1. is attention explicitly necessary Flashcards
ohman
orienting and defense responses
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)
BLC to Ce/BNST to .. pathways
- locus coerculeus LC
- ventral tegmental VTA
- lat dorsal tegmental nucleus
- 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
BNST to Ce/BNST
1.locus coerculeus LC
norepinephrine (noradrenaline)
projects to many parts of the brain
excitatory effect that mediates arousal
primes the brain’s neurons to be activated by stimuli
BNST to Ce/BNST
- ventral tegmental VTA
dopamine to prefrontal cortex
increased cognitive processing of sensory information
cognitive control of attention
explicit cog control
BNST to Ce/BNST
- lat dorsal tegmental nucleus
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
BNST to Ce/BNST
- Basal Forebrain
Basal forebrain (SI/NBM): acetylcholine
Projections to primary visual cortex (V1)
Potentiates incoming retinal inputs
attentional blink paradigm
raymond
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)
why is there an attentional blink at T2 when rapidly presented after T1?
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
anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink
METHOD
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
anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink
FINDINGS - HEALTHY
%T2 accuracy heightened for negative highl arousing words>neutral
blink dissapears
- detection of highly emotive stimuli frees up attentional resources - important
anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink
FINDINGS - SP
bilat amyg lesions
no advantage for neg valenced>neutral words
sig less recog than controls when T2 immediatel follows T1
not due to memory
anderson and phelps
emotional attentional blink
FINDINGS - right/left lesions
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)
problem with anderson and phelps
words in rapid threat detection slower than images - amyg recieved visual input
+ words less obj/multiple meanings
lim padmala and pessoa
alt to andersona and phelps
METHOD
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
lim padmala and pessoa
alt to andersona and phelps
RESULTS - behavioural
% 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
lim padmala and pessoa
alt to andersona and phelps
RESULTS - TRIAL BY TRIAL MEDIATION
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
keil
mixed valence in attention blink
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,
sabatinelli
electrocortical and haemodynamic measures
EEG :slow wave: late pos potential (LLP)
+ fMRI BOLD response - correlate
sabatinelli method
RSVP
pleasant neutral unpleasant images
rate for level of arousal
sabatinelli
results
EEG:
LLP voltage strength modulated by emotional intensity
correlate with BOLD in lateral occipital, inferior temporal and medial parietal cortex = EXTRASTRIATAL VISUAL COTREX
EXTRASTRIATAL VISUAL COTREX
lateral occipital c
inferior temporalc
medial parietal cortex
sabtinelli and visual blink
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)
problem with general fear research in threat
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
davis - threat dissociation study
method
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)
davis - threat dissociation study
results
fear heighten word memory > angry
angry heighten memory for emotive faces > fear
anderson and phelps explanation of results
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