Psychology Unit 1

• the brain controls all bodily functions, including breathing, heart rate, digestion, and blood pressure.
• Consciousness has various meanings and psychologists use it in many ways.
• Sigmund Freud emphasized and differentiated among conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels of consciousness.
• William James stated that the nature of consciousness is influenced by the attention we give to specific issues.
• Consciousness is our awareness of our external and internal environments at any given moment.
• Sensory awareness emphasizes how our senses enable us to be conscious of an object or situation.
• Selective attention is the focusing of one’s consciousness on a particular stimulus of importance to us.
• The cocktail party effect is attending selectively to a stimulus when several stimuli are available.
• Direct inner awareness is knowledge of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and memories.
• Sigmund Freud’s differentiation of different levels of consciousness includes conscious, preconscious, unconscious, and nonconscious levels.
• Unconscious material is unavailable to awareness under most circumstances.
• Mescaline (Peyote Cactus) and Psilocybin (Magic Mushroom) produce vivid and colourful hallucinations.
• Repression is the unconscious ejection of anxiety-provoking ideas.
• Phencyclidine (PCP) produces vivid and colourful hallucinations.
• Natural hallucinogens include Cannabis (e.g., Marijuana, Hash, Hash Oil), which contains THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), a mild hallucinogen that activates pleasure centres.
• Synthetic hallucinogens include LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) or Acid, a synthetic drug created by Dr Albert Hofman in 1943, which produces vivid and colourful hallucinations.
• MDMA (Ecstasy) amplifies pleasurable sensory data.
• Suppression is the conscious ejection of unwanted mental events.
• Nonconscious bodily processes that cannot be experienced through sensory awareness are part of the unconscious.
• Adults spend about one-thirds of their lives sleeping.
• One in three Canadians aged 18 to 79 is sleep deprived, possibly due to shift work, longer workdays, stress, and family characteristics.
• Sleep apnea is caused by anatomical deformities that clog the air passageways and is associated with high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and memory problems.
• Treatment for sleep apnea includes weight loss, surgery, and continuous positive airway pressure.
• Sleep talking, also known as Somniloquy, is a stage 3 or 4 disorder that is more common in children.
• Sleep terrors, also known as terrifying dream-like experiences that occur during the first two sleep cycles of the night, are a stage 3 or 4 disorder that is more common in children.
• Sleep talking, sleep terrors, and sleepwalking are stage 3 or 4 disorders that are more common in children.
• Nightmares, also known as Frightening dreams during sleep paralysis during REM sleep, are a stage 3 or 4 disorder that is more common in children.
• Sleepwalking, also known as Somnambulism, is a stage 3 or 4 disorder that is more common in children.
• Sleep sex, also known as Sexsomnia, is a stage 3 or 4 disorder that is more common in children.
• Sleep deprivation results in short- and long-term health consequences.
• Sleep serves to rejuvenate the body, maintain optimal cognitive functioning, help us recover from stress, help consolidate learning, and promote development of infants’ brains.
• More than 100 of our bodily functions fluctuate in a 24-hour cycle, including blood pressure, heart rate, sensory acuity, appetite, secretion of hormones & enzymes.
• A circadian rhythm is a biological cycle connected with the 24-hour period of the earth’s rotation, regulating both wakefulness and sleep, body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, hormonal secretions, alertness, and memory.
• Circadian rhythms tend to persist despite environmental cues.
• The Supra-chias-matic Nucleus (SCN) is a tiny structure in the brain’s hypothalamus that controls the timing of circadian rhythms.
• The hypothalamus controls the pituitary gland, and regulates hunger & thirst, body temperature, and sexual behaviour.
• Micro-sleeps are a momentary lapse from wakefulness into sleep, usually occurring when one has been sleep-deprived.
• Variations on Sleep
• Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by a temporary cessation of breathing during sleep.
• Insomnia is a common sleep disorder, affecting 30 to 40 percent of adults in any given year.