of cortex will be an answer(In particular, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which was associated with self-focused metacognitive evaluation). But, as it common in real life, becoming aware of dreaming state required coordinated work of different parts of brain.
You can read this ...
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Certain languages have words that do not literally translate into any another language. There is already a small loss of information in this sense.
Even though language is very influential for thinking (and read the The Newspeak appendix in 1984 for a thought provoking eye opener), even when you have a group with the same language level skills they will ...
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