Attention and cognitive control Flashcards
What can distraction come from?
Internal sources (such as mind wandering)
Forster & Lavie (2009)
Background and purpose of their study
The previous literature on mind wandering has remained largely separate from the literature on external distraction, and in most cases it has not yet been established whether known determinants of distraction by external stimuli also determine distraction by internal stimuli.
The purpose of our study was to examine whether this internal form of distraction would also be determined by perceptual load.
Forster and Lavie (2009)
What did they find?
Just as perceptual load reduces external distraction experience (Low load- 37, high load- 4), it also reduced task unrelated thoughts (low load- 52%, high load- 41%).
Lab class: replicated by Forster & Lavie
Similar findings were found.
The % of TUTs were significantly reduced during the high load task
Our lab class: Replicated Forster & Lavie
They investigated- Does perceptual load affect ‘perceptual’ mind wandering (i.e. imagery?)
What did they find?
Yes (a bit- it was statistically signf but theres a small affect size)
Level of imagery vividness was also reduced under high loads.
Individual differences in imagery and mind wandering linked
Measures of?
- Voluntary imagery ability
- Propensity to spontaneous imagery
- Propensity to mind wandering
- All correlated positively with TUTs and imagery during task
…but no interactions with perceptual load
What words are top down associated with?
- Executive function
- Executive control (control processes on frontal lobe)
- Cognitive control
– working memory
– inhibition
– conflict resolution
– proactive/ reactive control - top down attention
- goal-driven attention
- endogenous attention
- voluntary attention
- attentional control
These words refer to the same area of attention- ability to control attention to achieve our goals
What is a main part of load theory?
Perceptual load reduced distraction
What is an example of a low load compared to high load task?
Low Load- oooKooo
High Load- MNKWHZ
RTs are slower for people in High Load
Effects of cognitive load (Lavie et al. 2004)
Task
Response competition flanker task (ooKoo)
- Pp’s asked to remember digits during each trial
- either low cognitive load (1 digit)
- or high cognitive load (6 digits)
Effects of cognitive load (Lavie et al. 2004)
Results
Distractor interference increased under high cognitive load
One experiment compares cognitive and perceptual load
RTs were greater for low perceptual load
High cognitive load (yellow bars) in both cases were higher than low cognitive load.
When people were doing something that was cognitively demanding, they were more distracted
Attentional capture and Cognitive Load
(Lavie & de Fockert, 2005)
1) What does cognitive load increase?
2) When are they slowed down?
3) When is this effect increased?
1) Cognitive load increases interference from colour singleton distractor
2) People are normally slowed down when theres an odd one out
3) This effect is increased when people do a high load task
1) What does perceptual load reduce?
2) What does cognitive load increase?
1) Perceptual load reduces distractor processing and increases inattentional blindness (because perceptual load helps you block out things your paying attention to, you’re more likely to not pay attention to things)
2) Cognitive load increases distractor processing
Cognitive Load and awareness (Carmel et al., 2012)
Task and results
Task:
–Classify names
–Ignore faces
- At the end surprise memory test for faces
- looking if people were less successful in looking at faces under high load and therefore actually done better in memory task
Results:
- Low load: Chance level (50%) accuracy in memory test
- High load: ~80% accuracy!- doing the harder task made them take in more stuff- but its because they were trying to ignore the faces
- They were more successful under low load
Load theory of attention
1- what does perceptual load reduce?
2- do all difficult tasks focus attention?
3- what can be concluded from this?
1- Perceptual load (visual) reduces distraction
2- NO- cognitive load increases distraction
3- Different types of load have opposite effects on attention.
What types of load are the following examples?
1- Searching for a friend in the crowd
2- Doing complex mathematical calculations
3- Recognising which is Heinz and which is his twin
4- Finding a needle in a haystack
5- Figuring out the solution to a complex problem
1- Searching for a friend in the crowd- Perceptual
2- Doing complex mathematical calculations- Cognitive
3- Recognising which is Heinz and which is his twin- Perceptual
4- Finding a needle in a haystack- Perceptual
5- Figuring out the solution to a complex problem- Cognitive
Perceptual is a visual task rather than being something you have to work out
Load theory model
Wide to thin
Early selection- availability of perceptual capacity determines whether distractors receive further processing
Late selection- cognitive control required to inhibit any distractors that make it this far
What seems to be involved in distraction?
Cognitive control
Engle and colleagues
Operation Span (OSPAN) task
Meant to measure working memory capacity
Simultaneously perform simple maths and read words
Test recall of words
eg. “4/2 + 1 = 3, NO, CAT”
Manipulating many info at same time- executively demanding
- OSPAN related to fluid intelligence
- Argued to assess efficiency of prefrontal functioning
What do individuals with low Working Memory (WM) capacity show increased?
–Stroop interference
–Response competition interference
–“Own name break-through” in dichotic listening
Results of Dichotic Listening Task
High WM pp’s detected name 20%
Low WM pp’s detected name 65%
How does this affect individual differences:
1- Are individuals with better cognitive control less distracted?
2- Cognitive control deficits also implicated in relation to…
3- Patients with damage to frontal/parietal regions show problems
1- Are individuals with better cognitive control less distracted? YES
2- Cognitive control deficits also implicated in relation to clinical symptoms of inattention: e.g.
–Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
–Anxiety
3- Patients with damage to frontal/parietal regions show problems in attention and cognitive control
What does attention modulate?
Neural activation related to perception
fMRI spatial cuing studies (e.g. Hopfinger et al., 2000)
Task and results
Something thats going to appear in 1 of 2 directions and having cues
Looking at brains they were able to tease apart:
- Visual cortical response to cued location: Effect of attention- able to see how much VC is boosted by a particular area that has been cued
- Frontal-parietal activation at time of cue: Mechanisms orienting attention
fMRI Attentional Capture (de Fockert et al., 2004)
- presence of absence associated with?
- what did frontal activation negatively predict?
- Singleton distractors present or absent
- Presence vs absence associated with:
–Reaction time interference
–Frontal and parietal activation- indicating attention was being controlled and moved around
Frontal activation negatively predicted behavioural interference- frontal activation is stopping you being distracted
Colour singleton is having bottom up
fMRI response competition (e.g. Bishop, 2009)
Incongruent versus congruent distractions associated with?
- Reaction time interference
- Frontal recruitment:
–Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
–Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)
These regions are involved in helping you stop being distracted
fMRI response competition (e.g. Bishop, 2009)
People high in anxiety recruited less ____ and greater _____
People high in anxiety recruited less DLPFC and ACC…and greater behavioural interference
fMRI sustained attention(e.g. Forster et al., 2013)
Task and finding
See a series of digits and press for everything except for 3
Frontal regions also activated during sustained attention
How does attentional control relate to mind-wandering?
Attention research has tended to focus on external forms of distraction, but in daily life distraction may often come, not from anything in the external environment, but from internal sources such as mind wandering. As in this example here where a student is being distracted from her task of listening to a lecture by a task-unrelated thought. The previous literature on mind wandering has remained largely separate from the literature on external distraction, and in most cases it has not yet been established whether known determinants of distraction by external stimuli also determine distraction by internal stimuli. The purpose of our study was to examine whether this internal form of distraction would also be determined by perceptual load.
Mind-wandering and external attention (e.g., Forster & Lavie, 2013; Forster et al, 2013)
What did they find mind wandering relates to?
Mind-wandering positively relates to external task-irrelevant distraction
As well as to failures of sustained attention
Mind-wandering and cognitive control Christoff et al (2009)
- frontal regions?
- challenge for studying?
Brain regions = DLPFC, ACC, DLPFC
Some frontal regions involved in both:
–Attentional control
–Generating task-unrelated thoughts (mind-wandering)
Challenge for studying attentional control of mind-wandering because it’s hard to say if you see this regions activated is it because people are trying to overcome this by their thoughts or is it the thought itself thats causing this activity?
The same regions that are helping you focus are also creating distractions
What did Kane et al. 2007 and Levinson et al (2012) find with working memory and mind wandering?
Kane et al. 2007
High WM capacity associated with reduced mind-wandering during attentionally demanding tasks
High WM capacity associated with reduced mind-wandering during sustained attention
→ Mind-wandering = executive failure, not executive function?
Levinson et al (2012): High WM capacity associated with increased mind-wandering during low perceptual load response competition task.
