Introduction to Attention Flashcards

0
Q

What are the two types of attention?

A

Covert attention : paying attention to one thing whilst appearing to pay attention to another
Overt attention: turning head to look at something

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1
Q

What did HARROLD PASHLER (1998) say about attention

A

No one know what attention is, and there may not even be an ‘it’ to be known about

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2
Q

What is the cocktail party effect

A

Even though there is a lot of noise we are able to filter it out and focus on the person we are talking to

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3
Q

What is voluntary attention?

A

Intentional
Goal driven
Knowledge used to guide information processing

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4
Q

What is reflexive attention

A

Unintentional
Stimulus driven
Something catches our attention

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5
Q

What did the study by Cherry (1953) do

A

Gave ppts two streams: one unattended and another attended

Were able to repeat what was said in attended stream
Could identify some properties of unattended stream such as gender if voice or if it was a human versus musical instrument

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6
Q

Draw the diagram from Donald BROADBENT (1958) that looks at the bottle neck if attention

A
  • ——-> ——————>
  • ——-> ————–>
  • ——-> ——————>
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7
Q

Draw the diagram from BROADBENT that show the process of early selection

A

Input > detection > > recognition >

> detection > x

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8
Q

Draw the POSNER cuing paradigm - endogenous cuing

A

Valid trial >. + *

Invalid trial. <>. +*

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9
Q

Describe the results from POSNERs cuing paradigm

A

When it was a valid trial the ppts responded quicker than when it was an invalid trial

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10
Q

What is the problem with early selection theories?

A

We can often recall our own name or highly relevant information from unattended channel

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11
Q

Describe the study by MACKAY (1973) that looks at ambiguous sentences in a dichotic listening task

A

Ppts given ambiguous sentence string
Also given a bias word in unattended channel

The bias word influenced their interpretation if ambiguous sentence

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12
Q

Draw the diagram of late selection as seen in DEUTSCH and DEUTSCH

A

Input > detection > recognition > >

> detection > recognition > x

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13
Q

What evidence is there to support early selection from event related potential

A

FMRI studies show evidence for attention effects in primary visual cortex activation

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14
Q

What did the study by WOJCIULIK et al (1998) show

A

Shows FMRI evidence for modulation of higher level visual processing by attention

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15
Q

What has neurobiology shown for attention

A

Can generate both early and late in the visual processing stream

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16
Q

What does high perceptual load mean?

A

Current task doesn’t leave any attention for distractors

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17
Q

What does high perceptual load support

A

Early selection

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18
Q

What does low perceptual load mean

A

Current task leave attention for distractors

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19
Q

What type of selection does low perceptual load support

A

Late selection

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20
Q

What are the effects of cognitive load on visual cortex activation

A

High cognitive load = worse focused attention

21
Q

Why do perceptual load and cognitive load have an opposite effect on attention

A

Slower reaction time with low perceptual load
Faster reaction time with low wm load

This is because perceptual = bottom up and cognitive = top down

22
Q

What does this mean for attention (the fact that perceptual and cognitive loads have different effects)

A

It has a limited capacity and can only process a subset of sensory inputs

Attention can be early or late

23
Q

How does attention decide what gets into consciousness?

(Duncan and DESIMONE (1995) : biased competition model

A

Items compete for attention

Top down bias signals select which stimulus wins attention

24
Q

Describe the study by Hopfinger et al (2000)

On monkeys

A

Attacked monkeys to electrode and showed that when given juice reward they showed bigger spikes when given good stimulation

25
Q

Describe the study by morishima et al 2009

A

Don’t know the answer - need to read

26
Q

What is Anna triesmans feature integration theory

A

Need to learn

27
Q

What did POSNERs paradigm show about cues on attention

A

Cue facilitates RTs at short cue target intervals

Cue slows RTs at longer cue- target intervals

28
Q

Why did POSNER find the results they did

A

Inhibition of return: slower RTs to locations that were recently cues relative to uncued locations

29
Q

Why do we have slower RTs to locations that are recently cues relative to uncued locations

A

Ability to distinguish between threatening and non threatening events essential for survival
Useful to initially orient attention to surprising events
Once registered as non-threatening, useful to suppress orienting to that event in order to focus in current task goals

30
Q

What was the conclusion of POSNER

A

Trenton enables us not inky to attend to important information but also to suppress processing of irrelevant distractors

31
Q

Is there attentional enhancement or suppression at short cue target intervals

A

Enhancement

32
Q

Is there attentional enhancement or suppression at long- cue target intervals

A

Suppression

33
Q

What type of attention does visual search require

A

Both voluntary and reflexive

34
Q

What is a popout search

A

Target can be distinguished from distractors by a single feature

35
Q

What is a conjunction search

A

Target can only be distinguished from distractors by combination of features

36
Q

Faster reaction time for popout or conjunction search

Triesman

A

Popout

37
Q

What is the Anne triesman feature integration theory

A

Elementary stimulus features are analysed pre attentively and in parallel within specialized feature maps

When targets differ from distractors by a conjunction if features, information from feature maps must be integrated into a single object

This feature integration process requires attention to be directed to each item individually

38
Q

What is selected? Objects, locations, or both?

A

Evidence reviewed to date suggests attention operates on spatial locations
We are very good at recognising objects
Objects are typically situated in a particular location

39
Q

What did Egly et al do

A

Used a cuing paradigm to direct the attention of participants to different objects and locations

40
Q

What is the FMRI evidence for object based attention - o’craven et al

A

The face or the house moved, subjects attended to either the face, the house or the direction of motion

Activation in FFA and PPA depended in which stimulus was being attended to
Key prediction of object based attention: attention selects whole objects

41
Q

What does attention to motion do

A

Leads to selection of the whole objects

Evidence for object- based attention

42
Q

What is hemispatial neglect

A

When one side of brain is damaged

43
Q

What is the evidence from neglect for object based attention

A

They only draw half the flowers

44
Q

What type of stimulus catches spatial attention in neglect

A

Fear related stimulus

Spiders- vuilleumier and Schwartz 2001

45
Q

What did patient have trouble with on ipsilesional task

A

Impaired orienting to contralesional stimuli
Inability to disengage from ipsilesional stimuli
Neglect is an attentional disorder

46
Q

Describe spatial working memory deficits in neglect

A

They leave large sections out (e.g stars on a page) manly et al 2002

47
Q

What did Robertson et al show

A

There is sustained attention deficit in neglect

48
Q

What did Robertson et al show

A

Phasic alerting reduces neglect

49
Q

How can we be sure dorsal frontoparietal regions are the source of top-down control signals?

A

1) activation in frontoparietal regions linked to the cue

2) when subjects passively attended the cue, frontoparietal activation was not observed

50
Q

What did the study by morishima et al show

A

Combined TMS and ERP evidence for top-down bias signals originating in frontoparietal cortex