College 5: Attention Flashcards
What is selective attention?
Being able to select relevant from irrelevant info
What is top-down attention?
A voluntary control process, you can direct your attention to something (goal-directed)
What is bottom-up attention?
More involuntary, automatically / driven by stimulus characteristics, like visual salience
What is the selection history effect?
Having a certain history with a certain object can draw your attention
What is visual salience?
Can be defined by visual features like color, intensity, orientation. It is always relative to a context, but the effects are transient.
What is sustained attention?
The ability to focus on a stimulus/activity for an extended period of time (also related to academic success)
What is divided attention? And to what function and what gene is it linked to?
The ability to shift your attention between different objects or tasks (attentional flexibility).
Function: executive control
Gene: dopamine transporter gene (DAT) = if you have a certain allele of this gene -> higher levels of dopamine -> scoring better on attentional flexibility tasks
Divided attention -> What is a switch cost?
A decrease in performance after switching task (in multiple task performance)
What happens with aging?
Saccades become slower and smooth pursuit (the tracking of a moving object) is impaired
But variability in eye movement parameters is also reduced -> suggesting higher efficiency
What attentional process is present very early in life?
Inhibition of return (IOR) = the suppression of processing of stimuli that have recently been te focus of attention
What type of attention is the dorsal attention system more associated with? (and what path)
Top-down attention, so steering your attention to a location in space on a voluntary basis
Path: inferior parietal sulcus -> frontal eye fields
What type of attention is the ventral attention system more associated with? (and what path)
Bottom-up attention, so more stimulus-driven
Path: tempoparietal junction -> ventromedial prefrontal cortex
What is the Posner cueing paradigm? And what type of attention is this?
Directional cues point toward a certain location and if a target is presented in that location, people will respond faster to that target
Bottom-up effect (cause it’s an over-learned effect)
What is the Rescorla-Wagner model?
Which area then becomes more activated?
A model of classical conditioning with the assumption that people are better in learning an association if the conditioned stimulus is brighter.
Then the vmPFC becomes more activated + involvement of the frontoparietal attention network
What is binocular rivalry?
When perception switches between 2 images, you see either the one or the other. This shows that attention can direct our perception -> if we would beforehand pair one color with reward, that color picture will be received more often
Autism can affect perception and attention -> what is an example for this?
These deficits can underly the social issues these patients experience -> they look more to the sides of a face in comparison with controls
ADHD, particularly problems with?
And what do they also have?
Sustained attention
Delay aversion = annoyed when things take longer then they thought it would
What 3 types of ischemic infarcts are there?
And what are the deficits?
- Embolic (in major cerebral artery) = motor, perceptual, and/or cognitive deficits
- Lacunar (in smaller arteries) = motor impairments (transient), decrease in attentional functioning
- Water-shed (low perfusion pressure) = motor weakness, language problems
What 2 types of hemorrhagic infarcts are there?
And what are the deficits?
- Subarachnoidal = in the protective layers around the brain -> severe headache, cognitive and physical deficits may range from mild to severe
- Intracerebral = bleeding in the brain caused by an aneurysm or traumatic blow to the head -> attention deficits, disturbances in arousal, frontal lesions (executive deficits)
What are 2 ‘disorders’ that are associated with unilateral neglect?
- Hemianopia = blindness in one visual field
2. Hemiplegia = motor dysfunction in one half of the body
What is Balint’s syndrome? And through what it is caused?
A neurological syndrome characterized by a difficulty in fixating the eyes, problems with executing controlled movements, and visual processing issues.
It is caused by bilateral damage to the posterior parietal and occipital lobes (thus very rare)
What 3 distinct pathological behavior patterns are there for Balint’s syndrome?
- Ocular apraxia = difficulty fixating an object
- Optic ataxia = difficulty pointing towards or grasping an object
- Simultanagnosia = inability to simultaneously perceive different aspects of an object (as if glued to one detail)
What deficits are associated with (closed) head injury? (5x)
Concentration problems Low arousal Reduced alertness Reduction in processing speed Deficits in divided attention
What cognitive domains does schizophrenia affect especially? (4x)
And which types of attention?
Language, memory, attention, executive functioning
Selective and sustained attention
