Attention in the brain Flashcards
Leibniz (1646-1716) introduced…
apperception - perceived event becomes conscious = exogenous
Herbart (1776-1841) added what to Leibniz?
new events are tied to events already in the mind = endogenous
Helmholtz (1821-1894) introduced…
the need for a focus on a single stimulus and actively ignore or still perceive others
Who introduced the study of attention?
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
What provoked Wilhelm Wundt to suggest the study of attention?
Astronomers would make errors measuring star’s travel times, and he said it was due to attentional switch timing from one stimulus to another
William James (1890) defined attention as…
“the taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thoughts…It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.”
Sternberg (1999) defined attention as…
“Attention acts as a means of focusing limited mental resources on the information and cognitive processes that are most salient at a given moment.”
Focused attention is…
ability to single out and respond to stimuli without influence from other distracters in the environment
Sustained attention is…
ability to maintain focus on a task during a continuous stimulus
Selective attention is…
ability to filter out distracting stimuli while maintaining attention on one source of information
Divided attention…
ability to split attention between several stimuli
The two ways of shifting attention into visual stimuli are…
overtly - eyes/head move towards the target
covertly - shift attention to a spatial location in the visual field without moving eyes/head
The two types of attention are?
Exogenous (reflexive) and endogenous (voluntary)
Exogenous attention is defined as…
where an external stimuli such as a suddenly appearing flash grabs your attention
Endogenous attention is defined as…
intentionally moving your attention to a place in your environment
What is the dichotic listening task?
Cherry (1953) identified the way we can attend to two different simultaneously presented stimuli and the conditions making it possible
Broadbent (1957) described what?
a bottleneck model with channel selection for information processing
Who argued against Broadbent?
Deutsch and Deutsch (1963)
What did Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) say about Broadbent’s model?
it didn’t explain why some information in the non-attended ear could be remembered - late selection model
What is the Treisman model (1964)?
selective attention helps explain why some information in the non-attended ear can still be processed.
What do early models describe (Broadbent, 1958)?
attention influences info at the level of perception, adhering to strict limits on capacity and serial processing
What do late selection models claim? (Posner, 1999; Deutsch and Deutsch, 1963)
pre-attentive processing occurs for a long time with selection at the more response level controlling which information get further processed
When does selection for attention occur?
features, objects or spatial location
Early selection suggests which model?
features
late selection suggests which model?
objects
spoot-ight selection suggests which model?
spatial location
What is the evidence for early selection?
Early effects in N1 during an auditory dichotic listening task 20-50ms after the stimulus
Hlliyard et al, (1973)
What is the evidence for late selection by Duncan?
Duncan (1984) when adding two features together it increases error
O’Craven’s (1999) fMRI study showed…
if Ps focus on faces there’s a modulation of activity observed in FFA with the reverse observed in the PPA.
How do we know different features of a visual scene are coded by different systems?
anatomical and neurophysiological evidence, brain imaging
What is the binding problem?
how to represent conjunctions
What is Feature Integration Theory? (Treisman)
features of a stimulus are analysed separately and only later integrated in the process of perception
What are the two forms of maps in FIT?
feature maps and a master map of locations
What’s the basic idea of FIT?
visual attention is used for locating features and binding appropriate features together
What information do feature maps contain?
presence of a feature anywhere in the field
implicit spatial information
What does a master map do?
code the location of features
What are the two stages of object perception?
pre attentive stage - features are extracted in parallel
attentive stage - attention is directed to location, features are all combined
What is exogenous attention?
stimulus driven control attention - can’t help but look (James, 1890)
Top-down processing is…
goal directed and endogenous
Bottom-up processing is…
ambient and exogenous
What is endogenous orientating?
allocating attention to a predefined area
What’s the advantage of being provided with a cue?
reaction time advantage
What is hemi-spatial neglect?
an attention deficit
What causes hemi-spatial neglect?
damage to the right parietal hemisphere
What is heminopia?
a sensory deficit, can’t see and are aware of it
What is Balint’s syndrome?
simultanagnosia - diffuculty in fixating the eyes, can only see individual components
occulomotor appraxia - cannot voluntarily move eyes
optic ataxia - can’t move hand to object in vision
patients remain unaware of this
What do temporal lobe lesions cause?
agnosia (problems in object identification)
What do parietal lobe lesions cause?
aphasia (problems with spatial perception)
What do lesion studies tell us?
parietal cortex is involved in the allocation of spatial attention
the right parietal hemisphere is important for visuo-spatial attention
Corbetta (1993)
What did Hopfinger find? (2000)
there’s a separation of cue and target responses in the brain
What is Inhibition of Return (IOR)
when attention to a location briefly enhances the detection of a target but then impairs detection speed and accuracy
What did the door study show? (Simons and Levin, 1998)
change blindeness
Kanwisher (1987) demonstrated what?
repetition blindness
