Attention

Question 1

Define attention

Answer 1

Attention is the process by which certain information is selected for further processing and other info is disregarded. Attention is needed to avoid sensory overload (Ward, 2015)

Question 2

Give examples of early theories of attention

Answer 2

Broadbents filter theory 1958 led to attenuation theory - Treisman 1960
Feature intervention theory Treisman and Galade 1980

Question 3

Define overt and covert orienting

Answer 3

Overt: eyes on target, provide a stimulus then eyes and attention switches to stimulus.

Covert: Eyes on target, given a stimulus then attention switches to stimulus but eyes remain focused (no eye movement)

Question 4

Explain exogenous and endogenous cuing

Answer 4

Endogenous: central cue a voluntary shift in attention and this is goal directed “top down”

Exogenous: peripheral cue an automatic shift and is stimulus driven “bottom up”

Question 5

Inhibition of return essay key points

Answer 5

Phil Mitchel, Worlds Heaviest Fart

First shown Posner 1984 ~ 225ms. Not presented with endogenous attentional shift
Mechanisms: attentional or motoric, TOJ tasks by P+C suggest motoric
When: original ~225, time increases with attentional intensity, detection vs discrimination
How: lesion to superior calliculus shows decreased or no IOR. Cell activity of sc reduced in monkeys to cues target, reduced input?
Function: foraging facilitator

Question 6

Explain spence and driver 1996 experiment 1

Answer 6

Endogenous cue (arrow) cue 85% valid. 4 speakers with lights, asked to determine where sound was coming from. Faster in visual than auditory targets, faster in valid than neutral, neutral faster than invalid. Conc: you can crossmodally cue people attention endogenously (cue always visual)

Question 7

Explain driver and spence experiment 2

Answer 7

Same as experiment 1, but cued by being told auditory info coming from left, visual on right. Results: attention can be split.

Question 8

Define spatial neglect

Answer 8

Spatial neglect is: an inability to report, respond or orient to stimuli presented in the side opposite a brain lesion (Heilman 1985)

Question 9

Clinical significance of neglect

Answer 9

Katz at al 1999

Patients with neglect stay in hospital longer, much less likely to go home independently than those wo neglect and only those with neglect went to nursing home

Question 10

Studies into areas of the brain associated with neglect

Answer 10

Mort et al 2003
Inferior parietal lobe

Karnath 2001
Function of temporal lobe

Both used same fMRI mapping methodology

Question 11

Posner 1984 parietal injury on covert orienting

Answer 11

Similar to cueing task wo middle box. All had parietal injury. Cued Ipsilesional side was best followed by cued contralesional showing patients can be exogenously cued.
Uncued iPsi wasn’t too bad, uncued contra v bad sometimes went unnoticed.

Question 12

Posners 3 components of visual attention

Answer 12

Engage attention
Disengage attention
Shift attention to a new target

Question 13

Explain Rorden et al 1997

Answer 13

Temporal order judgment task. Neglect patients need left target to appear 300ms before R to judge asynchronous. If same time 100% say r first.

Question 14

Walker et al 1991

Answer 14

Central fixation, flashing left target, both present on screen and neglect patients correct 8.3% correct, no gap 11% and with 100ms gap (still too fast for a saccade) 41% correct. Showing neglect isn’t hemianopia just fixation cross provides too much competition

Question 15

Main categories interventions for neglect

Answer 15

Cueing and scanning 
phasing alerting 
Limb activation 
Vestibular stimulation 
Prism adaptation

Question 16

Cueing and scanning interventions

Answer 16

Riddioch and Humphries 1983 - A letter is placed on left side of line = improves performance, letter on v right decreased performance and both sides led to no change extinction

Halligan 1992 - ps place a x on very left of line improved performance, x then wait 5s rightwarda drift, x then wait 10 led to no change

Question 17

Give phasic alerting interventions

Answer 17

Robertson 1998 - TOJ task, left bar has to appear 300ms before right in order to be judged as asynchronous, unless Ps were ‘warned’ about left bar by being alerted by noise being played at onset on L.

Question 18

Give limb activation interventions

Answer 18

Rizzolati 1987 - fixation box, ps would then be cued with a number, this would be congruent or incongruent. there was a disproportionate cost (in terms of RT) with changing direction, conc, if attention cues movement to one side of space, so movement on one sode of space can cue attention.
supported by doorway studies.

Question 19

Give vestibular activation interventions

Answer 19

Vestibular apparatus has a right side bias, so activating VA may lead to greater attention to left, sipported by case studies

Question 20

Give prism adaptation interventions

Answer 20

Right facing prisms lead to adaptation so when taken off lead to ps looking more left. However, findings not been replicated in 2010 and 2017 studies.