Attention types

Question 1

Top-down attention

Answer 1

You decide what to attend to

Posner cueing task:
- Instructed to attend to focus point, cued to location and target follows
- Result is often that RT is faster when target is presented in location of the cue: attended location. (valid trial)

Invalid trial (cue is in diff location than target) has slower reaction time (50ms)

This only works if there’s more valid trials than invalid trials

Question 2

Bottom-up attention

Answer 2

You don’t decide, automatic process where attention is captured. Eg by suddenly appearing stimulus.

Experiment:
- Predictive value of ‘prime’ is zero. Even though you know the prime means nothing, your RT is faster when target is presented in the same location, compared to when its in other location than the prime.

Explanation: withdrawing your attention from the prime takes some time. If target is presented 300 ms+ after the prime, you see reversed effect

Question 3

Inhibition of return

Answer 3

RT is longer when the time between prime and target is <300 ms. You actively suppress the prime.

Question: doesn’ t this make it top-down?

Question 4

Object based attention

Answer 4

Not focussing on a particular visuospatial location but on an/some object(s).

Difference seen in experiment;

• When you perceive the two bars as holes:
  RT is fastest when cue is valid, but when cue is invalid it doesn’t matter if the cue is within the same hole or in the other
• When you perceive the two bars as objects:
  RT is fastest in valid trial, and RT of invalid trial where cue is within the same object is faster compared to when it is in the other bar.

Question 5

Feature based attention

Answer 5

Focusing on a specific feature, eg color, shape etc. RT is shorter if presented with object that has that feature. Top-down form.