attention Flashcards
exogenous vs endogenous
which is bottom up vs top down
exo - bottom up - salient stimuli capture our attention automatically
endo - tend to stimuli based on thoughts and goals, top down way,
over vs covert attention
overt - physical attention
covert - mental attention without physical movement
transcend vs sustained attention
transcend - momentarily attending to something, but you’re jumping aground your VF attention shifting rapidly
Sustained - focus on one thing for extended period of time
selective vs divided attention
selective - so intently focused only on your novel that someone walks up to you and you don’t even notice
divided - driving car and texting at same time
more a continuum than dichotomy
cocktail party effect
we only hear what the person we are talking to is saying, unless a key word from a diff convo captures our attentin
it raises questions about to what extent is unattended info processed even though we are not attending to it?
what is dichotic listening
what could people recognize about the other sound
use headphones so you can play one message or sound in one ear and smth diff in the other ear. had to repeat word for word a poem they heard while galloping horse sound played in their other ear
knew if it has girl or boy, didn’t;t know what it said
BroadBens filter theory of attention
All or None Theory
attentional filter is early in processing
occurs before stim are processed for meaning
Moray’s dichotic listening shadow experiment shows ?
in unattend ear
people noticed when speaker switched genders
people noticed a tone that changed freq’s partway through
a word repeated over and over - ppl still couldn’t understand what the wrod was
people could tell if the message said **their name ** goes against BroadBen’s Theory
what effect does attention have on ind neurons perception response to stimuli - early perceptual V4 neuron
moran & desimone 1985
attention on stimuli boosts the firing rate at the level of ind perceptual neutrons like this one in V4
what attentional affect with visual attention and v4 neurons using a spotlight analogy
high contrast lines are easy to see, low contrast liens are harder to see, here they plot response of neuron when the line isn’t there, is faint, is brighter, and brightest.
when stimuli gets higher contrast, neuron responds stronger.
if the stimuli is high contrast - neurone fires a lot whether or not you attend to the stimuli
when stimuli is there but giant - attention pays a big difference in how much we perceive it - help us notice something we may have not seen otherwise
what did we learn in the face-place-face-place-face experiment
manipulate what they are told to focus on from trial to trial,
when asked to focus on faces - the fusiform face area had more activity then when asked to focus on places
what was the bosman study about
synchronization
how did bosman’s study work to show synchronization in the brain
Attending to either blue or yellow stim -
recording from 2 diff location in V1 labeled A and B, and 1 location in V4 labelled C
because receptive fields in V4 , we’ve got neurons in 2 diff areas in V1, 1 set that responds to 1 of the stim, and one set that responds to the other stimuli
the location in V4 respond to both stim because of the larger receptive field.
1 of the stim is causing activation in the first V1 area and in V4, and the other stimulus is causing activation in the 2nd V1 area and the same V4 area
say stim 1 is activated in A of V1, and C of V4, if you aren’t attending to stim - they are both firing - but not in synchrony
when you attend to the stim - the activity in these 2 brain areas fire in synchrony
what is the neural binding problem
what is a hypothesis for the mechanism behind this
how does it know that the same object is represented in multiple brain areas so it must be connected
Synchrony is the mechanism is a hypothesis
what is unilateral/hemispatial neglect
what side is more commonly damaged
defects in ability to attend to stimuli on one side of space. most commonly right side is **damaged **- causing their left side to be neglected
what region is most implicated in hemispatial neglect
parietal lobe back towards the temporal parietal junction area
most common cause of unilateral neglect
stroke
2 kinds of unilateral neglect
spatially defined - right vs left side of a page - location based attention
object based - ignore every left side of an object - not visual field
is hemispatial neglect top down or bottom up
fail in top down way, endogenous attention
if there is a loud sound or blithe life they can see it - some use wrist bands that tap them on side they neglect
what parts of brain control attention - where does it come from - there is a network - list some parts
frontal areas like frontal eye fields
intraparietal sulcus in Parietal lobe
**Anterioir Cingulate Cortex **
and Insula
what is the role of frontal eye fields
control where our eyes look - motor control area for the eyes
explain what happened when they stimulated Frontal eye fields with electrode while recording visual area with diff electrode
they carefully aligned the particular location they were stimulating in FEF and location they recorded in V4 - such that when they stimulated V4 location (if strongly enough) it would cause the eyes to move to a matching location
what is change blindness
Change blindness is when something in your environment changes and you fail to notice it because you were attending to something else
what is the flicker paradigm
overt or covert
endogenous or exo
sustained or transient
Presented on the screen an image, followed by a visual mask - grey screen - then shown a 2nd version of the image and another grey screen then back to the 1st version etc - alternation between 2 images with a slight gap in between
Participants must detect what is diff between the first and left version of the image/
endogenous and **covert **and sustained
what do we know about the unattended message in dichotic listening in Moray’s study
could say if it was a man or women
couldn’t tell what it was saying when it repaeted a word
could notice a change in tone frequency
knew if it said their name
we question when in processing of stimuli does attention happen
- what are the four steps on the map from hearing to finally processed
Sensory Input
Low-Level Perceptual Analysis
High-Level Semantic Analysis
Decision Making, Storage, Memory
Motor Response
when during the map of hearing to the motor response of perception does Broadman believe attention occurs
broadmans all or none filtering model
after low level perceptual analysis
before high level semantic analysis
what happ in Grey and Weddeburn’s study of dichotic listening
told to shadow left ear
L: ‘dear 7 jane’
R: ‘9 aunt 6’
person said ‘ dear aunt jane’ - showing that the meaning of unattended words was being taken into account
What did Treismann’s Attenuation theory say about attention
when did he say it had an effect during the map hierarchy
both attended and unattended messages come through semantic filter, normally we don’t notice the unattended inof unless it is Salient or Relevant
- your name, fits better into sentence, etc
he said attentional seelction occured after low level perceptual analysis and before high level semantic analysis
what happened in mckay’s study of dichotic listening
in the attended ear they heard ‘they were throwing stones at the bank’
unattended ear - ‘river, money ‘ related words
participants asked what two sentences were closeset to the meaning of the one they head
-‘they threw stones at side of the river’ or
-‘they threw stones at the savings and loan association’
they chose the latter one, unaware of the biased words that had led them to choose it
when in the map of hierarchy did Mckay’s Theory of Late Selection occur
unlike broadman and treisman, he said it was
after high level semantic analysis
before decision making, mem, storage
how do we reconcile the different answers of when attentional occurs in perception of - broadman, tries, and mckay
Strategic Control of Attention theory
early vs late selection can be chosen based on situation and approach
attention is applied by top down modulation
explain the endogenous version of Posner task
2 sides, arrow pops up in the middle of the screen, pointing to one side or the other
is the endo version of posner
internal or external
covert or overt
trans or sustained
selective or divided
External - not in mind’s eye
Covert - only shifting eyes on the screen
Transient - because you look at center and then look away
Selective - but this is a grey area
result of endo posner task
basis behind this result
compared to neutral cues, the arrow pointing in the right direction made people respond faster
because if you covertly shift your attention to open side, when cue appears you are already attending to that area
the exo version of the posner task
results
what is the theory that explains the results called
clue flashes on one side instead of an arrow in the middle
results depend on the delay between the cue and the target - when it is a short delay it helps us if its valid and hurts our time when it’s wrong
**Inhibition of Return **
if it is long, it makes us slower - because we deem the side as not worth attending to - like leaves rustling in the wind example
brain marks the square as not worth attending
what is the spatial version of the Posner task and what does it show
2 rectangles on 2 sides
cue will appear on one section of the rectangle
if attention is purely spatial, if the location matches up or not it shouldn’t matter
if attention has an object based component to it - maybe it does matter
shows that it does make a difference - faster when cue and target are on the same point of object
with our map of hierarhcy in attention and stages of processing - what brain areas does each stage correlate to
sound for this example
**Sensory **- Ears
**Low Level Perceptual **- Brainstem and Thalamus
**High level Semantic **- Primary Auditory Cortex
2nd and 4rd Cortexes
Decision Making and Mem Storage - Mutli-Modal Association Cortex
ERP means
event related potentials
ERP is Based on EEG which is
**ElectroEncePhaloGraphy **
where we place electrodes on scalp and record Electric Fields caused by amount of PostSynaptic Potentials in the Cortex
why do we find lots of parralel dendrites in the Cortex
becuase there are many **Cortical Pyramidal cells ** which have dendrites that stick straight up from them **towards the surface of the brain **
why does ERP/EEG have such good Temporal Resolution
lots of **tiny psps add up **to a large electromagnetic field we can measure
beucase they are generated from PSP’s they are an instant picture of hte input these neurons are getting
why does eeg.erp have shitty spatial resolution
because these electric fields propagate in a way that **no matter where in the brain the activity **is it is **going to contribute somewhat to the recording **at this electrode,
so its hard to say exactly where the activity is in the brain
eeg have up to ? electrodes on a scalp
256
labeled by letters and numbers
we focused on using erp’s to see eeg response to a particular event
how did we isolate the reaction from other unrelated brain activity
do a few trials where a stim occurs at a certain time
**with repetition we can see a repeating pattern that represents the brain’s reaction to the stim **
Event Related Potentials are the
average of the recorded EEG Signals
‘time locked’
plotted w negative on the top
what is the ‘surface distribution of Erp waveform through time’
map of peaks and drops across scalp’s surface, shown in sequence like the frames of a movie
gives us a sense of where in the brain activty is occuring at what time
looking at an ERP response, what are the peaks and drops in the first 10 ms
Brain Stem Evoked Responses
earliest signals in the brain
what ms are midlatency responses in ERP’s
what to they represent
20-50 ms
Primary Auditory Cortex
what time do we see late waves in ERP’s
what brain areas do they represent
why do we get a larger response in ERP’s as more time passes
100-300 ms
secondary and tertiary auditory cortex
more and more neurons are getting involved in the response as time goes on
explain the gist of the oddball experiment
meausring ERP’s in response to oddball tones, attended to or unattended
one attended ear - have to press a button everytime an oddball tone happens
unattended ear - different pattern of oddball tones, don’t press the button
what do the erp lines of attended vs unattended ears in oddball study show during the first 15 ms
what does this suggest in terms of processing?
during the first 15 ms the two lines look the same
suggests that attention isn’t having an effect early in processing when the **Brain Stem **is implemented
no effect of attentinon on Brainstem Evoked Potentials
what do the erp lines of attended vs unattended ears in oddball study show during the first 20-50 ms
what does this suggest in terms of processing?
Start to see differences in the two tones, hard to see so we use a ‘difference wave’ (DW = 0, waves are the same)
what do the erp lines of attended vs unattended ears in oddball study show during the first 100-400ms
what does this suggest in terms of processing?
lines are diverging quite a bit,
suggests **attention has a Big effect **on the Later stages of processing
what do we discover when we look at the different peaks for the Attened vs UnAttended ear in the oddball study
the eeg peaks of the oddball tone are called?
Peaks are Mismatched Negativty - meaning we heard smth diff than what we heard before
Unattended ear has these peaks - showign that the **brain is aware of these oddballs in Unatt ear even if we are not consciously aware of them **
using what we learned from the oddball paradigm we can see the brainstem and thalamus have ? effect on attenton
primary auditoru cortex has ? effect
2nd and 3rd audtiory cortex has ? effect
attention has no effect on brainstem or thalamus
attention has an effect a early as primary auditory cortex
has larger effects in secondary and tertiary auditory cortexes
