Module 5 Flashcards
Inattentional blindness
The failure to perceive a new object or event that occurs in plain sight (in your focus of attention
Measuring inattentional blindness
Participants are told to focus on a cross, then a white square appears next to it. Many do not see it.
Inattentional blindness with meaningful words
People are more likely to complete words with words presented next to the cross in the point of focus even without consciously seeing the word.
Change blindness
A form of inattentional blindness in which people have difficulty detecting the difference between two versions of a picture that are alternately presented.
Flicker technique paradigm
Two similar visual images (e.g., scenes; A, A’) are presented with an interstimulus distracting grey scene. People are innacurate at identifying if there was a change.
Inattentional deafness
A phenomenon in which auditory information is not perceived when a different high-load task is being performed
Selective attention
A form of attentional control in which a single data stream (e.g., an object or voice) is processed while others are ignored.
Cocktail party effect
The ability to attend to a specific voice in an environment in which other competing voices are present as well.
Dichotic listening task
An experimental task designed to assess selective attention. Participants are presented, via headphones, with two different audio streams to each of the two ears and tasked with repeating only one of the streams while ignoring the other.
Early-selection models
A model of attention that posits that unattended information is filtered based on basic physical characteristics without processing meaning.
Late-selection models
A model of attention that posits that unattended information is first processed in terms of its meaning, and then filtered based on irrelevance to the current task.
Attenuator model
A theory of attention in which unattended stimuli are processed but at a reduced level relative to attended stimuli. Meaningful things can pass the filter
Attentional load
A measure of how much processing resources are needed in order to perform a task.
Eriksen Flanker task
Irrelevant distractor and an experimental stimuli : see if the distractor is processed, increasing reaction time
In high load tasks, people tend to be ____more/less distracting by outside stimulus
Less (all processing resources are already used)
Automatic processing
Processing that happens even without the allocation of selective attention, typically for highly familiar stimuli or tasks.
The automatic portion of the stroop task is…
Reading the words
Exogenous attention
Control of attention that is driven by external factors, bottom-up processing, temporo-parietal junction and VFC
Endogenous attention
Control of attention that is driven by internal factors (top down), IPS and FEF
When completing a task, video game players showed ____less/more parietal lobe activation, indicating ___less/more of a need for recruiting attentional networks.
Less
Divided attention
The allocation of processing resources to multiple objects or tasks simultaneously.
Feature-integration theory
A theory of attentional function that holds that attention is necessary in order to bind together discrete features of an object unto a unified whole.
Conjunction errors
A failure to accurately bind together the discrete features of a single object.
Visual search
An experimental task in which participants must search for a target object among distractors.
Exogenous attentional control
Control of attention driven by external factors (e.g. loud noise)
Endogenous attentional control
Control of attention driven by internal factors (choosing what to pay attention to based on goal)
Overt attention
Selective attention of a location that is accompanied by eye fixation of the same region.
Covert attention
Attentional selection and processing of a location while eye fixation is maintained elsewhere.
Medial temporal lobe (MT)
A portion of the cortex involved in the perception of motion.
The ____ lobe controls which parts of the brain are paying attention
Parietal
Frontal eye fields (FEF)
A portion of the frontal lobes associated with allocation of top down attention via eye movements.
Retinotopic map
The location of pattern stimulation on the retina is preserved at the cortical level.
Primary visual cortex
The portion of the occipital lobe is the primary processing center for vision and organizes visual information for further processing throughout the occipital lobe.
Area of the cortex that is associated with exogenous attention
Right hemisphere
Area of the brain that has been associated with an endogenous attention network to prepare neural activation for pre-processing
Intraparietal sulcus
Go/no-go task
Experimental procedure to test cognitive control and ability to control impulsive responses (press a button quickly when a target is present but stop pressing it when a different similar target appears)
People with ADHD had increased activity in the _____ regions when trying to suppress response to no-go stimuli
Frontoparietal
Balint syndrome
A neurological disorder typically resulting from damage to both parietal lobes that carries several attentional deficits including occulomotor apraxia and simultanagnosia.
Occulomotor apraxia
Inability to execute visually guided movements.
Simultanagnosia
Inability to identify or use more than one object or property in a scene at a time.
Visual/spatial neglect
A deficit of attention in which the individual fails to notice or process a particular location in space, typically the left visual field due to right parietal lobe damage.
3 types of attention
- Arousal : optimal = slightly aroused (letargic or anxiety otherwise)
- Bottom up attention = attention is automatically captured by something physical
- Top down attention : when you voluntary pay attention to something
Intraparietal sulcus IPS and FEF
Prepare other brain regions to pay attention
Attentional shift always require ___ ___ processes
Top down
3 types of top down attention
- Substained attention : focus on one input for long time
- Divided attention : shifting focus between tasks
- Selective attention : focus on one input, ignore other information
Evidence for early selection in dichotic listening task
Recollecting ear by ear : attention allows information to be loss in the sensory buffer
Evidence against early selection
In certain situations, un-attended information can “break through”
* At a party, you can attend to one conversation, yet hear your name if spoken in a non-attended-to conversation
Skin conductance dichotic listening
Participants presented with a word (e.g., apple) paired with a shock in preshadowing task phase
* Shadowing task with the ‘shocked’ word in the unattended ear
* Increased skin conductance (measures emotional arousal) when the ‘shocked’ word was presented in the unattended ear : activating association or meaning in the unattended stream
Controlled tasks
Those that require effort and voluntary top-down attention
- Based on goals and motivation
* Stroop: naming the color of the ‘ink’
Automatic tasks
Those that are highly familiar and well-practiced and do not require voluntary top-down attention
* Stroop: reading color names
How is Stroop evidence for late selection filter ?
For the interference effect to occur on the Stroop task, you must process the written color name (unattended information) for meaning, which we do automatically
True or false : hypnotized English-speaking participants to think color names were meaningless had no stroop effect
True
Load theory
Attentional filtering (selection) can occur at different points
Low resource : process non-attented info later
High resource :process non-attented info early
Early filter (at perception) is for difficult tasks with a high ___
Load
Late filter (at meaning) is for easier tasks with a ___ load
Low
Central resource capacity view
One resource pool from which all attention resources are allocated. Load in attended sense will determine distractor processing for all senses.
Multiple resource capacity view
Multiple resources from which attention resources are allocated (each sense has its own capacity)
* Attention depend on the match between relevant and irrelevant (distracting) information
Support for central resource
Detecting visual target is worse in high load condition of another sense (driving while listening to radio)
Support for multiple resources
No difference in processing between load conditions in hearing task with visual distractor
Activating attention (attentional spotlight theory)
Attention is about focusing on space (like a spotlight) and ignoring what is located ‘outside’ of the focused space. To shift attention, you disengage from the current focus.
Pre-activating attention
Getting ready to shift attention to an area we want to pay attention to
Posner cueing task
- Fixation display: Fixate on the center a screen
- Cue Display: A ‘space’ cue directs attention to an area (blue square; left or right)
- Target Display: Detect the target, reaction time is measured (just respond when detect target)
Valid trial vs invalid trial of the Posner cueing task
Valid trial : same location of target and cue, attention should have already been pre-activated
Invalid trial : target appears in DIFFERENT location to cue
SOA: stimuli onset asynchrony in the Posner cueing task
The time between the cue and target
* Short time interval (SOA) < 200 ms
* Long time interval (SOA) ~ 300 ms
Longer delays means enough time for …
Moving attention to the space and shifting once you notice there is nothing there.
Inhibition of return
Attention is inhibited from going to a recently attended space after a long duration between space cue and target (SOA)
After a short SOA and valid interval, the invalid trial will take ____shorter/longer to focus
Longer
After a valid trial with a long SOA, the invalid trial will take ____shorter/longer to focus
Shorter (more time to shift eye to right spot)
Pre-attention phase
- Object features are separately coded : by primary visual cortex (simple features)
- Bottom-up processing, automatic
Focused attention phase
- Object features are integrated to guide a search
- Top-down processing, voluntary attention
Feature Search
pre-attention phase
* Search for an object that differs from the distractors based on one feature
* Bottom-up attention
* Automatic
Conjunction Search
Focused attention phase
* Search for an object that differs from distractors across many features
* Top-down attention
* Voluntary, requires more effort because need to keep features combination in mind
The pop out effect
- Time to find a target that is different by one feature from distractors is independent of the number of distractors (set size)
- But ONLY occurs for features processed automatically in the primary visual cortex (shape, colors but not concepts)
For conjunction search, more distractors means more ____
Time to find the object
Eye tracking
Form of overt attention, can be used to see what people look at depending on the goals of their attention
Cultural differences in visual attention
- East Asians focused more on the background
- Evidence of more holistic processing in East Asian cultures
Divided attention: Task switching
Need top-down processes to switch between mental sets associated with each task : takes up resources; ability to do the next task will decrease
Mental sets
method of organizing information based on the goals; associated with a task
Switch cost
Decline in performance (reaction time, accuracy) after switching tasks and mental sets
* The attentional system must be ‘re-set’ to engage the next task
Attentional capture happens to information important for _____
Survival
The ‘preparedness premise’
being biologically prepared for things that could hurt us
* Snakes : for survival
Other stimuli that automatically capture attention
Personally relevant stimuli
* Our name
Addictive stimuli
* E.g., cigarettes capture attention for smokers
Threatening Stimuli
* E.g., War content for veterans with PTSD
The presence of human faces impaired attention for the go/no go task because these
faces automatically capture attention, but not if _____
inverted
