Matt Roser L3 Flashcards
What is attention?
The preferential treatment/selection of a subset of that information
Broadbent’s model (1958)?
Selective attention - top-down selection of relevant inputs at an early stage of processing
What study looks at attention in space and its evidence for early selective attenuation?
Posner’s cueing paradigm
In Posner’s cueing paradigm, what does it suggest when the valid condition showed quicker RTs?
It suggests that stimuli presented were preferentially processed
What is ERP?
Event-related potentials - recordings of brain activity that are linked to the occurrence of an event; derived from an EEG
What happens to attention when shown central, symbolic cues? Validity effects?
It evokes voluntary shifts in attention - validity effects show up with long SOAs
What is SOA and what does it mean?
Stimulus onset asynchronies - the delay between the presentation of the cue and the presentation of the target
What happens to attention when shown peripheral, non-symbolic cues? Validity effects?
It evokes reflexive shifts in attention - validity effects show up with short SOAs.
How are targets with single features identified?
preattentively
How are targets defined by feature conjunctions identified?
serial attention
What is a strategy used to increase the efficiency of serial visual search?
Guided visual search - restriction to subsets
Hemispatial neglect (damage + impact)
right parietal damage - manifests as neglect of contralesional space (usually left side) - also deficit is present in visual memories (egocentric reference frame).
Attention selects information for preferential processing in a number of ways (3):
spatial location, item attributes and objects
what type of process is attention?
It is a modulatory process, it influences the processing of distinct brain modules, ramping up activity when processing information is attentionally relevant
What do FMRI studies tell us about attention in the brain?
Multiple regions are activated and linked via reciprocal connections through the thalamus
What might attention lead to prior to stimulus input?
Synchronisation of neural firing
What is top-down modulation?
The ability to focus attention on task-relevant stimuli and ignore irrelevant distractions
What are the 3 main attentional networks in the brain?
Alerting (high state of sensitivity), orienting (source of sensory signal) and executive (goals)
What do executive functions do? (2)
Give organisation and order to our actions and behaviour, govern a number of domains (cognitive, linguistic and motor)
Examples of executive functions (5):
representing/maintaining goals, planning for the future, inhibiting/delaying responding, initiating behaviour & shifting between activities flexibly.
3 characteristics of PFC neuroanatomy
Late phylogenesis (evolutionary system), Late ontogenesis (developmental history) and Highly interconnected with virtually all brain areas
What do dorsolateral lesions lead to?
frontal executive syndrome
What can ventromedial damage lead to?
Problems with emotional control
Problems associated with frontal executive damage
problems in planning, difficulties adapting to new situations and withdrawal from social situations
What part of the brain, if damaged, sees dramatic impacts on working memory? What is the impact on rules?
Dorsolateral Prefrontal cortex - unable to flexibly attend to a change in sorting rules due to impacts to working memory
Goal setting and patients with frontal brain damage:
Fixation on a less important sub-goal without consideration of other goals, often leading to failure of the overarching goal
Working memory impact on goals
WM allows information to be selected, maintained and manipulated to support coherent goal-directed behaviour
How are interactions between frontally-mediated WM systems and posterior processing areas governed?
As task difficulty increases the anterior cingulate gyrus becomes increasingly active
What does the anterior cingulate do?
It monitors environment, one’s behaviour and the relationship between the two
How does the anterior cingulate keep behaviour on track?
Environment/behaviour relationships are thought to be encoded as schemata, providing a top-down influence on the schema that is applied to a situation
What does the anterior cingulate do when an error has been made?
It sends a signal called Error-Related Negativity (ERN)
How does the anterior cingulate avoid errors?
It works hard when doing tasks, for example, Stroop tasks, and works to inhibit habitual responses
What is a neural substrate?
A term to indicate a certain part of the nervous system responsible for a certain behaviour, cognitive process or psychological state
What is Domasio’s somatic marker hypothesis?
Bodily sensations (e.g. emotions) act as a heuristic guide to making decisions
Which cortex is involved in emotional processing?
The ventromedial cortex
Lesions to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex often result in (6):
- Reduced inhibition of effect (Rude/hostile)
- Deficits in reversal learning
- Myopia (impulsivity) - respond to momentary hedonic tendencies
- Impaired reward expectation
- Impaired long-term planning
- Impaired at maintaining healthy social/professional life
What are hedonistic tendencies?
Consumption of goods and services to seek satisfaction and pleasure
Posterior to anterior gradient of control who and what are the levels (4):
Koechlin & Summerfield 2007
The selection of processing is based on sensory information, contextual information, current episode and finally context of prior episodes or events (Branching -> episodic -> contextual -> sensory)
Posterior to anterior gradient of control by abstraction - who and explain?
Badre 2008
Posterior regions of the prefrontal cortex implement control on the basis of more concrete dimensions which become more abstract as one moves in the anterior direction (context -> dimension -> feature ->response conflict)
What is the positioning of the subregion on the PFC that deals with inhibition?
Ventral
What is the positioning of the subregion on the PFC that deals with maintenance and manipulation
Lateral
Attention to a particular class of objects may manifest in an fMRI study as:
Increased or decreased activity in separate ventro-temporal brain areas when contrasting object class conditions
