Controlled processes in human consciousness represent high-alert mental states where individuals deliberately focus their attention on achieving specific goals. Controlled processes can be seen in situations like mastering new technology, where a person might become so absorbed that they ignore surrounding distractions. Such processes involve selective attention, requiring one to concentrate on particular elements of experience while disregarding others. These are governed by executive...

Cognitive psychology is the field of psychology dedicated to examining how people think. It attempts to explain how and why we think the way we do by studying the interactions among human thinking, emotion, creativity, language, and problem-solving, as well as other cognitive processes. Cognitive psychology studies how information is processed and manipulated in remembering, thinking, and knowing.
This field emerged in the mid-20th century, following a period dominated by behaviorism, which...

The concept of subconscious awareness refers to the processing of information below the level of conscious thought, which significantly influences both behaviors and decisions. It is also known as waking subconscious awareness. This complex level of cognition operates without the direct awareness of the individual, facilitating rapid and simultaneous handling of multiple information streams.
An illustrative example of subconscious processing is its role in problem-solving. Often, individuals...

How can we compare the energy that releases from one reaction to that of another reaction? We use a measurement of free energy to quantitate these energy transfers. Scientists call this free energy Gibbs free energy (abbreviated with the letter G) after Josiah Willard Gibbs, the scientist who developed the measurement. According to the second law of thermodynamics, all energy transfers involve losing some energy in an unusable form such as heat, resulting in entropy. Gibbs free energy...

Consciousness can be defined as the state of being aware of and able to think about one's existence, sensations, and surroundings. It encompasses two major components: awareness and arousal. Awareness pertains to the recognition of environmental stimuli and internal states. At the same time, arousal refers to the physiological readiness to engage with these stimuli, which varies significantly between states like sleep and wakefulness.
Sleep, a crucial state, is characterized by reduced...

Free energy—abbreviated as G for the scientist Gibbs who discovered it—is a measurement of useful energy that can be extracted from a reaction to do work. It is the energy in a chemical reaction that is available after entropy is accounted for. Reactions that take in energy are considered endergonic and reactions that release energy are exergonic. Plants carry out endergonic reactions by taking in sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce glucose and oxygen. Animals, in turn, break...