Attention and cognitive control

Question 1

What can distraction come from?

Answer 1

Internal sources (such as mind wandering)

Question 2

Forster & Lavie (2009)
Background and purpose of their study

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

Forster and Lavie (2009)
What did they find?

Answer 3

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%).

Question 4

Lab class: replicated by Forster & Lavie

Answer 4

Similar findings were found.
The % of TUTs were significantly reduced during the high load task

Question 5

Our lab class: Replicated Forster & Lavie
They investigated- Does perceptual load affect ‘perceptual’ mind wandering (i.e. imagery?)

What did they find?

Answer 5

Yes (a bit- it was statistically signf but theres a small affect size)

Level of imagery vividness was also reduced under high loads.

Question 6

Individual differences in imagery and mind wandering linked

Measures of?

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

What words are top down associated with?

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

What is a main part of load theory?

Answer 8

Perceptual load reduced distraction

Question 9

What is an example of a low load compared to high load task?

Answer 9

Low Load- oooKooo
High Load- MNKWHZ
RTs are slower for people in High Load

Question 10

Effects of cognitive load (Lavie et al. 2004)
Task

Answer 10

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)

Question 11

Effects of cognitive load (Lavie et al. 2004)
Results

Answer 11

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

Question 12

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?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

1) What does perceptual load reduce?
2) What does cognitive load increase?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Cognitive Load and awareness (Carmel et al., 2012)
Task and results

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Load theory of attention
1- what does perceptual load reduce?
2- do all difficult tasks focus attention?
3- what can be concluded from this?

Answer 15

1- Perceptual load (visual) reduces distraction
2- NO- cognitive load increases distraction
3- Different types of load have opposite effects on attention.

Question 16

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

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Load theory model

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What seems to be involved in distraction?

Answer 18

Cognitive control

Question 19

Engle and colleagues
Operation Span (OSPAN) task

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What do individuals with low Working Memory (WM) capacity show increased?

Answer 20

–Stroop interference

–Response competition interference

–“Own name break-through” in dichotic listening

Question 21

Results of Dichotic Listening Task

Answer 21

High WM pp’s detected name 20%
Low WM pp’s detected name 65%

Question 22

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

Answer 22

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

Question 23

What does attention modulate?

Answer 23

Neural activation related to perception

Question 24

fMRI spatial cuing studies (e.g. Hopfinger et al., 2000)
Task and results

Answer 24

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

Question 25

fMRI Attentional Capture (de Fockert et al., 2004)
- presence of absence associated with?
- what did frontal activation negatively predict?

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

fMRI response competition (e.g. Bishop, 2009)
Incongruent versus congruent distractions associated with?

Answer 26

• Reaction time interference
• Frontal recruitment:
  –Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
  –Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)
  These regions are involved in helping you stop being distracted

Question 27

fMRI response competition (e.g. Bishop, 2009)
People high in anxiety recruited less ____ and greater _____

Answer 27

People high in anxiety recruited less DLPFC and ACC…and greater behavioural interference

Question 28

fMRI sustained attention(e.g. Forster et al., 2013)
Task and finding

Answer 28

See a series of digits and press for everything except for 3

Frontal regions also activated during sustained attention

Question 29

How does attentional control relate to mind-wandering?

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

Mind-wandering and external attention (e.g., Forster & Lavie, 2013; Forster et al, 2013)

What did they find mind wandering relates to?

Answer 30

Mind-wandering positively relates to external task-irrelevant distraction
As well as to failures of sustained attention

Question 31

Mind-wandering and cognitive control Christoff et al (2009)
- frontal regions?
- challenge for studying?

Answer 31

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

Question 32

What did Kane et al. 2007 and Levinson et al (2012) find with working memory and mind wandering?

Answer 32

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.