conscious and unconscious responses — VCE psychology, live

Conscious and Unconscious Responses

Both responses start the same way: a receptor fires and a sensory neuron carries the message into the spinal cord. There the message is handled twice. An interneuron passes it straight to a motor neuron and the hand is already lifting: that is the unconscious spinal reflex, initiated in the spinal cord before the brain is involved. The same message is also relayed up the cord to the brain, which registers the heat, decides what to do and sends its own command back down through the spinal cord to a motor neuron: a conscious response, slower because of the round trip. This is the real knowscape from knowhere, not a picture of one. Drag it. Watch what actually changes.

psychology · nervous system & neural signalling · conscious and unconscious responsesdrag it · it is yours

why this one carries the topic.

Every thought, movement and feeling is electricity running down a cell and chemicals jumping a gap. The gap is where nearly everything interesting happens.

A body schematic with a hot surface, a sensory neuron into the spinal cord, a brain above and a muscle to the right. Fire the stimulus and the purple reflex reaches the motor neuron and lifts the hand at about 70 ms in the model, while the amber message is still climbing the cord to the brain, which only then sends its command back down the cord to the muscle.

what examiners catch — Students write that a reflex is unconscious because it is fast, or draw the conscious route skipping the spinal cord. The mark comes from naming the route: sensory neuron → interneuron in the spinal cord → motor neuron, initiated without the brain, with the brain informed afterwards via the spinal cord.

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A spinal reflex runs sensory neuron → interneuron in the spinal cord → motor neuron, so it is initiated before the brain is involved.

The spinal cord also relays the sensory message up to the brain, which is why you feel the heat shortly after the hand has already moved.

A conscious response is processed by the brain: the message travels up the spinal cord, the brain decides, and the command travels back down to a motor neuron.

Unconscious responses are involuntary and faster; conscious responses are voluntary, goal-directed and slower because of the round trip to the brain.

The peripheral nervous system carries the message in (sensory neuron) and out (motor neuron); the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain) processes and coordinates it.

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this conceptconscious and unconscious responsesA body schematic with a hot surface, a sensory neuron into the spinal cord, a brain above and a muscle to the right.

sits under itthe nervous system's command structurebecause conscious vs unconscious is a routing question

sits under itthe spinal reflexbecause The reflex arc is the unconscious route drawn in the picture

sits under itstructure of neuronsbecause Sensory, inter- and motor neurons are the units of both pathways

built on itoperant conditioningbecause Voluntary versus involuntary responses is the line between emitted and elicited behaviour

built on ithindbrain, midbrain and forebrainbecause Hindbrain jobs are unconscious responses, while the cortex handles conscious ones.

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glutamate and gabain the appneuromodulators: dopamine and serotoninin the appsynaptic plasticityin the appsynaptic transmissionin the appsynaptic transmission and the lock and keyin the appstructure of neuronsin the appthe nervous system's command structurein the appinside the neuronin the appaction potential mechanismin the appthe spinal reflexin the app

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