Ch 7

Question 1

how to study the control of attention

Answer 1

monitoring brain activity and behaviour of subjects with and without brain damage has lead to the understand of which brain regions are important for the control of attention

Question 2

Which brain regions control attention?

Answer 2

Vonluntary (top-down, endogenous) attention

Involuntary (bottom-up, exogenous) attention

Default-mode network (internal attention, resting state)

Question 3

Vonluntary (top-down, endogenous) attention

Answer 3

Dorsal frontoparietal network

• SPL (superior parietal lobe)
• FEFs (frontal eye fields)
• MFG (middle frontal gyrus)

Frontal first, then parietal, then sensory

Question 4

Involuntary (bottom-up, exogenous) attention

Answer 4

Right-lateralized ventral frontoparietal network

• TPJ (temporoparietal junction)
• IFG (Inferior frontal gyrus)
• MFG (middle frontal gyrus)

Sensory first, then parietal (right TPJ), then frontal. This system can shut down the voluntary attention system

Question 5

Default-mode network (internal attention, resting state)

Answer 5

Medial frontoparietal network

• PCC
• MPC
• AG

Question 6

subcortical structures crucial for different aspects of attention

Answer 6

TPJ: disengaging attention
Superior colliculi: moving attention
pulvinar: engaging attention

Question 7

Contralateral Neglect

Answer 7

bottom-up problem:

results from damage (most often) to the right inferior parietal cortex, leading to the neglect of stimuli in the left visual field

an attentional deficit, not sensory (visual) deficit

can basically still SEE the left visual field, just can’t attend to it on their own

Question 8

Extinction

Answer 8

stimuli in both visual fields compete for attention
—> the right visual field dominates and extinguishes stimuli in the left visual field

—> ignoring the left object (in case of two stimuli) when a similarly object is shown in the right visual field at the same time
ex: spoon (left) and fork (right) are both seen
left and right: spoon the left is ignored

Question 9

Balint’ syndrome

Answer 9

top-down network in the parietal lobe is damaged:

• simultanagnosia
• optic ataxia
• oculomotor apraxia

Question 10

simultanagnosia

Answer 10

Inability to attend to more than one visual stimulus at a time

Question 11

Optic ataxia

Answer 11

Difficulty with reaching and grasping (no visual guidance of movement)

Question 12

Oculomotor apraxia

Answer 12

Difficulty making voluntary eye movements to objects

Question 13

fMRI and Event-related potentials

Answer 13

Since fMRI signals are slow and provide low temporal resolution, combining data of identical attentional cuing paradigms of fMRI studies and ERPs can tackle this problem

Question 14

fMRI and Event-related potentials

Answer 14

Since fMRI signals are slow and provide low temporal resolution, combining data of identical attentional cuing paradigms of fMRI studies and ERPs can tackle this problem

Question 15

Lateral intraparietal (LIP) area

Answer 15

Involved with planning eye movements. The amount of activity in these neurons has been suggested to depend on stimulus salience (how noticeable a stimulus is

Question 16

Frontal eye fields (FEF)

Answer 16

Part of the dorsal frontal cortex. Involved with controlling eye movements. Activity is seen in FEF when monkeys are about to make an eye movement and when a stimulus appears in an area that the monkey is attending to. Activity in FEF has led to the premotor theory of attention.

Question 17

Premotor theory of attention

Answer 17

shifting attention is closely related to planning action to achieve a goal because they are controlled by the same sensory-motor mechanism. Eye movements assist the control of visuospatial attention

Question 18

Endogenous

Answer 18

FEF neurons, then LIP neurons.
Frontal, then parietal.
Accurately cued targets are identified more quickly, more accurately and elicit a larger response from the visual cortex

Question 19

Exogenous

Answer 19

LIP neurons, then FEF neurons.
Parietal, then frontal.
Invalidly cued targets activate the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) more strongly than accurately cued targets

Question 20

Visual search

Answer 20

The process of looking for a target stimulus in an array of distracters

Question 21

Pop-out stimuli

Answer 21

Targets that are detected quickly because they differ in a single feature from distracters. The time it takes to locate a pop-out stimulus is independent from the number of distracters present.
(Bottom-up, stimulus driven, exogenous)

Question 22

Conjunction target

Answer 22

A stimulus defined by a conjunction of features that are present in the array. This stimulus does not pop out and the time it takes to find it increases with the number of distracters present.
Requires focused attention to various items to see which has a
combination of features. Takes longer with more distracters
because the process must be repeated until the target is found. (Top-down, voluntary, endogenous)