Psychology

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FACILITATOR:OSORO M FREDRICK
Memory

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• Boy
• house
• Bird
• Maize
• Flower
• Faith
• School
• Church
• Person
• kitchen

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Introduction
Definition
• Consciousness is awareness of both external
and internal stimuli and events.
• The external events include what you attend to
as you go through your day to day activities.
• Internal events include your awareness of your
sensations as well as your thoughts and
feelings. The contents of our awareness may
change from one moment to the next, since
information can move rapidly in and out of
consciousness. The mind can be described as
a stream of consciousness – a continuous flow

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• The contents of our awareness may change
from one moment to the next, since information
can move rapidly in and out of consciousness.
The mind can be described as a stream of
consciousness – a continuous flow of changing
sensations, images, thoughts and feelings.
• On learning a new skill we are conscious of
every step in the procedure but with experience,
it becomes automatic and there fore we can do
other things as we perform skills

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Levels of Information
Processing
Conscious level
• At this level, we are fully aware of what is
happening in our environment. We are therefore,
through this consciousness able to control the
environment and ourselves. It therefore cheeks the
different brain systems are meshing properly

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Conscious level is:
• Sequential: takes place serially
• Relatively low: it is cautious of consequences
• Limited in capacity: deals with one thing at a
time
• Chief executive officer:
• Monitors the whole system
• Deals with new challenges

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In varied states
• Normal waking consciousness: involves normal
perceiving and reacting to environment.
(hearing, seeing, reasoning and remembering)
• Altered state of consciousness: as in dreams,
hypnotic state, chemically induced
hallucinations and near death visions

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Subconscious Level
• This the level at which we perceive and respond
to environment without our immediate awareness
though with efforts we can bring he process into
our awareness.
• It occurs simultaneously in many parallel tracks.
Habitual activities or experienced skills operate at
this level.

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Unconscious Level
• This is the level at which we are not aware of the
process and it’s hard to get access at them. The
process affects our behavior compulsively. We
hardly can be able to explain our behaviors,
which are as a result of our conscious level
processes

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Sleep and Levels of
Consciousness
• Sleep is periodic, natural, reversible temporary
loss of consciousness.It occurs in different levels
in form of cycles

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Level one: Relax stage
• Before falling asleep we move from our
normal active state into a relax state. The
state is marked by Alpha waves of
electromagnetic graph fixed on a subject

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Level 2: Light Sleep
• The person at this level is half asleep half
awake. They experience fantastic images, which
are like hallucinations (e.g. sensations of falling
or floating, weightlessly. It is marked by slow
breathing rate and slow brain waves on EEG).It
is the borderline between sleep and waking

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Level 3:Rapid Eye Movement
Stage
• The person is clearly asleep. He/she can easily
be awaked. Sleep talking can occur often at this
stage. It is characterized by sleep spindles
(periodic rapid rhythmic brain wave activity).

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Level 4: Transitional stage
• This is the stage where as one moves from
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) to deep sleep. Slow
large delta waves start to appear.

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Level five: Deep sleep
stage/Slow wave sleep
• The person is such asleep that it is hard to wake
them up. Walking in sleep occurs in this stage,
bed wetting in children, and brain responds only
to particular stimuli, and slow delta waves
continues on EEG

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• WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP?

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Importance of Sleep
Sleep is very important in life. It is:
• Restorative: after exhaustive normal day’s
activities we sleep to have our bodies re-
energized. We wake up in the morning feeling
more energetic than we slept last night
• Adaptive: we sleep to avoid pain or even
unfavorable conditions in our environment
• Long-term memory consolidation: when we
sleep, materials in our long term memory are able
to perform a skill better next day after a night’s
sleep

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• Growth promoting: during deep sleep, our
brains produce a growth-promoting hormone.
Children therefore experience long periods of
deep sleep than grown ups

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Failure to sleep may cause:
• Sleepiness and sometimes general malaise
• Impaired creativity and concentration
• Impaired immunity to diseases
• Diminished stress recourses
• Slight hand tremors
• Slowed performance
• Occasional misperceptions on monotonous tasks
• Impaired growth process

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Sleep Disorders
• Insomnia: this is a persistent problem of falling
asleep or staying sleep. Anxiety and excitement
as causes of lack of sleep is not insomnia.
When stressed alertness is a natural way of
adapting. Sleeping pills and alcohol can
aggravate the problem. They reduce the REM
sleep. Continued use increasesthe dosage with
time to get an effect. Discontinuing the drugs
worsen the insomnia.

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Rather than drugs:
• Relax before bedtime
• Avoid caffeine and rich food before bedtime. A
glass of milk can help
• Sleep on a regular schedule
• Exercise regularly but not in the late evening
• Do not force yourself into sleep. Reassure
yourself that temporary loss of sleep causes no
great harm
• If nothing else works, aim for less sleep. Go to
bed early or get up earlier (Myers, 1995)

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Narcolepsy: periodic overwhelming sleepiness
sometimes at the most inopportune time. The
person lapses directly into a brief period of REM
sleep with its accompanying loss of muscular
tension.

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Sleep apnea: intermittent stoppage of breathing
during sleep. Decreased levels of oxygen
arouse the sleeper to awaken and snort in air for
few seconds. Frequent recurrent deprive the
person the slow wave sleep. Victims complain
of sleepiness and irritability during the day.
Mates complain of loud snoring. suffers are
often unaware of their disorder

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Night terrors and nightmares: night terrors are
characterized by sitting or walking around,
talking incoherently, doubling of heart beat and
breathing rate and terrific appearance.
Nightmares mainly occur during stage 4 of
sleep. A victim rarely wakens or recalls
nightmares. It occurs during REM sleep
approaching morning

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Effects of psychoactive substances on
states of consciousness
Alcohol: slows down brain activity. As a result,
there increased harmful and helpful tendencies
as it affects judgment and inhibitions

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Tranquilizers/Barbiturates: they tend to alter
reality in our minds instead of allowing us to
use our minds to alter the unpleasant reality in
our lives. Long-term use can result in lack of
coordination, memory loss, and impaired
judgment.
These are Nembutals and seconals. They affect
the sympathetic nervous system by depressing
its activities. The only difference is that they can
cause death hence at times used as a medium
of suicide.

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Opiates: opium, morphine and heroine also
depress neural function, thus the user
experiences the following:
Stimulants: these activate the body functioning
mechanisms. e.g. caffeine, nicotine,
amphetamine and cocaine. They are addictive.
They stimulate alertness and relive anxiety
Hallucinogens: these are drugs that distort
perceptions evoking vivid images without
sensory input e.g. marijuana, I.S.D. (lysergic acid
diethylamide), phencyclidine (P.C.P.) and
psilocybin.

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Marijuana: these are leaves and flowers of hemp
plant. Can be smoked or eaten as food.
Phencyclidine (P.C.P.)
• This causes fear, depersonalization, aggression,
violence
Psilocybin: is associated with mystical states of
consciousness

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Day Dreaming
• Day dreaming is a state of consciousness which
involves a low level of conscious effort. It lies
in between active consciousness and dreaming.
It is like dreaming when we are awake. Day
dreaming usually start spontaneously when
what we are doing requires less than our full
attention. Mind wandering is perhaps the most
obvious type of day dreaming. Even as we read,
we sometimes take side trips into our own
private kingdoms of imagery and memory
We drift off into a world of fantasy.

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Hypnosis
• No one is sure how or why hypnosis works.
Hypnosis causes deep relaxation, intense
concentration, and vulnerability to posthypnotic
suggestions. Children and imaginative adults
are more responsive than people who are highly
analytical. Hypnosis can be used to enhance or
distort memory and perception. Age,
regression, which allows subjects to remember
the past events, is sometimes used by
psychotherapists.

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Questions