chapter 14: attention and higher cognition

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

vigilance

Answer 2

the global, nonselective level of alertness of an individual

Question 3

overt attention

Answer 3

attention in which the focus coincides with sensory orientation

Question 4

covert attention

Answer 4

attention in which the focus can be directed independently of sensory orientation

Question 5

cocktail party effect

Answer 5

selective enhancement of attention in order to filter out distractors, as you might do while listening to one person talking in the midst of a noisy party

Question 6

inattentional blindness

Answer 6

failure to perceive non-attended stimuli that seem so obvious as to be impossible to miss

Question 7

attentional bottleneck

Answer 7

a filter that pays attention to the most important stimuli to process

Question 8

perceptual load

Answer 8

the immediate processing demands presented by a stimulus

Question 9

sustained-attention tasks

Answer 9

a single stimulus location must be held in the attentional spotlight for an extended period

Question 10

voluntary attention

Answer 10

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

Question 11

reflexive attention

Answer 11

involuntary reorienting of attention toward a specific stimulus source cued by an unexpected object or event (bottom-up process)

Question 12

feature search

Answer 12

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

Question 13

conjunction search

Answer 13

searching for an item on the basis of a combination of two or more features such as size and color

Question 14

binding problem

Answer 14

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

Question 15

temporal resolution

Answer 15

ability to track changes in the brain that occur very quickly

Question 16

spatial resolution

Answer 16

the ability to observe the detailed structure of the brain

Question 17

event-related potential (ERP)

Answer 17

averaged EEG recordings measuring brain responses to repeated presentations of a stimulus

Question 18

auditory N1 effect

Answer 18

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

Question 19

P3 effect

Answer 19

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

Question 20

visual P1 effect

Answer 20

a positive deflection of the event-related potential, occurring 70-100 ms after stimulus presentation, evident only in visual tasks involving manipulations of spatial attention

Question 21

superior colliculus

Answer 21

controlling the movement of the eyes toward objects of attention, especially in overt forms of attention: goal oriented

Question 22

pulvinar

Answer 22

heavily involved in visual procesing, important for the orienting and shifting of attention

Question 23

intraparietal sulcus

Answer 23

especially involved in voluntary, top-down control of attention

Question 24

frontal eye field

Answer 24

an area in the frontal lobe of the brain that contains neurons important for establishing gaze in accordance with cognitive goals rather than with any characteristics of stimuli: directs gaze according to cognitive goals rather than characteristics of stimuli

Question 25

tempoporietal junction

Answer 25

involved in reflexive steering of attention toward novel or unexpected stimuli

Question 26

hemispatial neglect

Answer 26

attention syndrome in which the person tends to completely disregard the left side of the world

Question 27

balints syndrome

Answer 27

a disorder caused by damage to both parietal lobes, characterized by difficulty in steering visual gaze, accurately reaching for objects using visual guidance, and in direction attention to more than once object or feature at a time

Question 28

simultagnosia

Answer 28

extreme narrowing of the attentional spotlight to the point that it can’t encompass more than one object at a time

Question 29

ADHD

Answer 29

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

Question 30

consciousness

Answer 30

state of being aware that we are conscious and that we can perceive what is going on in our minds and all around us

Question 31

default mode network

Answer 31

a circuit of brain regions that is active during quiet introspective thought

Question 32

easy problem consciousness

Answer 32

understanding how particular patterns of neural activity create specific conscious experiences

Question 33

hard problem of consciousness

Answer 33

understanding the brain processes that produce people’s subjective experiences of their conscious perceptions

Question 34

qualia

Answer 34

purely subjective experience of perception

Question 35

executive functioning

Answer 35

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

Question 36

neuroeconomics

Answer 36

study of brain mechanisms at work during decision making

Question 37

prefrontal cortex

Answer 37

the most anterior region of the frontal lobe and is comparatively large in humans

Question 38

divided-attention task

Answer 38

subjects are asked to process two or more simultaneous stimuli

Question 39

attentional spotlight

Answer 39

shifts around the environment, highlighting stimuli for processing

Question 40

inhibition of return

Answer 40

longer intervals interfere with processing of valid cues

Question 41

bottom-up process

Answer 41

controlled by lower-order sensory inputs rather than by voluntary conscious processes

Question 42

The overall level of alertness of an individual is called _______, as distinguished from the process by which we select and focus on one or more stimuli, which is called _______.

Answer 42

vigilance; attention

Question 43

According to the concept of perceptual load, a large perceptual load

Answer 43

decreases perceptual resources for unattended items.

Question 44

The unconscious shifts in attention that come about in response to important changes in our environment are considered _______ processes.

Answer 44

bottom-up

Question 45

Inhibition of return refers to

Answer 45

impaired detection of stimuli at the previously attended location.

Question 46

You are looking for your friend at a hockey game. She is easy to find as she is wearing a purple sweater, while everyone else is wearing blue and white. Your behavior is an example of a

Answer 46

feature search.

Question 47

Which component of an averaged-out ERP waveform is believed to reflect auditory attention?

Answer 47

N1

Question 48

You feel a splinter in your hand and look down to examine it. Which brain area controls the movement of your eyes toward the object of your attention (the splinter)?

Answer 48

Superior colliculus

Question 49

The _______ is (are) critically important for establishing gaze in accordance with _______ processes and cognitive goals.

Answer 49

frontal eye fields; top-down

Question 50

The so-called _______ problem of consciousness refers to the difficulty of understanding the brain processes that produce a person’s subjective experience.

Answer 50

hard

Question 51

Patients with _______ lobe lesions struggle with task shifting and tend to _______ (continue beyond a reasonable degree in any activity).

Answer 51

frontal; perseverate