Lecture 8: Attention and the role of cogntive control

Question 1

What is top-down attention?

Answer 1

Goal-driven, voluntary, endogenous attention requiring cognitive control and executive functions.

Question 2

What is bottom-up attention?

Answer 2

Stimulus-driven, reflexive, exogenous, and involuntary attention triggered by salient stimuli.

Question 3

How does perceptual load affect attention?

Answer 3

High perceptual load reduces distractor processing by exhausting perceptual capacity (early selection).

Question 4

How does cognitive load affect attention?

Answer 4

High cognitive load increases distractor processing by occupying cognitive resources (late selection).

Question 5

What are the opposite effects of perceptual and cognitive load?

Answer 5

• High perceptual load: Reduces distraction (inattentional blindness).
• High cognitive load: Increases distraction

Question 6

What did Lavie et al. (2004) find in the response competition flanker task?

Answer 6

High cognitive load increased distractor interference compared to low cognitive load.

Question 7

What was the finding of Carmel et al. (2012) regarding cognitive load and memory?

Answer 7

Under high cognitive load, participants had ~80% accuracy in surprise memory tests for distractors, compared to chance-level (50%) under low load.

Question 8

How did Lavie & de Fockert (2005) study cognitive load?

Answer 8

Found that high cognitive load increased interference from color singleton distractors.

Question 9

Which brain regions are involved in attentional control?

Answer 9

Frontal-parietal regions, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).

Question 10

What did Hopfinger et al. (2000) find in spatial cuing studies?

Answer 10

Visual cortical response to cued locations was linked to frontal-parietal activation, indicating attentional control.

Question 11

How did Bishop (2009) relate anxiety to attentional control?

Answer 11

High-anxiety participants showed less DLPFC/ACC activation and greater behavioral interference from distractors.

Question 12

What did Forster et al. (2013) discover about sustained attention?

Answer 12

Frontal regions were activated during tasks requiring sustained attention.

Question 13

How does mind-wandering relate to external distractions?

Answer 13

Mind-wandering positively correlates with task-irrelevant distractions and failures in sustained attention (Forster & Lavie, 2013).

Question 14

What did Christoff et al. (2009) find about frontal regions?

Answer 14

Frontal regions are involved in both attentional control and generating task-unrelated thoughts.

Question 15

What was Kane et al. (2007)’s finding on WM capacity and mind-wandering?

Answer 15

High WM capacity reduces mind-wandering during demanding tasks.

Question 16

How does WM capacity influence mind-wandering in low-load tasks?

Answer 16

High WM capacity increases mind-wandering during low perceptual load tasks (Levinson et al., 2012)

Question 17

What does the OSPAN task assess?

Answer 17

Working memory (WM) capacity by combining simple math problems with word recall.

Question 18

How is high WM capacity related to attentional control?

Answer 18

• Reduced Stroop interference.
• Less response competition.
• Fewer “own name” breakthroughs in dichotic listening.

Question 19

What are clinical implications of cognitive control deficits?

Answer 19

• Associated with ADHD and anxiety disorders.
• Linked to damage in frontal/parietal regions.

Question 20

Applications of Load Theory

How does perceptual load apply to daily life?

Answer 20

Tasks like finding a friend in a crowd involve high perceptual load, reducing distractions.

Question 21

How does cognitive load apply to daily life?

Answer 21

Complex calculations involve high cognitive load, increasing distractions.

Question 22

What are the two types of load in attention?

Answer 22

1. Perceptual load: Early selection, reduces distractions.
2. Cognitive load: Late selection, increases distractions.

Question 23

What is the relationship between WM capacity and distraction?

Answer 23

Higher WM capacity is linked to less distraction and better attentional control

Question 24

How does anxiety affect neural mechanisms of attention?

Answer 24

Anxiety reduces recruitment of DLPFC/ACC, increasing behavioral interference.

Question 25

What challenges remain in studying mind-wandering?

Answer 25

Understanding the complex relationship between frontal executive control mechanisms and task-unrelated thoughts.