http://www.slideshare.net/donnaw98/consciousness-sleep-dreamsch-4

1. • Definition: a person’s awareness of everything that is going on around him or her at any given moment, which is used to organize behavior.
   • Opposite of unconscious or semi-conscious!
2. • Brings varied information to the surface, enabling us to reflect and plan.
   • Enables us to exert voluntary control and to communicate our mental states to others.
   • Focuses our concentration.
3. • There is much more to information processing that consciousness.
   • Much of what we process is outside our awareness.
   • Beneath the surface, unconscious information processing occurs simultaneously on many tracks. (Note parallel processing.)
4. • It lags behind the brain events that evoke it.
   • You consciously experience the decision to move about .2 seconds before you actually move.
   • But your brain waves jump about .35 seconds ahead of your conscious perception of the decision.
5. • Unconscious brain activity precedes conscious awareness of a simple decision preceding an action.
   • Brain wave activity jumps just 1/3 second before the person consciously decides to move.
6. • 2. Consciousness is relatively slow (compared to the unconscious) and has limited capacity.
   • 3. Is serial in nature. We can only think one thing at a time.
   • 4. Consciousness is skilled at solving novel tasks requiring focused attention.
7. • Is relatively fast and can run simultaneously on multiple tracks. Parallel processing.
   • We can perform familiar tasks automatically.
8. • Biological Rhythms
   • Annual cycles
   • 28 day cycles
   • 7 day cycles?
   • 24 hour cycles
   • 90 minute cycles
9. • Regular body rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle.
   • Body temperature
   • Alertness/thinking
   • Energy
   • Ultimately controlled by the hypothalamus