Attention & Spatial Processing

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

Attention is the process through which certain information is selected for further processing while other information is discarded. Selective attention is beneficial in increasing efficiency and avoiding sensory overload

Question 2

Inattention blindness

Answer 2

The failure to be aware of certain stimuli because attention is focused on something else

Question 3

Change blindness

Answer 3

failing to notice the appearance or disappearance of objects between 2 scenes

Question 4

endogenous orienting

Answer 4

attention is guided by the goals of the perceiver

Top-down processing

Question 5

Exogenous oriented

Answer 5

Attention is guided by environmental stimuli

Bottom-up processing

Question 6

Shifting attention between 2 superimposed images in same space (brain areas)

Answer 6

Face: Fusiform face area
House: Parahippocampal place area

Question 7

Attentional blink

Answer 7

Inability to report a stimulus if it appears right after another target stimulus

Question 8

The parietal lobes (4)

Answer 8

• Specialized for spatial processing - “where” route
• Bring together different types of spatial representation required for action - “how” route
• Respond to behavioural saliency (abrupt onset)
• Integrate visual spatial info with postural info (locating objects in space)
• Regions in the parietal cortex combine:
  - visual
  - somatosensory
  - auditory
  - postural …….signals

Question 9

LIP

Answer 9

Lateral Intra-Parietal Area

• Contains neurons that respond to salient stimuli in the environment and are used to plan eye movements
• Multi-sensory part of the brain
• Imp or attention: responds to stimuli that are unexpected
• Codes a spatial salience map (left & right hemispheres have diff biases)
• Enables convert & overt orienting

Question 10

Salience map

Answer 10

A spatial layout that emphasizes the most behaviourally relevant stimuli in the environment

Question 11

Covert orienting

Answer 11

Movement of attention from one location to another without moving eyes/ body

Question 12

Overt orienting

Answer 12

Movement of attention from one location to another combined with movement of eyes/body

• Saccades: fast ballistic movement of eyes

Question 13

Frontal parietal attention mechanisms

• Orienting cues

Answer 13

(arrows) - activate LIP and the frontal eye field (FEF)

- no overt response required

Question 14

FEF

Answer 14

Frontal eye field

- part of the frontal lobes responsible for the voluntary movement of the eyes

Question 15

Pseudo-neglect

Answer 15

A tendency to attend to the left side of space

This is due to hemispheric differences in spatial and non-spatial attention. The right parietal lobe contains richer representation of space, this includes all the left space and some right of the right space. The left parietal lobe however gives a more impoverished representation of space and attends to predominantly to the right side

TMS studies have shown that the right parietal lobe is important for attending to salient stimuli while the left parietal lobe is implicated in suppresing non-salient stimuli

Therefore patients with damage to the right parietal lobe have more impairments in spatial attention than those with left parietal damage. This particularly effects the right side of space

Question 16

Feature Integration Theory

Answer 16

States that attention selects perceptual objects and combines different features of those objects into a reportable experience.

• These features are encoded in parallel and prior to attention
• Therefore if and object does not share features with another object it appears to pop-out and is therefore detected without the need for selective attention
• If an object shares features with objects than it requires attending and searching in a serial manner.

Question 17

Negative Priming

Answer 17

when an ignored object becomes an attended object on the subsequent trial, then participants are slower at processing it (there is cost of processing)

Question 18

Early & Late selection

Answer 18

○ Selection depends on the demands of the task

○ In early selection, the stimulus does not need to be completely perceptually analysed & encoded before it is selected for further processing or discarded.
§ Information is therefore selected according to perceptual attributes
§ Early selection is based on perceptual features
○ In late selection: attended and ignored inputs are processed up to the level of meaning (semantics) before being selected for further processing
Late selection is based on meaning