chapter 14: attention and consciousness

Question 1

attention

Answer 1

a state or condition of selective awareness or perceptual receptivity, by which specific stimuli are selected for enhanced processing

Question 2

overt attention

Answer 2

attention in which the focus coincides with sensory orientation (looking at same thing you’re attending to)

Question 3

covert attention

Answer 3

attention in which the focus can be directed independently of sensory orientation (looking at one thing while attending to something else)

Question 4

cocktail party effect

Answer 4

the selective enhancement of attention in order to filter out distracters, such as while listening to one person talking in the midst of a noisy party

Question 5

shadowing

Answer 5

a task in which the subject is asked to focus attention on one ear or the other while stimuli are being presented separately to both ears, and to repeat aloud the material presented to the attended ear

Question 6

inattentional blindness

Answer 6

the failure to perceive nonattended stimuli that seem so obvious as to be impossible to miss

Question 7

divided-attention task

Answer 7

a task in which the subject is asked to focus attention around the environment to highlight stimuli for enhanced processing

Question 8

attentional spotlight

Answer 8

the shifting of our limited selective attention around the environment to highlight stimuli for enhanced processing

Question 9

attentional bottleneck

Answer 9

a filter that results from the limits intrinsic to our attentional processes, with the result that only the most important stimuli are selected for special processing

Question 10

early-selection model of attention

Answer 10

a theory postulating that the attentional bottleneck imposed by the nervous system can exert control early in the processing pathway, filtering out stimuli before even preliminary perceptual analysis has occurred

Question 11

late-selection model of attention

Answer 11

a theory postulating that the attentional bottleneck imposed by the nervous system exerts control late in the processing pathway, filtering stimuli only after substantial analysis has occurred

Question 12

perceptual load

Answer 12

the immediate processing demands presented by a stimulus

Question 13

sustained-attention task

Answer 13

a task in which a single stimulus source or location must be held in the attentional spotlight for a protracted period

Question 14

endogenous attention

Answer 14

the voluntary direction of attention toward specific aspects of the environment, in accordance with our interests and goals

Question 15

symbolic cuing

Answer 15

a technique for testing endogenous attention in which a visual stimulus is presented and subjects are asked to respond as soon as the stimulus appears on the screen; each trial is preceded by a meaningful symbol used as a cue to hint at where the stimulus will appear

Question 16

exogenous attention

Answer 16

the involuntary reorienting of attention toward a specific stimulus source, cued by an unexpected object or event

Question 17

peripheral spatial cuing

Answer 17

a technique for testing exogenous attention in which a visual stimulus is preceded by a simple task-irrelevant sensory stimulus either in the location where the stimulus will appear or in an incorrect location

Question 18

inhibition of return

Answer 18

the phenomenon, observed in peripheral spatial cuing tasks and occurring when the interval between cue and target stimulus is 200 milliseconds or more, in which the detection of stimuli at the former location of the cue is increasingly impaired

Question 19

feature search

Answer 19

a search for an item in which the target pops out right away, because it possesses a unique attribute, no matter how many distractors are present

Question 20

conjunction search

Answer 20

a search for an item that is based on two or more features (e.g., size and color) that together distinguish the target from distracters that may share some of the same attributes

Question 21

binding problem

Answer 21

the question of how the brain understands which individual attributes blend together into a single object,t when these different features are processed by different regions in the brain

Question 22

temporal resolution

Answer 22

the ability to track changes in the brain that occur very quickly

Question 23

spatial resolution

Answer 23

the ability to observe the detailed structure of the brain

Question 24

event-related potential (ERP)

Answer 24

averaged EEG recordings measuring brain responses to repeated presentations of a stimulus; components of the ERP tend to be reliable because the background noise of the cortex has been averaged out

Question 25

auditory N1 effect

Answer 25

a negative deflection of the event-related potential, occurring about 100 milliseconds after stimulus presentation, that is enhanced for selectively attended auditory input compared to ignored input

Question 26

P20-50 effect

Answer 26

a positive deflection of the event-related potential, occurring about 20-50 milliseconds after stimulus presentation, that is associated with higher-order auditory stimulus processing and late attentional selection

Question 27

P3 effect

Answer 27

a positive deflection of the event-related potential, occurring about 300 milliseconds after stimulus presentation, that is associated with higher-order auditory stimulus processing and late attentional selection

Question 28

visual P1 effect

Answer 28

a positive deflection of the event-related potential, occurring 70-100 milliseconds after stimulus presentation, that is enhanced for selectively attended visual input compared to ignored input

Question 29

superior colliculus

Answer 29

a gray matter structure of the dorsal midbrain that processes visual information and is involved in direction of visual gaze and visual attention to intended stimuli

Question 30

pulvinar

Answer 30

in humans, the posterior portion of the thalamus; heavily involved in visual processing and direction of attention

Question 31

lateral intraparietal area (LIP)

Answer 31

a region in the monkey parietal lobe, homologous to the human intraparietal sulcus, that is especially involved in voluntary, top-down control of attention

Question 32

intraparietal sulcus (IPS)

Answer 32

a region in the human parietal lobe, homologous to the monkey lateral intraparietal area, that is especially involved in voluntary, top-down control of attention

Question 33

frontal eye field (FEF)

Answer 33

an area in the frontal lobe of the brain that contains neurons important for establishing gaze in accordance with cognitive goals (top-down processes) rather than with any characteristics of stimuli (bottom-up processes)

Question 34

temporoparietal junction (TPJ)

Answer 34

the point in the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet; plays a role in shifting attention to a new location after target onset

Question 35

hemispatial neglect

Answer 35

failure to pay any attention to objects presented to one side of the body; patients exhibiting this symptom may even deny connection with that side

Question 36

Balint’s syndrome

Answer 36

a disorder, caused by damage to both parietal lobes, that is characterized by difficulty in steering visual gaze (oculomotor ataxia), in accurately reaching for objects using visual guidance (optic ataxia), and in directing attention to more than one object or feature at a time (simultagnosia)

Question 37

simultagnosia

Answer 37

a profound restriction of attention, often limited to a single item or feature

Question 38

progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP)

Answer 38

a rare, degenerative disease of the brain that begins with marked, persistent visual symptoms and leads to more widespread intellectual deterioration

Question 39

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Answer 39

a syndrome characterized by distractibility, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity, that, in children, interferes with school performance

Question 40

consciousness

Answer 40

the state of awareness of one’s own existence, thoughts, emotions, and experiences

Question 41

cognitively impenetrable

Answer 41

involving basic neural processing operations that cannot be experienced through introspection – that is, that are unconscious

Question 42

easy problem of consciousness

Answer 42

understanding how particular patterns of neural activity create specific conscious experiences by reading brain activity directly from people’s brains as they’re having particular experiences

Question 43

hard problem of consciousness

Answer 43

understanding the brain processes that produce people’s subjective experiences of their conscious perceptions – that is, their qualia

Question 44

quale

Answer 44

a purely subjective experience of perception

Question 45

free will

Answer 45

the feeling that our conscious self is the author of our actions and decisions

Question 46

neuroeconomics

Answer 46

the study of brain mechanisms at work during economic decision making

Question 47

prefrontal cortex

Answer 47

the anteriormost region of the frontal lobe

Question 48

executive function

Answer 48

a neural and cognitive system that helps develop plans of action and organizes the activities of other high-level processing systems

Question 49

perseverate

Answer 49

to continue to show a behavior repeatedly