Vijay Shankar Sharma
Textbook neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and clinical terms. Not a reinterpretation of Vijay's Law or the Consciousness Index. 148 terms. Textbook meanings only.
9 terms. Page 1 of 1.
neuroscience · intro
The outer, folded layer of the brain responsible for higher-order functions including perception, language, reasoning, and voluntary movement. In humans it is highly convoluted, packing a large surface area into the skull, and is organised into distinct lobes (frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital) with somewhat specialised roles. Its six-layered structure is a defining feature of mammalian brains.
cognitive-science · intermediate
The failure to detect a significant change in a visual scene, particularly when the change occurs during a brief visual disruption such as an eye movement, a flicker, or an edit in a film. It demonstrates that detailed visual representations are not automatically retained across such interruptions, contrary to the intuitive sense of a rich, continuously updated visual world.
philosophy-of-mind · intermediate
A thought experiment devised by philosopher John Searle in which a person who does not understand Chinese follows a rulebook to manipulate Chinese symbols well enough to produce convincing responses, without ever understanding the language. Searle used it to argue that a computer program manipulating symbols according to rules, however successfully, does not thereby genuinely understand or possess a mind, challenging strong claims made on behalf of artificial intelligence.
sleep-and-altered-states · intro
An internally generated, roughly 24-hour biological cycle that regulates sleep-wake timing, hormone release, body temperature, and other physiological processes, synchronised to the external day-night cycle primarily through exposure to light. Disruption of circadian rhythms, as in jet lag or shift work, is linked to a range of negative effects on health and cognitive performance.
cognitive-science · intro
A systematic pattern of deviation from rational judgement, in which people draw conclusions in a way that departs from objective, logical evaluation of available evidence. Well-documented examples include confirmation bias, the tendency to favour information that confirms existing beliefs, and anchoring bias, in which an initial piece of information disproportionately influences subsequent judgements.
cognitive-science · intermediate
The total amount of mental effort being used in working memory at a given time. When the demands of a task exceed available cognitive resources, performance and learning both suffer, which is why instructional design often aims to minimise unnecessary cognitive load so more capacity remains available for the actual material being learned.
clinical-and-disorders · intro
A prolonged state of unarousable unresponsiveness in which a person shows no purposeful response to stimulation and cannot be awakened, typically resulting from severe brain injury, illness, or intoxication. It is generally a transitional state, with patients either recovering to varying degrees of consciousness or progressing to a vegetative or minimally conscious state within a few weeks.
self-and-social-cognition · intro
The state of being aware of, and able to have subjective experience of, one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, and surroundings. Despite being one of the most immediately familiar aspects of existence to anyone who has it, consciousness remains one of the most difficult phenomena to define precisely or explain scientifically, and different disciplines and theories emphasise different aspects of it, from raw subjective feel to the functional integration of information.
neuroscience · intro
The large bundle of nerve fibres connecting the brain's left and right cerebral hemispheres, allowing them to share information. In some historical epilepsy treatments the corpus callosum was surgically severed, producing split-brain patients whose two hemispheres could no longer directly communicate, a condition that has been studied extensively for what it reveals about lateralised brain function and the unity of conscious experience.