Attention and Consciousness Flashcards
what is attention?
the narrowing of awareness to a particular part of the sensory environment
what is consciousness more alike to?
awareness of awareness
attention tends to be…
top-down and takes time to focus on a part of the sensory world
consciousness provides…
a summary of all information that is relevant to the situation
describe the 3 main points of automatic processes:
- can be performed with little focused attention and occur unconsciously
-may be innate, or the result of training
-bottom-up, driven by sensory input
describe conscious operations:
-require focused attention
-top-down, requiring cognitive input and control
given the different types of processing and input, what is likely about automatic and conscious processes?
it is likely that automatic and conscious processes rely on different brain circuitry, possibly including the circuits related to consciousness
what are some examples of automatic visual search?
addition of a vertical line or the use of bold type
what is true about searches that require a combination of multiple features?
slower, and require a serial search
what is feature search?
a strategy for scanning the environment for an object with a specific combination of features
within feature search, what takes place at the level of V1?
-object visually perceived in V1 is broken down into features, to be processed serially by higher visual areas
in Treisman’s model of feature search, what are the 4 feature maps?
color, orientation, size, and stereo distance
patients were able to identify ____ faces more rapidly than _______ faces
sad, happy. and this was true when the stimuli were right side up, upside down, or abstract representations of “sad”
experiments to test the effects of focus of attention must what?
-use the same stimulus in all conditions
what is the apparent division of the visual attention systems?
-one selecting stimuli and another selecting and directing movements
what do priority maps do and where are these usually found?
-priority maps encode stimulus location in terms of the behavioural significance, and are found in frontal eye fields, lateral intraparietal area, and superior colliculus
true or false, a neuron can learn to respond selectively to information in its receptive field.
true
what is the downside to dividing attention between multiple tasks?
mental capacity is limited, so dividing attention between multiple tasks can divide that limited resource and cause all tasks to be performed with lower efficiency
what is true about cells in V4?
can be selective about what they respond to
what happens in V4 when animals discriminate between lines of similar orientation?
performance accuracy decreases, indicating the task is harder, and activity of cells in V4 increases and the cells become more selective in what they respond to
what is the role of cells in the pulvinar?
they project throughout the cortex and may help direct the attentional spotlight
what can the visual system do if there is only one object in the attentional spotlight?
visual systems can bind all the properties together
what happens if multiple objects occupy the spotlight?
cells in area TE seem to process different objects in parallel to differentiate between them, but how this is done is not clear
attention needs to be divided across _______ ________ for multisensory stimuli
sensory modalities
what happens when attention is directed to one of the sensory modalities?
activity increases in the relevant cortical areas
what happens when attention is divided between two modalities?
there are no changes in the individual sensory areas, but an increase in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
in a functional-brain-imaging study looking at attention, what happened when the patient attended to the moving light stimulus?
increased activity in the posterior parietal cortex
in a functional-brain-imaging study looking at attention, what happened when the moving light was in the left or right visual fields respectively?
if in left: only right parietal cortex active
if in right: bilateral parietal cortex was active
a functional brain imaging study that had a selective attention condition and a divided attention condition found that….
different types of attention recruited different brain areas
attentional tasks activate…
anterior cingulate, prefrontal cortex, and specific sensory areas
in a shifting-attention condition, which part of the brain is activated when the stimulus is in the right visual field?
left parietal love
in a shifting-attention condition, which part of the brain is activated when the stimulus is in either visual field?
the right parietal lobe
the attentional system is distinct from what?
the sensory areas that process information
what are the three different networks supporting attention?
alerting network, orienting network, and executive network
which structures make up the alerting network?
locus coeruleus, frontal and parietal cortex
what is the modulator of the alerting network?
norepinephrine
which structures make up the orienting network?
superior parietal, temporal parietal junction, frontal eye fields, superior colliculus, pulvinar
what is the modulator of the orienting network?
acetylcholine
which structures make up the executive network?
anterior cingulate, anterior insula, and basal ganglia
what is the modulator of the executive network?
dopamine
what is the role of the ascending reticular activating system from the midbrain?
maintains alertness
where doe noradrenergic neurons project from?
the locus coeruleus to the forebrain
what is the role of the alerting network in attention?
alerts the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex to rapidly process and respond to stimuli
what does activity in the alerting network do?
suppresses processing in other cerebral networks
what does the orienting network do?
prioritizes one sensory modality over the others or a particular location in space
describe the dorsal orienting network:
-involves the frontal eye fields and intraparietal sulcus
-strongly right lateralized
-directs attention toward a specific object in a top-down process
describe the ventral orienting network:
-involves the temporoparietal junction, ventral frontal cortex, and pulvinar
-synchronizes activity with bottom-up incoming sensory information
dorsal attention system is:
top down visuospatial
ventral attention system is:
bottom -up reorienting
frontoparietal control system is:
moment to moment task
cingulo-opercular system is:
task set maintenance
two executive networks work via top-down influences. what are those networks?
dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex-parietal network and anterior cingulate/medial frontal-anterior insula network
when is the dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex-parietal network active?
at the beginning of a task
when is the anterior cingulate/medial frontal-anterior insula network active?
throughout the duration of the task
activity in areas within a network is…
highly correlated
activity is ______ ______ between the two executive networks
not correlated
controlling cognition and emotions is a form of…
self control
self control is associated with activity where?
in the lateral prefrontal and cingulate regions
what changes the structure and gene expression patterns of the prefrontal cortex?
stress
what happens when stress changes the structure and gene expression patterns of the prefrontal cortex?
leads to deficits in cognitive control of emotion that are associated with neuropsychiatric conditions
how does psychosocial stress impair the performance of medical students on attentional tasks?
by decreasing activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, premotor, and posterior parietal cortices
which disorders are associated with the alerting network?
aging, adhd
which disorders are associated with the orienting network?
autism, ptsd, neglect
which disorders are associated with the executive network?
anxiety disorders, depression, ocd, personality disorder, schizophrenia, and substance abuse
what is one hypothesis of how the attention systems direct attention?
the attention system induces synchrony between neurons that assess the sensory signal,
-the timing of APs is adjusted to have the input from two neurons arrive at the target at the same time and be summed, increasing the chance of an AP in the post-synaptic cell
during an attention-demanding task, there was _______ ________ in the dorsal executive attention network and ______ ______ in the default network
increased activity, decreased activity
what does attention increase within the brain?
synchrony
when synchronous outputs from the same neurons summate on one, this leads to…..
larger EPSPs, which in turn leads to larger action potentials
when distracted by a counting task, what % of people failed to notice a researcher in a gorilla suit walk through the middle of a basketball game?
70%
what is change blindness?
when subjects routinely fail to notice changes in the environment if they are not expecting them
in cases of change blindness, are the unattended items detected at all?
yes, detected by the sensory systems but are filtered out before conscious awareness
patients with damage to what do not attend to the left side of space around them?
the right temporoparietal junction
objects in the right visual field can be attended to by what?
the left or the right parietal lobe
objects in the left visual field are attended to by what?
the right parietal lobe ONLY
how can one improve their sensory neglect of the left side of space?
using a prism to shift objects from left visual field to the right
what can consciousness be defined as
the level of responsiveness of the mind to impressions made by the senses
when might conscious awareness of a movement occur?
only after the movement is complete
is it possible to dissociate behaviour and conscious awareness?
yes
what theory attempts to explain consciousness?
integrated information theory
what are the points under integrated information theory?
-consciousness exists
-consciousness is structured and composed of multiple distinctions between the phenomena we observe
-consciousness is composed of specific information, and each experience is distinct from other experiences
-consciousness is unified and cannot be broken up into multiple subparts
-consciousness is made up of individual experiences that are separated from other conscious experiences by cause-and-effect relationships
how has the integrated information theory been applied in practice?
to explain the different forms of consciousness in clinical patients
what does conscious require the interaction of?
sensory areas, memory, and likely other systems such as emotion and executive function
what does conscious include?
arousal, perception, attention, and working memory
how does binding work and what is it important for?
thought to work by synchronizing the activity in the relevant networks for a short period of time (likely important to unify arousal, perception, attention and working memory)
what do studies of perceiving and responding to faces show patterns of?
synchronous activity, followed by asynchronous activity, and finally synchronous activity
what are the essential neural regions for consciousness
unknown at this time
which areas of the brain are all inactive when a person is unconscious?
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex
what areas of the brain are active during a quiet resting conscious state?
a network of frontoparietal areas
what have researchers found to be true of patients in a coma or vegetative state?
they still produce brain activity in response to verbal commands, such as imagining they are playing tennis or walking around their home
what do studies of clinical patients and neuroimaging studies suggest?
that there is a bilateral region of the parietal lobe that is necessary for consciousness, but no necessary area in the frontal lobe
what area of the brain is the region that some researchers think is responsible for binding information and why?
the claustrum, because it receives connections from nearly the entire cortex
there is overlap in the brain regions associated with consciousness and those associated with self awareness. these regions are:
medial frontal cortex
posterior cingulate cortex
in what sort of experimental atmosphere can nonconscious emotions be demonstrated in?
fear conditioning
what are some things that suggest that cognitive activity can occur on the nonconscious level?
blindsight, priming, dorsal-stream processing etc
automatic processes use a system to generate…
rapid, nonconscious responses to that stimuli
conscious processes use a system to produce…
slower, controlled responses based on relevant knowledge and experience
