Cognitive Psych 2

Question 1

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 1

missing important events or factors of our environment because we’re paying attention to something else. Example is the gorilla study

Question 2

What is the attentional blink?

Answer 2

The idea that we can make something invisible by showing it to people very quickly after showing them something else important

Question 3

How quickly must something be shown to someone after another thing for the attentional blink to take place

Answer 3

10 Hz

Question 4

What is The N400

Answer 4

the idea that whenever you see a stimulus that has any sort of meaning to you, you get a negative event related potential around 400ms later, which helps you process the semantic meaning of the stimulus

Question 5

What is the cocktail party problem?

Answer 5

When the brain focuses on a single auditory stimulus in an environment with competing sounds

Question 6

What type of processing do we use to solve the cocktail party problem?

Answer 6

Top-down processing: we use our own experiences and knowledge of the world

Question 7

What are the features of Broadbent’s theory of attention as EARLY selection? (3 points)

Answer 7

• inputs are filtered by a selective filter before reaching short term memory on the basis of their physical characteristics
• this prevents overloading of the limited capacity mechanism
• inputs that remain in the buffer after the filter are available for later semantic processing

Question 8

What are the strengths (1) and limitations (2) of the attention as early selection model?

Answer 8

-Strength: accounts for findings from the dichotic listening task
- Limitation: at least some parts of the unattended stream are still processed semantically e.g. hearing your name in a conversation that you weren’t paying attention to.
Limitation: stimuli that people don’t report ever experiencing can still affect their behaviour e.g. blindsight??

Question 9

What are the features of Deutsch and Deutsch theory of attention as late selection? (3 points)

Answer 9

• All stimuli are fully analysed and get to short term memory
• The most relevant stimulus is what determines what response is made
  -The bottleneck occurs late, before the response

Question 10

What are the features of Treisman’s Leaky filter theory (AKA attention as flexible selection)

Answer 10

• Unattended information is attenuated/filtered after the sensory register
  -stimulus analysis leads to a hierarchy of characteristics of the stimuli and their meanings
  -when capacity is reached, stimuli at the top of the hierarchy is actively attended to at the top level

Question 11

What is covert attention according to the Posner cueing paradigm?

Answer 11

When sighted people can pay attention to a part of space that they aren’t directly looking at

Question 12

What is endogenous attention? (4 points)

Answer 12

• Choosing the pay attention
• top-down, goal driven
• makes you react faster to things that happen in that part of space
• is a limited resource that we distribute

Question 13

What is exogenous attention? (3 points)

Answer 13

• A stimulus makes you pay attention/ automatically shifts your attention
• Bottom up, stimulus driven
• still makes you react faster to things that happen in that part of space, but only if something happens in that part of space very quickly after you shift your attention to it

Question 14

In visual search paradigms, what is the difference between feature search and conjunction search?

Answer 14

• Feature search: target has a unique feature that is not shared by other items on display and therefore stands out - makes it quicker to find
• Conjunction search: target has no unique features that aren’t shared by other items on display and therefore makes visual search slower and more difficult

Question 15

What are the features of Treisman’s feature integration theory?

Answer 15

• If an object has a unique perceptual feature it may be detected without the need for attention
  -On the other hand, if an object shares features with other objects, it cannot be detected as easily and spatial attention is needed to search all candidates serially

Question 16

What are the two stages of visual search according to feature integration theory?

Answer 16

• pre-attentive stage, where initial processing of basic features in the visual space takes place
• then the focused attention stage, where focused visual attention binds the features into an object. This can be influenced by prior knowledge

Question 17

What are illusory conjunctions (1 point) and when do they occur? (3 points)

Answer 17

• when a person mistakenly combines features of objects into one
• it can occur when focused attention is absent, when relevant stored knowledge is absent, or when display is presented in peripheral vision

Question 18

what are strengths (1) and limitations (2) of feature integration theory?

Answer 18

• Limitation: argues that an object is only an object if it is attended to, but negative priming tasks have demonstrated semantic processing of unattended stimuli
• Limitation: Doesn’t explain why the similarity of distractors is influential, or why neglect/ extinction patients have problems with both conjunctive and single feature targets
  -Strength: is an important contribution to explaining what happens within attentional spotlight

Question 19

What is guided search theory (Wolfe, 1998) and how is it different to feature integration theory? (4 points)

Answer 19

• Unlike FIT, Wolfe argues that processing doesn’t move from parellel (pre-attentive) to serial (attentive), and instead a simultaneous mix of both takes place
• Pre-attentive processing produces an activation map where objects display different levels of activation.
• the object with the greatest activation receives attention first
  -this combines top down and bottom up processing

Question 20

As demonstrated by Patient RM, what does Balint’s syndrome involve? (2 points)

Answer 20

• damage to large areas of bilateral occipito-parietal cortex
• unable to focus attention on more than one object at a time, (simultagnosia), and had problems combining features of a stimulus

Question 21

What evidence did Corbetter (1995) find to show the importance of parietal and temporal cortex in attention?

Answer 21

he found that during conjunction search there was increased activation in the posterior temporal cortex and parietal cortex

Question 22

What is hemispatial neglect?

Answer 22

-having a lack of awareness of stimuli present to the side of space on the opposite side to the brain damage (contralesional side of space)

Question 23

What is an example that shows how in hemispatial neglect stimuli in the neglected field can still impact behaviour?

Answer 23

If a baseball bat was presented in the neglected field it would not be consciously experienced by the patient, but it will make them respond faster to a semantically related word such as ball. This means that even though the object wasn’t consciously experienced, its meaning was still processed by the patient’s brain.

Question 24

What lesions of the brain have been shown to underlie neglect and how has it been shown?

Answer 24

-Right inferior parietal lobe
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on regions in this this area of the parietal lobe has produced neglect and extinction- like symptoms in control patients

Question 25

What are neglect and extinction, and what do Corbetta and Shulman argue that neglect is a result of (2 points)

Answer 25

• They are both deficits in attention, NOT perception
• They argue that neglect is mainly due to an impairment of the stimulus driven system, and most studies show that the endogenous system is relatively in tact in neglect patients

Question 26

What are the three subtypes of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and their characteristics?

Answer 26

• Predominantly inattentive: difficulty finishing tasks, easily distracted
• Predominantly hyperactive: difficulty sitting still for long periods, fidgeting, speaks or acts inappropriately at times
• combined - the most common subtype

Question 27

How many of the DSM-V criteria for ADHD must someone have?

Answer 27

at least 6 symptoms

Question 28

What are the three context criteria that ADHD symptoms must abide by

Answer 28

• symptoms must be present before 12
• symptoms must affect social/ academic/ occupational functioning
• must not be due to another disorder e.g. anxiety or autism

Question 29

What are some genetic/ early years environmental causes of ADHD? (4 points)

Answer 29

• heritability: parents/ siblings of a child with ADHD are 4-5 times more likely to also be diagnosed with ADHD
• prenatal exposure to alcohol or nicotine
• premature birth or low birth weight
• environmental toxins e.g. lead, pesticides

Question 30

What are structural causes of ADHD? (3 points)

Answer 30

• 3-4% reduced cortical and prefrontal volume
• reduced grey matter in fronto-parietal attention network
• reduced white matter tracts between hemispheres

Question 31

Where in the brain is their hyperactivity in ADHD patients?

Answer 31

prefrontal cortex, specifically the dACC (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex)

Question 32

What are hormonal/ molecular causes of ADHD?

Answer 32

imbalance in dopamine and noradrenaline circuits

Question 33

What is used to treat ADHD and how do they work?

Answer 33

• Methylphenidate (e.g. ritalin) and Dextroamphetamine ( e.g. Attentin)
• They block the reuptake of norepinephrine (NOR) and dopamine (DOP), which enhances their availability in the pre-frontal cortex and the basal ganglia

Question 34

What part/ side of the brain is usually damaged in hemispatial neglect?

Answer 34

Right cerebral hemisphere

Question 35

What is the difference between neglect and extinction

Answer 35

• Neglect: literally the same definition and hemispatial neglect
• Extinction: also failure the acknowledge stimuli presented on the opposite side to the brain lesion but ONLY when a competing stimulus is presented at the same time on the other side