RETRIEVAL PRACTICE Take a moment to answer each of these Learning Objective Questions (repeated here from within this section). Then click the 'show answer' button to check your answers. Research suggests that trying to answer these questions on your own will improve your long-term retention (McDaniel et al., 2009).

Since 1960, under the influence of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience, our awareness of ourselves and our environment—our consciousness— has reclaimed its place as an important area of research. After initially claiming consciousness as its area of study in the nineteenth century, psychologists had abandoned it in the first half of the twentieth century, turning instead to the study of observable behavior because they believed consciousness was too difficult to study scientifically.

Scientists studying the brain mechanisms underlying consciousness and cognition have discovered that the mind processes information on two separate tracks, one operating at an explicit, conscious level (conscious sequential processing) and the other at an implicit, unconscious level (unconscious parallel processing). This dual processing affects our perception, memory, attitudes, and other cognitions.

We selectively attend to, and process, a very limited portion of incoming information, blocking out much and often shifting the spotlight of our attention from one thing to another. Parallel processing takes care of the routine business, while sequential processing is best for solving new problems that require our attention. Focused intently on one task, we often display inattentional blindness to other events and change blindness to changes around us.