All Processing Beneath Conscious Awareness is Carried out by Subcortical Structures - Essay Example

The process of conscious awareness demands concentration since one maybe conscious but not aware of their conscious state. People possess a strong sense of own self and observe their feelings, thinking and how they go about their lives. Human posses a powerful sense of own self, and can observe their feelings, thinking and going about lives. Sub cortical structures refer to the structures that exist below the cerebral cortex surface. All the processing that is beneath a person’s conscious awareness is not necessarily executed by sub cortical structures.

The fear response It explains that sub cortical structures facilitate all unconscious processing. When a person feels in danger, it is the information that reaches the amygdale through the sub cortical pathway that triggers flight or fight response. The sub cortical pathway involves the transfer of information from the sense organs to the thalamus and finally to the amygdale. For processing that is beneath conscious awareness, information travels through the sub cortical pathway which is usually shorter and carries less information concerning the stimulus (Open University Course Team, 2006).

This transfers less information concerning the stimulus and thus triggers a fear response. For instance, a person jumps at a harmless shadow in response to the stimulus. The benefit of this transfer method is that it allows for quick response to various stimuli. On the other hand, the cortical structures may also facilitate processing that is beneath conscious processing. This occurs where the cortical pathway delivers information concerning various stimuli leading to various responses. This may happen is situations that do not require quick response to the situation since the cortical pathway is slow.

In cases of death and life situations, the pathway may lead to death situations due to it slow characteristic. Despite this drawback, it can also lead to unconscious reaction to various stimuli (Open University Course Team, 2006) Attention and consciousness As part of one’s normal activities, we perform many actions that do not require attention. For instance, a driver depresses the clutch pedal and hence changes gear automatically. This is a process that occurs in a smooth manner during the appropriate time while still concentrating on what is happening on the road.

This indicates that sub cortical structures facilitate unconscious reactions to various responses. This takes place through the sub cortical pathway which delivers information unconsciously leading to a quick response to the stimuli. However, this is a process that one acquires through learning where the sensory-motor coordination will now tend to occur beneath conscious awareness. This process becomes automatic and effortless thus giving a person a chance to concentrate elsewhere (Open University Course Team, 2006).

On the other hand, before we learn these activities, it is usually a conscious process. For instance, a research carried by Raichle discovered that there exists a whole suite in the process of brain activation between effortless and automatic phases that a person practices. They proved that attention is necessary for an unlearned activity while there is no demand for concentration during an automatic response. Blind sight This is a condition where the sufferer responds to visual stimuli without perceiving them consciously.

For instance, a monkey with a blind sight named Helen