Attention Flashcards
What are the four types of attention
sustained, selective, alternating, divided
What’s the important precursor for attention
Arousal and alertness (limbic)
Passive attention- orienting response, startle response
Focused attention- discrete response to specific stimuli
What portion of the brain is responsible for alertness and attention?
Primary: Reticular activating system
Secondary: Some frontal and limbic
What is sustained attention?
- Vigilance. Ability to continuously attend to input so that information can be processed.
- Ability to maintain consistent behavioral response during continuous or repetetive activities
What are the neural substrates of sustained attention
- Reticular activating system in brainstem.
- Right frontal and parietal cortical regions
- Production and regulation of ACETYLCHOLIN
How do we assess vigilance and sustained attention?
Vigilance decrement,
Increased arousal (can be correlated with increased vigilance and vice versa)
monitoring whether auditory or visual task(some people are better at one vs other)
What is a sample sustained attention task?
Continuous performance Test= identify x every time it appears in random string of letters.
What is vigilance decrement
increase in errors or reaction times over course of task
What is selective attention
Freedom from external and internal distractions, filtering. This increases processing of one item over another. Can apply to any modality.
What are the Neural substrates of selective attention
anterior cingulate, pulvinar nucleus of thalamus, right parietal (damage here=visual neglect)
What test can be given to assess selective attention
Stroop test (say the word, not the color the word is in) Informal assessment/interview elevator counting with distraction= count low tones in pretend elevator while ignoring high tones. (auditory selective attention)
Alternating attention
moving between two selective attention task.
Need mental flexibility
What are the Neural substrates of selctive attetnion
anterior cingulate, pulvinar nucleus of thalamus
What’s a test of alternating attention
Test of everyday attention (Robertson et al, 1996). Visual elevator.
Must count up and down as follow serious of visually presented doors. It’s measure of cognitive flexibility.
What’s divided attention
attend to mor ethan one stimulus at a time or more than one aspect of the same stimulus.
Continuous rapid alternating attention.
One task might be more “automatic”
What is divided attention closely related to?
Working memory. Need to maintain information to manipulate it.
What is the cognitive cost associated with divided attention?
Neither task can receive 100% of cognitive resources/energy.
What did azouvi et al 2004 find?
2 tasks.
Random number generation and Go-No Go task.
Reaction time increased from single to dual task, but the difference was greater for TBI group.
What are the Options for treating attention
Pharmacological, environmental, modifying daily routines, Impairment based drills
What is enviromental option for treating attention?
arranging visual environment, reducing extraneous noise
What daily routine alterations can be made to help attention deficits.
Reducing need to multitask, use of verbalization or other self-cues when changing tasks, setting limits to avoid vigilance decrement
What is issue with impairment based drills?
Don’t generalize
