Attention & Consciousness

Question 1

Define Attention

Answer 1

A cognitive mechanism that allows certain information to be more thoroughly processed in the cortex than non-selected information

Question 2

Define Consciousness

Answer 2

Contents of awareness

Question 3

What is bottom-up processing, and how is it generally tested?

Answer 3

It’s stimulus driven (exogenous); attention is drawn by external cues rather than by voluntary control; It’s tested by having irrelevant stimuli suddenly appear, and seeing the effects they have on responses to task-relevant stimuli

Question 4

What was found when auditory topics, such as “imagine playing tennis” was played to a patient in a vegetative state?

Answer 4

The imagery was processed the same as controls; shows he was awake but no with signs of awareness

Question 5

What are two ways in which we can measure consciousness?

Answer 5

Detection and Signal Detection Theory

Question 6

Describe Signal Detection Theory

Answer 6

It’s a mathematical theory of the detection of stimuli, which involves discriminating a signal from noise in which it’s embedded and which takes sensitivity into account (willingness to report detecting stimuli)

Question 7

Another way of measuring consciousness is through Alternative Forced-Choice, whereby participants choose between one of two stimuli. What three components does this paradigm take into account?

Answer 7

Unconscious influence of subset of trials; Inattentional amnesia (failure of memory rather than unconscious); Access vs. Phenomenal consciousness (briefly conscious to it, then not)

Question 8

List the common methods used to render the invisible, visible (consciousness paradigms)

Answer 8

Visual crowding; masking; binocular rivalry; motion induced blindness; inattentional blindness; change blindness; attentional blink

Question 9

One approach with visual masking is to mask a stimulus with a colour and ask Ps to report if the stimulus is a word or non-word. What results been found using this paradigm?

Answer 9

When the mask colour is compatible with the word (e.g. pink) RT is much faster; seems to be processed unconsciously

Question 10

In a target detection study using visual masking, RTs were faster for hits when the masks were compatible. What was found for misses?

Answer 10

RT for incompatible masks was faster, suggesting different processing involved

Question 11

What influence does a temporal gap between stimuli in visual masking tasks have on detection accuracy?

Answer 11

We’re much better at detection than when stimuli are close together

Question 12

In a visual masking task, in what regions was more activity found in controls than in the masking condition, and what does it suggest?

Answer 12

Occipital areas; Suggests that the occipital lobe is involved in consciousness, and that masking occurs at stages of early processing

Question 13

In Anderson et al.’s (2012) visual crowding study, what behavioural responses were found in the change-same condition?

Answer 13

Participants were worse at detecting the change when the target pattern was facing the same orientation as the flankers, than when they were oriented differently (change-different), or no change

Question 14

What did fMRI scans in Anderson et al.’s study show?

Answer 14

There were much higher BOLD signal responses in V1 the change-different condition, compared to no-change or same-change, suggesting V1 is sensitive to the contrast

Question 15

What are some limitations with the previous Masking and Crowding studies?

Answer 15

Different stimuli were used for conscious vs. unconscious conditions, so this could have caused the effect; masking is brief, but fMRI is slow to measure the changes; crowding effects may not be unconscious, just low resolution in the periphery; detection and identification could be confounded

Question 16

What is measured in Binocular Rivalry?

Answer 16

An image is presented to each eye separately and both go in an out of consciousness, then they look at what parts of the brain are sensitive to these fluctuations

Question 17

What stage of processing is influenced by binocular rivalry?

Answer 17

Early processing

Question 18

What’s involved in Motion Induced Blindness (MIB)?

Answer 18

Ps focus on a spinning circle at the centre of a screen, with a yellow dot in the periphery; the rate of the dot being visible and invisible in the visual cortex is measured (comes in and out of awareness)

Question 19

What are the advantages of Binocular Rivalry and Motion Induced Blindness studies?

Answer 19

There’s no difference in stimuli between conscious and unconscious trials; trials have a relatively long duration (allowing time to capture effects through fMRI)

Question 20

What are the disadvantages of Binocular Rivalry and Motion Induced Blindness studies?

Answer 20

Unpredictable fluctuations in perception (influenced by subjective biases - might show preferences for particular stimuli); mixed perception (can see both at the same time)

Question 21

What’s involved with Continuous Flash Suppression?

Answer 21

A stationary image is presented to one eye, and random flashed patterns in the other eye; the static stimulus becomes consciously suppressed by the dynamic stimuli presented in the other eye

Question 22

In Mack and Rock’s Inattentional Blindness task, Ps were asked which limb of a cross is longer (vertical or horizontal). What were the three trial types, and the results?

Answer 22

Inattention trials, divided attention trials, and full attention trials; Inattentional blindness on 25% of cases

Question 23

When looking at a scene in a natural environment, local transients normally draw attention to the location of any change, which is readily detected. What happens when these changes occur when presented with successive glimpses of a scene?

Answer 23

Change Blindness; the mask provides a visual transient signal across the whole of the scene, which overrides local transients associated with the change

Question 24

Which region of neural correlates are associated with Inattentional Blindness (IB) and Change Blindness (CB)?

Answer 24

Lateral prefrontal cortex

Question 25

Although inattentional and change blindness can be assessed in the real world, there are some limitations. What are they?

Answer 25

IB is measured in only a single trial and not everyone shows it; confounds fixation, attention and awareness; different stimuli used for conscious and unconscious trials (peripheral might have an influence); inattentional amnesia (might be conscious and then forget)

Question 26

The Attentional Blink has been found to show differences between hits and misses after around 6 seconds in which regions, and what does this suggest?

Answer 26

Parahippocampal Area (PPA), lateral frontal, anterior cingulate, intra-parietal and right temporo-parietal; Suggests later processing

Question 27

What are the advantages of Attentional Blink studies?

Answer 27

Occurs for a variety of stimuli and everyone shows it; central vision - same stimuli for conscious and unconscious trials; occurs even though people know the manipulation

Question 28

What are the disadvantages of Attentional Blink studies?

Answer 28

Short time window; fast stimuli; attention and consciousness intertwined

Question 29

List the different theories of consciousness

Answer 29

Low-level (V1) vs. high-level (PFC) neural correlates; top-down vs. bottom up; global workspace (need top-down influence for it to be represented by long-range connections); feedback (when it becomes a consciously represented stimulus); re-entrant processing

Question 30

What if attention and consciousness are doubly dissociable in regards to neural processes?

Answer 30

The search for the neural processes underlying one won’t help understand those involved in the other

Question 31

What are some limitations of attention and consciousness studies, according to the double dissociation theory?

Answer 31

Can have attention without awareness, awareness without attention, and looking only at top-down processing is limited

Question 32

In van Boxtel et al.’s (2009) study, visibility was manipulated by showing continuous flash suppression (CFS), or not, and attention was manipulated by attending to fixation in an RSVP task (high attentional load), or not attending (low attentional load) What were they measuring?

Answer 32

How long the after image lasts in high load vs. low load; how attention and CFS affect the after image duration

Question 33

What results were found in van Boxtel et al.’s study, and what do these findings suggest?

Answer 33

Longer after image for stimuli without CFS and when aware of stimulus than not; but opposite effects for attentional load: longer duration for low attention compared to high; Implies there are differences between consciousness and attention

Question 34

What are some criticisms with the double dissociation theory?

Answer 34

Attention must be able to act on unconscious stimuli; attention is necessary to become aware of something but doesn’t guarantee consciousness; there are gradients of attentional representation

Question 35

Give some examples of how we can be conscious without attention

Answer 35

Getting the gist of a scene; pop-out in a visual search; inattentional blindness; change blindness; attentional blink; dual-tasks