Attention Flashcards
3 things attention helps us do?
- focus on whats important at hand
- ignore irrelevant info
- Allows cognitive access to some information, not all
What systems are involved for attention?
Same systems for alertness (thalamus, ARAS) PLUS association cortices of frontal and parietal lobes
What happens in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex?
Working memory, hypothesis testing
Preparation and execution of action
What happens with a lesion of the dorsolateral Prefrontal cortex?
Decreased initiative, attention, will have trouble with dual task situation
What area of the brain is active in the cognitive phase?
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
What is the anterior cingulate cortex involved in?
Assessing the salience (how well something stands out) of emotion and motivational information
When is the Anterior cingulate especially involved?
WHen effort is needed to carry out a task such as in early learning and problem-solving
What type of resource is attention?
Limited resource!!!
What happens if attentional demand is greater than attentional resources available?
Performance will decline
Tasks will have to be sequenced
What is the primary factor in giving more attentional effort?
Motivation to perform well is the primary factor (top down model)
What systems are activated with increased effort?
Cholinergic and dopaminergic cortical systems
What is needed to overcome detrimental factors (Fatigue, potential distractors etc.)
High level of motivation
What is internal control of attention?
What we choose to pay attention to
What is external control of attention?
When something in the environment grabs our attention
What is selective attention?
Information outside your focus is not paid attention to eg reading a book on the train
How do highly skilled performers manage the challenges of limited attentional capacity?
The can make good choices about what to attend to.
Skilled at shifting attention among pertinent information in the environment
What is the cue utilization hypothesis?
In low stress situations performance may not be optimal because attention is not focused and so irrelevant cues are being detected and relevant ones are being ignored
When is performance optimal?
Moderate arousal level. Too little and too much and performance suffers
What is perceptual narrowing?
Happens in high stress situations where you get tunnel vision. It is good for focus but can miss relevant information
Can perceptual narrowing improve with training?
Yes
What is sustained attention?
Maintaining attention on a task over a prolonged period
What is sustained attention affected by?
Fatigue
What is divided attention?
When you are trying to process two streams of information at one time or performing more than one task
What is dual task deficit?
AKA divided attention defecit
When we reach our attentional capacity limit when performing dual tasks, our performance may decline
What happens in older patients with Hx of falls during dual task?
Increased sway on posturography
Can you improve dual task performance?
yes with practice
Where in the information processing model does limited capacity for attention create a problem
In the response selection (decision) phase
In which stage of motor learning is the most attention used?
Cognitive phase
What is better for motor learning, external or internal focus?
external focus
