Title: Types of Consciousness
Tags:
- Psychology
- Consciousness
ID: '100'
Categories: -
- Psychology
Date: 2022-05-03 10:38:17
- Psychology
1. Non-conscious Processes
There is a category of activities that occur within the realm of non-consciousness and rarely enter into consciousness.
For example, the regulation of blood pressure, monitoring of the nervous system, perceiving physiological changes and responding to them, without being aware of it ourselves. However, at certain times, some activities that are typically non-conscious can be consciously performed. For example, consciously controlling an individual's breathing pattern through practice.
2. Unconsciousness
Unconsciousness is relative to consciousness and refers to psychological activities and processes that individuals are not aware of. Individuals become aware of the existence of unconscious information when they cannot explain certain behaviors through consciousness. Common unconscious phenomena include:
(1) Unconscious behaviors. Unconscious behaviors are actions that are not under conscious control, especially those that have become automated. For example, when riding a bicycle, a person can easily think about a problem or engage in conversation without being conscious of how they maintain balance. Many small actions in daily life, such as scratching one's nose, fall into this category.
(2) Unconsciousness towards stimuli.
Sometimes, individuals are not aware of events that have influenced their behavior, but in reality, these events have had a greater or lesser impact on their behavior.
In the "McKay's Dichotic Listening" experiment, the materials heard by the participants included ambiguous words with uncertain meanings, such as "bank" which can refer to a riverbank or a financial institution. When the word "bank" appeared in the attended ear (the ear required to listen to the content), a word presented in the unattended ear (the ear trying to avoid listening to the content) could help determine the meaning of the ambiguous word, such as "money" or "river". Subsequently, the participants were asked to explain the meaning of the sentence they heard. Despite not remembering the word presented in the unattended ear, they tended to interpret the ambiguous word based on its association with the presented word.
(3) Blindsight.
Blindsight refers to the unconscious perception of stimuli caused by brain damage. In patients with damage to the primary visual cortex (area 17) of the brain, a large black spot occupies a significant portion of their visual field.
Although patients cannot "see" the stimuli, they can process certain information about the stimuli to some extent. Often, they can accurately perceive the location and other information about the stimuli, but they claim that their judgments are guesses and are not aware of the processing of the stimuli.
3. Subconsciousness
Some scholars believe that subconsciousness is synonymous with unconsciousness, while others define subconsciousness separately.
The subconsciousness is a deeply hidden and inaccessible part of the mind, which is a major aspect of mental life.
Freud conducted systematic research on the subconsciousness (which he also referred to as the unconscious) and believed that certain conscious experiences, such as instinctual desires and traumatic experiences, which threaten psychological activities, are excluded from consciousness but are repressed in the subconsciousness, directly or indirectly influencing a person's psychology and behavior.
4. Preconscious Memory
Preconscious memory refers to memories that can only reach consciousness when an individual's attention is directed towards the past. Preconscious memory silently operates in the background of an individual's psyche until a situation requiring consciousness arises.
Tip:
There are various perspectives on the classification of consciousness. The cognitive psychology perspective includes consciousness, non-conscious processes, preconscious memory, and unconsciousness. Freud's perspective includes consciousness, preconsciousness, and subconsciousness.