Chapter 5 - Attention Flashcards
1- Explain what happens when we don’t have attention and explain spatial neglect.
- Spatial (unilateral) neglect
- Damage to the parietal lobes
- Results in an inability to attend to information in space contralateral
to the brain damage
Spatial neglect
* Inattention to information in ‘contra-lesional’ space
* Often following right hemisphere damage
* Right hemisphere is specialized for spatial processing
* Attentional deficit presents across sensory modalities
(not just vision)
* Is not due to impairment in sensory processing
* If Left side of the world is out of awareness
-They read only words on the right side
-They eat from one side of the plate
-They can only describe half of imaginations
and memories
-Awareness doesn’t resolve the condition
2- Explain attentional processing in the brain.
- Spatial neglect indicates that attention is a brain mechanism
- A distributed network of
prefrontal cortex (PFC) and
parietal cortical regions - Directs processing for attended to task
- Different aspects involved in
different forms of attention - Intraparietal sulcus + FEF in
preparing to attention to
something (top-down attention) - Temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and VFC in bottom-up attentional orienting
3- Explain the types of attention.
-Top down attention
Observer guided controlled attention
Frontal-parietal brain regions (IPS; FEF)
Types of top-down attention:
* Sustained attention
-Maintain focus on one input for a long period of time
-Vigilance
* Divided attention
-Shifting attentional focus between tasks
-Multi-tasking
* Selective attention
-Focus on one input and ignore other information
-Bottom up attention
Stimuli guided automatic attention
TPJ; VFC
Arousal (not a type of attention…but affects it)
Alertness and Awareness
Reticular Activating System
If level of arousal on stress is too low or too high, the efficiency of memory is lower (see graph)
4- Why do we have selective attention?
- Required because of limited resources
- You must prioritize what to process to act effectively
- What you attend to will depend on a given goal
-Spatial-based versus feature-based attention
5- Explain how to measure spatial and feature attention (in selective attention).
???* see textbook and graph
Posner cuing task?
6- What is change blindness and how can we measure it?
*The failure to detect changes in stimuli in an attended zone (example of card trick)
* Continuity errors in film
- Flicker technique paradigm
- Two highly similar visual images (e.g., scenes) are presented with an interstimulus “mask”
- Sometimes there are small changes in the images (e.g., color change, removal of window of a building)
- When asked if the two images are the same, or what
changed, people are often inaccurate
7- Explain early selection models.
Broadbent’s early selection filter model
* You filter information at the level of perception, before information is processed for meaning (semantic analysis)
Sensory buffer… (FILTER)…Perceptual analysis….Semantic analysis (short term memory)…Responses
- Selects information for further processing at the sensory level (spatial location, frequency of sound)
- Attended information is processed for meaning, enters awareness and leads to a response
- Information not selected by the filter decays
Dichotic listening tasks:
* Present two simultaneous messages to each ear
* Participants are better able to recall information ear by ear than the simultaneous message
-In the ex. better remembering 2,5,6 and 8,4,1 than 2,8; 5,4; 6,1
* Information is selected for attention, at perception
Shadowing tasks
* People do not remember the content of an unattended message, but they might notice some sensory features
* Can detect a new noise; gender of the speaker
* Evidence that unattended information is not processed for meaning
Problems with early selection filter models
* In certain situations, un-attended information can “break through”
* At a party, you can attend to one conversation, yet hear your name if spoken in a non-attended-to conversation
Example:
* Participants presented with a word (e.g., apple) paired with an electric shock
* Next, they did the shadowing task with the ‘shocked’ word in
the unattended ear
* Participants had increased skin conductance when the
‘shocked’ word was presented in the unattended ear
8- Explain the attenuator model.
Treisman’s attenuator model
* An early filter dials down the influence of unattended material
* Some aspects of unattended material to be processed for meaning
Sensory inputs…Feature discrimination…Short-term store/early selection…(INFORMATION PASSES, BUT SOME OF IT IS WEAKER)…analysis of meaning (includes context)…response
9- Explain late selection models and use support.
Late selection filter models
* We process input to the level of the meaning, and then select what we want to process further
Sensory buffer…perceptual analysis…semantic analysis (short term memory)…(FILTER)…Responses
- Controlled tasks: Those that require effort and voluntary top down attention
-Stroop: naming the color of the ‘ink’ - Automatic tasks: Those that are highly familiar and well practiced and do not require voluntary top down attention
-Stroop: reading color names * does require access meaning
For Stroop task (words and colours):
Congruent trial: ink and colour match = FASTER
Incongruent trial: ink and colour don’t match = SLOWER
* For the interference effect to occur on the Stroop task, you must process the written color name (unattended information) for the
meaning
How do we know it works?
* Hypnotized English-speaking participants to think color names were meaningless (in a
language they did not speak)
* Removes the meaning of the words (i.e., color) thus
automatic processing and also removes the Stroop interference
effect
10- Explain the load theory.
- Attentional filtering can occur at different points
- Filter placement will depend on how much of your
resources are required for your currently attended-to task
-If low resource load, we process non-attended information to a
later stage in the pipeline
-If high resource load, we process non-attended information only to an early stage the pipeline - A difficult task with a high load: We process all information
(relevant and irrelevant) only to the level of perception
-Our attention is selected early
-Focused attention
-Early filter! - An easier task with a low load: We process all information (relevant
and irrelevant) to the level of meaning
-Our attention is selected later
-Process irrelevant information for meaning
-Late filter!
Ex: if I have seen harry potter many times before (easy task with low load), i am gonna be more distracted by my dog. If I have never seen harry potter before (difficult task with high load), I am less gonna notice my dog.
Two ways to define load
1. Central resource capacity view
-One resource pool from which all attention resources are allocated
Ex:
* Low (auditory) load, driving
with no radio
* High (auditory) load, driving
and listening to the radio
Those with high load noticed less the elephant.
2. Multiple resource capacity view
-Multiple resources from which attention resources are allocated
-Attentional load depend on the match between the relevant and irrelevant information
-E.g., Attentional capacity is reached sooner if relevant and irrelevant information are from the same modality
Ex: If you are driving and need to get directions, would you have more problems paying attention to the road if listening to a set
of directions or viewing it on your phone? From viewing it on your phone, because from the same modality (sight and sight), attentional capacity reached sooner.
See load task example in first slides of last lecture
11- What is the difference between change blindness and inattentional blindness?
- Change blindness is the inability to detect changes in a scene
- Inattentional blindness is not noticing something NEW
-A failure to attend to new or unexpected events in our attended-to environment that is not part of our focused task
-E.g., A deer jumps in front of your car; you don’t notice it even though you are attending to that space (the road)
-We don’t represent all of the world around us!
Selective looking - People don’t notice a new event that is available for perception
Measuring inattentional blindness
* Participants focus on a task in a space
* An unexpected target is presented in that space
Crosses with vertical and horizontal
‘arms’ of different lengths are presented
very quickly
* A mask
* Participants determine which cross arm is
longer
* Critical trials, a small black square is included
* Participants were later asked if they saw this
black square, and many said ”No”
With word like armpit:
Participants are more likely to complete the word stem with the what was presented during a period of “inatttentional blindness” (e.g., armpit)
12- Explain pre-activating attention and the Posner spatial cuing task.
- Posner’s (1980) attentional spotlight theory
- Attention is about focusing on space and ignoring
what is located ‘outside’ of the focused space - When moving attentional spotlight, disengage from
current focus and shift to another area - Attention for pre-activating processing shifts
1. Fixation display: Fixate on the center a screen
2. Cue Display: A ‘space’ cue directs attention to an area (blue square;
left or right)
3. Target Display: Reaction time to detect the target is measured
Reaction times to valid trials area FASTER than to invalid trials
BUT longer time interval between cue and target leads to opposite results!
Reaction time for INVALID trials are faster than valid trials!
=
* Inhibition of return (IOR): attention is inhibited from going to a recently
attended space after a long duration between space cue and target (SOA)
* Adaptative, it helps us search our environment efficiently
“been there, done that”
13- Explain integrating features and visual search.
- Attention needed to integrate features to perceive and find objects
- Feature-based attention during visual search tasks
- Pre-attention phase
-Object features are separately coded, automatically
-Bottom-up processing - Focused attention phase
-Object features are integrated together to guide a search
-Top-down processing, requires voluntary attention - Feature Search
-Search for an object that is different from the distractors
based on one feature
-Can use bottom-up and automatic processing
-Ex: the red square out of all the green squares - Conjunction Search
-Search for an object that is different from the distractors
across many features
-Requires top-down attention
-Ex: the red square out of red circles and green squares, where’s waldo
The pop out effect (for feature search!)
* The time needed to find a
target that is different by one
feature from distractors is
independent of the number of distractors (set size)
* A pop out effect exists for
features processed
automatically in the visual
cortex
BUT for conjunction search, the more objects, the longer time
14- Explain embodied theories of attention.
- Eye movements detect visual attentional goals
- Overt visual attention: attending to something WITH your eye movements
- Covert visual attention: attending to something WITHOUT eye
movements
Cultural differences in visual attention:
* Measured eye movements as two groups
(Western, East Asian) attended to images with a
central object (tiger, airplane) and background
(mountain, forest)
Equal attention to object, but more attention to background for East Asians.
15- Explain vigilance decrement in sustained attention.
- Students watched one-hour videos of lectures
- At various points, asked if they were mind
wandering (not paying attention) - Tested on lecture material: material where mind wandered, did worse in exam
- Two interpretations
-Overload theory: increase attentional demands
with time
-Underload theory: boredom = mind-wandering
=divided attention
