2:2 Attention

Question 1

Who said: “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains for thought.”

Answer 1

William James, 1842-1920

Question 2

What’s another term for attention?

Answer 2

Mechanism selection.

Question 3

What are two methods in which attention carries out selection?

Answer 3

1. Exogenous (bottom-up) attention.

2. Endogenous (top-down) attention.

Question 4

Which type of attention is not automatic - you choose to pay attention.

Answer 4

Endogenous (top-down) attention.

Question 5

Which type of attention is auto-allocation based on properties of stimuli? This is naturally attention-grabbing, for example a loud, sudden change in environment.

Answer 5

Exogenous (bottom-up) attention.

Question 6

Who developed exogenous and endogenous spatial cueing paradigms?

Answer 6

Posner, 1980s.

Question 7

What did Posner’s cueing trials find in experiments on endogenous attention?

Answer 7

Arrows pointing to the target (valid cues) would enhance performance as much as exogenous cues; and invalid ones (cues pointing to the wrong side) would impede it.

Many invalid trial = easier to ignore.

Question 8

What did Posner’s cueing trials find in experiments on exogenous attention?

Answer 8

You’re less likely to be able to suppress or ignore your attention being grabbed by the cue appearing on the side.

Invalid trials = hard to ignore.

Question 9

What is a pre-attentive search?

Answer 9

Search that requires no attention.

Question 10

What is another name for a parallel search and its distractors? Describe the type of search.

Answer 10

Parallel search = pop out search

Distractors = set size

Pre-attentive search. One looks for a unique target and the number of distractors doesn’t matter.

There’s no increased search time with more distractors.

Question 11

What is a serial search?

Answer 11

A serial search is also called a conjunction search.

The target of search differs from a conjunction of two or more features from the distractors.

As set size (distractors) goes up, reaction time also rises. The more demanding the distractors, the more time required to search.

Question 12

What happens to items we do not pay attention to?

Answer 12

They are filtered out and we are not aware of them.

Eg. When a random letter stream is not attended, no word-related processing takes place.

Question 13

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 13

When we don’t pay attention, we can be effectively blind, even to salient visual stimuli.

If your focus of attention is manipulated, it doesn’t matter if your eyes are on the key event - you still remain blind to it.

Demonstrates the link between attention and awareness - you need more than looking at something to see it, you also need to pay attention (V1).

Question 14

Which area of the brain plays a crucial role in sustaining attention over a period of time?

Answer 14

Right parietal cortex (part of the dorsal stream).

Question 15

Which areas of the brain are endogenous or top-down attention areas?

Answer 15

Superior parietal (IPs/SPL)

and

Frontal eye fields (FEF).

Question 16

Which areas of the brain are exogenous or bottom up attention?

Answer 16

Inferior parietal cortex (TPJ: IPL/STG)

and

Ventral frontal areas (VFC: IFg/MFg).

Question 17

What happens with damage to right parietal regions?

Answer 17

Visuo-spatial neglect.
One whole side of the world is neglected, as if it doesn’t exit.

Contralesional: Suffering from right parietal damage leaves one with left visual neglect (most common). Men will not shave the left side of their faces. Shows strong link between attention and awareness.

In the other side (left side damage), people tend to recover more quickly because those aren’t areas crucial for attention.

Question 18

What is a cancellation task?

Answer 18

Given to stroke patients - they cross out certain objects, which shows how far right or left their brain can interpret images.

Question 19

What is representational neglect?

Answer 19

Failure to attend to internal mental images when those parts of the image fall into the impaired contralesional side of space.

Question 20

Explain unconscious processing in relation to emotional stimuli.

Answer 20

When emotionally threatening stimuli are presented on the neglected side, there’s some RESIDUAL processing.

Eg: Even though patients couldn’t see flames out the window of one house, when given the choice of which house they would live in, they always chose the one without flames.

Question 21

What three interrelated aspects of attentional bias can help understand the mechanisms of attentional biases?

Answer 21

1) The observed components of attentional bias,
2) The mechanisms that may mediate the expression of these components, and
3) The stage of information processing during which the mediating mechanisms operate.

Question 22

Attentional control ability likely underlies difficulty in disengagement.

Emotion regulation goals likely underlie attentional avoidance.

Where are both of these processes likely to be neurally centered?

Answer 22

Prefrontal cortex.

The amygdala for threat.

Question 23

What are two divisions or stages of information processing?

Answer 23

AUTOMATIC

STRATEGIC

Question 24

What is the most commonly used task to measure attentional bias in anxiety?

Answer 24

The modified Stroop task.

Displays different types of words (e.g., threatening and neutral) in varying colors.