Section 1 - Introduction to Attention

Question 1

Descartes? (l2)

Answer 1

17th century contemplation about attention

Question 2

Wolff? (l2)

Answer 2

18th Century psychology textbook discussed attention

Question 3

Helmholtz? (l2)

Answer 3

19th Century physiologists ponder about attention (light and colour perception, built a box - first piece of equipment used to study attention)

Question 4

Wundt? (l2)

Answer 4

1880s - attention central to growth of empirical psychology, so called father of psychology, used introspective method

Question 5

introspective method (l2)

Answer 5

getting someone to do a task and then explain what they are thinking - in order to understand how the mind works

Question 6

when did attention research go on pause? (l2)

Answer 6

1910-1960 ish, for 50 years

Question 7

why did attention research go on pause? (l2)

Answer 7

John Watson said introspection was not legitimate science for studying the mind, that psychology should only study what is observable (and so no one studied attention because it wasn’t observable)

Question 8

what did behaviourism accomplish towards the end of that era? (1910-1960 attention research pause) (l2)

Answer 8

B.F. Skinner - paradigm shift –> behaviourism. thanks to the behaviourists we have a more rigorous methodology

Question 9

attention as metaphors? (l2)

Answer 9

not models -> more like analogies. include: filter metaphor, resource metaphor, spotlight metaphor, glue metaphor

Question 10

what are the parts (lobes) of the brain and their main functions? (l3)

Answer 10

• Occipital Lobe: Vision
• Temporal Lobe: Auditory cortex +, some visual processing
• Parietal Lobe: most interesting for attentional processing - related to attention deficits)
• Frontal Lobe: in control of things, executive center

Question 11

Paul Broca? (l3)

Answer 11

1880s, localization of language area/specialized language area (speech PRODUCTION issue - aphasia), brocas area

Question 12

Wernicke’s patient was important how? (l3)

Answer 12

language area (left hemishpere), problem with UNDERSTANDING speech

Question 13

Franz Gall’s contributions (l3)

Answer 13

• magnificent proposal. first to explain why our cortical tissue in brain is folded, because there is too much of it.
• also grey matter (cell bodies of neurons), and white matter(fatty stuff around myelin)
• not so magnificent proposal: phrenology - analysis of skull could describe personality of the person

Question 14

Karl Lashley (l3)

Answer 14

memory area in rats - (destroyed part in brain and tested memory - didn’t work) ,’, memory must be distributed everywhere

Question 15

Modern Lesion Methods (l3)

Answer 15

chemical deactivation and temperature change (lesions are temporary)

Question 16

what is the Leyden Jar? and what was it used for? (l3)

Answer 16

get electricity into the jar and use it to touch different objects - to see if they could understand electricity with this new apparatus (related to the brains neural “electricity”)

Question 17

who touched frog legs to the Leyden jar and what did that discover? (l3)

Answer 17

Luigi Galvani - the frog legs kicked out ,’, organic tissue was related to electricity

Question 18

who was Cajal? (l3)

Answer 18

gets credit for refining the neuron proposal - father of neuroscience. proving that independent neurons/nerve cells are the building blocks of the central nervous system (that there were gaps between neural bodies)

Question 19

how does the sodium-potassium pump work? (l3)

Answer 19

channel opens up, positively charged sodium ions (Na) flow inside, negatively charged potassium (K) flies out, voltage changes down the axon to the synaptic gap, spits out neurotransmitters into the synaptic gap and then sucks them back in

Question 20

how did studying attention in animals start? (l3)

Answer 20

started with vacuum tubes - amplifying really small voltages so they are measurable (1960s). because there was no way to measure the brains electricity without a way to amplify it

Question 21

measurement unit for electrical potential difference - the worth of millivolts and microvolts (l3)

Answer 21

millivolt: 1mV - 0.001 (V) [10^-3]
microvolts: 1uV - 0.000001 (V) [10^-6]

Question 22

not done single cell recording (l3)

Answer 22

can be used in microstimulation (insert voltage into brain and used to map out the brain) (rarely used on humans)

Question 23

who was Hans Berger? (1873-1941) (l3)

Answer 23

known as the first to record electroencephalograms (EEG) from humans and discovered the rhythmic Alpha brain waves

Question 24

what are scalp maps and what are they good for? (l3)

Answer 24

a way to measure changes in the brain activity. they are good and precise at measuring changes brain activity within millisecond precision - WHEN brains start being active and when they stop being active. (lighter colours = more change; darker colours = less change)

Question 25

what do EEGs do? (l3)

Answer 25

EEG records electrical activity of the brain through electrodes affixed to the scalp. study measures electrical activity in brain in response to stimulation of light, sound touch. the waves measured can tell us a lot of things (sleep waves)

Question 26

what are ERPs? (l3)

Answer 26

focusing on what happens to the wave right after a stimulus is presented (there are neurons associated with attention in the parietal cortex). tells us when neural activation occurs (not as good at where)

Question 27

structural vs functional imaging? (l3)

Answer 27

• structural: used to quantify brain structure
• functional: used to study brain function, shows you WHERE brain activity is occurring

Question 28

structural imaging examples (l3)

Answer 28

x-ray, CAT scan (computerized axial tomography), can look inside ourselves and see 3D shapes

Question 29

how do CAT scans work? (l3)

Answer 29

x-ray source and detector on opposite sides (180 degrees) and rotating around. machine is producing a set of 2D slices. this is good for detecting brain bleeding (show you where blood is leaking)

Question 30

examples of functional imaging and how it works (l3)

Answer 30

PET, fMRI. (blood flow indicates locations of increased brain activity during mental processing. when different brain areas are active, the demand for freshly oxygenated blood is going up (neurons need a lot of oxygen, even a few minutes without oxygen neurons start to die).

Question 31

how do PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans work? (l3)

Answer 31

injects radioactive tracer into blood stream, and this has unstable subatomic particles in it called positrons. positrons don’t exist unless you create them, some radioactive tracer is needed. they are positively charged and electrons evil twins, when they meet electron they annihilate each other and create energy (light), 2 photons). these 2 photons split off in opposite directions at the speed of light. based on the arrival time differences it takes to reach the edge, you can tell where a lot of these collisions are happeneing

Question 32

what is the current best functional neuroimaging method? (l3)

Answer 32

fMRI (can be like a pet scan, not so much real time, but from one moment to the next where brain activation is). tells us where, just not when.

Question 33

how does BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent signal) work? (l3)

Answer 33

scanner has huge magnets that pulse.
red blood cells (hemoglobin) have iron in them so they can be magnetic, so when the magnets are pulsing, these blood cells can resonate with the pulsing magnets.

freshly oxygenated blood (diamagnetic) is differently magnetic than de-oxygenated blood (paramagnetic).
diamagnetic blood is repelled by magnetic field.
paramagnetic blood is attracted to magnetic field. the blood will react differently depending on if it is oxygenated or de-oxygenated.

way more precise than scalp maps, but temporally these things take a lot of time (limitation).

Question 34

how does TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) work? (l3)

Answer 34

there is a wand that is placed over the head in a specific area and will affect the neurons that are close to the scalp. TMS virtual lesions can help people recover from spatial neglect

Question 35

when were the first modern efforts to explore this idea of attention? (r2)

Answer 35

half a century after James - world war II with the combat pilots, they had to monitor multiple signals on screens in cockpits

Question 36

when was attention investigated in peaceful situations? (r2)

Answer 36

1950s - ex. cocktail party effect

Question 37

when did neuroscience transform the study of behaviour - specifically attention? (r2)

Answer 37

1960s - due to what the new technology (fMRI and MEG) revealed, that scientists could see activated parts of the brain by different colours lighting up

Question 38

is there a tidy attention center in the brain? (r2)

Answer 38

no, says research now. but the parietal and frontal cortexes are especially important in the processes of alerting and orienting what is going on and pointing to an appropriate response.

Question 39

what is the Stroop affect? (r2)

Answer 39

when examining a word for something as cursory as ink colour, the meaning of the word is also processed automatically.

Question 40

why is attention considered an “umbrella” term among many researchers? (r2)

Answer 40

because there are several different operations that work together as a network when performing tasks that require attention:
- thalamus plays major role in attentional emphasis of stimuli
- posterior parietal cortex appears to be involved in sustaining attention and in disengaging it when a particular operation has been completed.
- midbrain appears to be involved in guiding focused attention from one location to another