1. is attention explicitly necessary

Question 1

ohman

orienting and defense responses

Answer 1

related to natural propensity to detect highly sig stimuli in our environment in terms of orientation of att nd threat to us based on threat level

threat triggers orient response (wide eyes, more alert) and defense (prep to deal)

Question 2

BLC to Ce/BNST to .. pathways

Answer 2

1. locus coerculeus LC
2. ventral tegmental VTA
3. lat dorsal tegmental nucleus
4. Basal Forebrain

involved in arousal, heightened vigilance and attention

Each path function in slightly diff ways and tend to produce slightly diff influences on processing and attention of environmental information
Amyg has potential/flexibility to orient attention in diff ways
- dont know what determines what is activated but may be modulated

Question 3

BNST to Ce/BNST

1.locus coerculeus LC

Answer 3

norepinephrine (noradrenaline)
projects to many parts of the brain
excitatory effect that mediates arousal
primes the brain’s neurons to be activated by stimuli

Question 4

BNST to Ce/BNST

2. ventral tegmental VTA

Answer 4

dopamine to prefrontal cortex
increased cognitive processing of sensory information
cognitive control of attention
explicit cog control

Question 5

BNST to Ce/BNST

3. lat dorsal tegmental nucleus

Answer 5

acetylcholine
projections to thalamus, VTA & substantia nigra (dopamine) and prefrontal cortex
sustained attention
orienting responses

Ach also to inhibitory neurons to boost specific sensory processing – maintaining and orienting attention

Question 6

BNST to Ce/BNST

4. Basal Forebrain

Answer 6

Basal forebrain (SI/NBM): acetylcholine
Projections to primary visual cortex (V1)
Potentiates incoming retinal inputs

Question 7

attentional blink paradigm

raymond

Answer 7

time axis - rapid serial visual presentation task (RSVP)
“pay attention and recall letter presented in white” (T1)
- did you dee the letter ..’x’ (T2)
(presented a certain amount of time after T1)
vary time between T1 and T2 presenttion

rapid succession (100msec) - cant report T2 ( chance level)
600-700ms good detection (variability in detection between these times)

Question 8

why is there an attentional blink at T2 when rapidly presented after T1?

Answer 8

believed to reflect limited attentional resources available to process T2

noticing and necoding the first target results in a temp refractory period in which time it is difficult to notice and encode a second target

take 50-60ms to process T1 - occupies resources

Question 9

anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink

METHOD

Answer 9

RSVP - neutral words(T1) and threat words (T2)
healthy

vs bilateral amyg patient (SP) - no enhanced percetption for aversive words in left amyg

vs left or right amyg lesioned patients

Question 10

anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink

FINDINGS - HEALTHY

Answer 10

%T2 accuracy heightened for negative highl arousing words>neutral
blink dissapears
- detection of highly emotive stimuli frees up attentional resources - important

Question 11

anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink

FINDINGS - SP

Answer 11

bilat amyg lesions
no advantage for neg valenced>neutral words
sig less recog than controls when T2 immediatel follows T1

not due to memory

Question 12

anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink

FINDINGS - right/left lesions

Answer 12

right: impaired but still able to identify negative valenced stimuli faster at T2 than to neutral
left: impaired modulation

in situations with limited attentional resources- emotional stimuli are more likely to reach awareness, and the amygdala plays a critical role in this facilitation of attention with emotion - left because facilitates bringing the threat stimuli into explicit awareness (cortical)

Question 13

problem with anderson and phelps

Answer 13

words in rapid threat detection slower than images - amyg recieved visual input
+ words less obj/multiple meanings

Question 14

lim padmala and pessoa
alt to andersona and phelps
METHOD

Answer 14

frmi
RSVP - scrambled images of faces (ffg) and houses (phg)
T1: face
T2: house (cs+ vs cs-)
some houses conditioned to an electric shock (CS+), or not (CS-)

compare threat vs non threat

Question 15

lim padmala and pessoa
alt to andersona and phelps
RESULTS - behavioural

Answer 15

% T2 accuracy low when CS- (no threat)
% T2 accuracy heightened when CS+ (threat)
- especially for ‘hit’ trials - when correctly identify, than miss whereb response is similar to CS-

• requires explicit identification to process threat

Question 16

lim padmala and pessoa
alt to andersona and phelps
RESULTS - TRIAL BY TRIAL MEDIATION

Answer 16

pos assoc between amg activation to CS+ T2s and ability to detect CS+ T2s
- but mediated by PHG activity in house processing

thought that amyg activate in early processing which may facilitate further processing of the house stimuli in PHG - mediated the relationship between theamygdala and the behavioral benefits of affective significance on
scene detection

CORRELATIONAL

Question 17

keil

mixed valence in attention blink

Answer 17

pleasant and unpleasant words in RSVP - EEG over the posterior cortex

% T2 correct enhanced accuracy for pleasant
and unpleasant, compared with neutral content

appears to process both pos and neg stimuli - reduced attentional blink when emotive

complemented in EEG -Amplitude shows facilitation in the lag 2 condition for emotionally arousing T2s,

Question 18

sabatinelli

electrocortical and haemodynamic measures

Answer 18

EEG :slow wave: late pos potential (LLP)

+ fMRI BOLD response - correlate

Question 19

sabatinelli method

Answer 19

RSVP
pleasant neutral unpleasant images
rate for level of arousal

Question 20

sabatinelli

results

Answer 20

EEG:
LLP voltage strength modulated by emotional intensity
correlate with BOLD in lateral occipital, inferior temporal and medial parietal cortex = EXTRASTRIATAL VISUAL COTREX

Question 21

EXTRASTRIATAL VISUAL COTREX

Answer 21

lateral occipital c
inferior temporalc
medial parietal cortex

Question 22

sabtinelli and visual blink

Answer 22

modulation of the ventral visual stream by emotional relevance may underpin the breakthrough of the attentional blink
supports re-entrant projections from amyg to visual stream
- presumed to recruit hightened processing of motivationally relevant stimuli

believed that input about the emotional sig of a stimulus uses projections to sensory cortical regions to modulate attentional and perceptual processes

• ie. amyg process info - relevant - remains vigilant for relevant info while processing (but not for irrelevant)

Question 23

problem with general fear research in threat

Answer 23

combine the different emotions into a single “threat” category
BUT
fear: indicate probability of unknown threat in environment
heightens sensory processing to disambiguate

angry: threat is direct and embodies the person

Question 24

davis - threat dissociation study

method

Answer 24

test word memory in n-back task

hyp: fear heighten word memory as heighten environ processing
angry reduce word processing as focused on stimulus (Face)

Question 25

davis - threat dissociation study

results

Answer 25

fear heighten word memory > angry

angry heighten memory for emotive faces > fear

Question 26

anderson and phelps explanation of results

Answer 26

patients with l.amyg damage fail to show attentuation of the attentional blink with emotion

in situations of limited attentional resources, emotional stimuli are more likely to reach awareness - amyg plays a critical role in this facilitation of attention with emotion