{"id":7572,"date":"2019-05-22T15:58:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T15:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/consciousness\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T15:58:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T15:58:19","slug":"consciousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/consciousness\/","title":{"rendered":"Consciousness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A phenomenon that the philosopher <a href=\"http:\/\/webspace.ship.edu\/cgboer\/jamesselection.html\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/webspace.ship.edu\/cgboer\/jamesselection.html&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">William James<\/a> (1842-1910) likened to a &#8216;stream&#8217; or process by which a sense of self is attained through a succession of experiences. &nbsp;The pragmatist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brocku.ca\/MeadProject\/Dewey\/Dewey_1906.html\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.brocku.ca\/MeadProject\/Dewey\/Dewey_1906.html&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Dewey<\/a>&nbsp;(1859-1952) added that consciousness is an emergent property of sentient creatures, which develops and enables discrimination and choice based on the satisfaction of needs and desires. &nbsp;He also argued that, while consciousness involves privately experienced states, categorical thinking must be communicable or based on shared meanings to sustain self-consciousness. &nbsp;Other pertinent features of consciousness have to do with the limited capacity of the brain to sustain perception and memory. &nbsp;Attention controls access to consciousness and memory establishes the extent to which on-going events can be re-categorized to include novel and unexpected situations. &nbsp;Some developmental psychologists (e.g., <a href=\"http:\/\/social.jrank.org\/pages\/385\/Mcgraw-Myrtle-Byram-1899-1988.html\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/social.jrank.org\/pages\/385\/Mcgraw-Myrtle-Byram-1899-1988.html&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Myrtle B. McGraw<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/famous-psychologists\/jerome-kagan.html\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/famous-psychologists\/jerome-kagan.html&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jerome Kagan<\/a>) have contended that infant sensitivity to balance, novelty and discrepancy paves the way for the emergence of consciousness by stimulating the neural mechanisms of arousal and attention. &nbsp;Neuroscientists, however, remain divided about the neural correlates of conscious states. &nbsp;Some contend (<a href=\"http:\/\/darkwing.uoregon.edu\/~mposner\/\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/darkwing.uoregon.edu\/~mposner\/&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Posner<\/a>) that consciousness is strongly correlated with the firing patterns of neurons in specific brain regions, while others believe (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.complete-review.com\/reviews\/edelmang\/univeroc.htm\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.complete-review.com\/reviews\/edelmang\/univeroc.htm&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gerald Edelman<\/a>) that consciousness involves the synchrony and coherence of widely distributed groups of neurons.<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"arousal\">Arousal<\/a>, <a href=\"attention\">Attention<\/a>, <a href=\"behaviorism\">Behaviorism<\/a>, <a href=\"cognitive_science\">Cognitive science<\/a>, <a href=\"mesencephalic_reticular_activating_system\">Mesencephalic reticular activating system<\/a>, <a href=\"mind-body_problem\">Mind-body problem<\/a>, <a href=\"self\">Self<\/a>, <a href=\"self-concept\">Self-concept<\/a>, <a href=\"self-conscious_emotions\">Self-conscious emotions<\/a>, Theory of neuronal group selection (TNGS)<\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A phenomenon that the philosopher William James (1842-1910) likened to a &#8216;stream&#8217; or process by which a sense of self is attained through a succession of experiences. &nbsp;The pragmatist John Dewey&nbsp;(1859-1952) added that consciousness is an emergent property of sentient creatures, which develops and enables discrimination and choice based on the satisfaction of needs and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/consciousness\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Consciousness&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-7572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}