Visual Attention Flashcards
purpose of attention
allows us to filter incoming information and hold onto information briefly (ex. across eye blinks)
attention is ______
limited
attention definition
large set of cognitive processes that restrict inputs to a subset of information
functions across many senses, not just vision
selective attention
when you restrict attention to a subset of possible stimuli amongst a larger assortment
divided attention
when you split attention across multiple stimuli at the same time
ex) taking notes while listening to the lecture
sustained attention
continuously monitoring some stimulus over time; “vigilance”
ex) staring at a screen for 30 minutes to see how many times a dot changes color
overt attention
when you direct your eyes toward a stimulus
covert attention
when you attend to something without fixating on it
response time (RT)
time it takes a person to respond to a stimulus or change
cues
stimuli that indicate what to attend to, which can be valid, invalid or neutral
valid - true cue/statement
invalid - false cue/statement
neutral - no cue/statement is given
Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA)
time between onset of stimuli (usually in realm of milliseconds)
what 4 things does eye tracking measure
fixations
saccades
- movement between one fixation and another
duration of viewing
orderliness of viewing behavior
peripheral cues
cue is in the periphery at the site of the target
symbolic cue
cue signifies location without using that space
valid cues ______ responses, while invalid _____ them
speed; slow
peripheral cues _____ RT even at very short SOA, symbolic ____ _______
benefit; take longer
inhibition of return
if attention is cued to a location but then leaves that location (due to time passing), often even slower to return to it than if there had never been a cue
data suggest covert attention is _____
spatial
spotlight model
attention is restricted to space and must move from one point to the next, requiring time
zoom lens model
asserts that region of attention can shrink/grow
up to you to decide which to use due to situation
3 things manipulated in visual search in lab
set size/# of items
distractor similarity
target complexity and salience/vividness
when searching for a ________ of features, set size matters more
conjunction
serial, self-terminating search
very long trials with no target to make sure you are paying attention
2 attentional types/definitions in feature integration thepry
pre-attentive
- individual features are processed automatically, in parallel, and with little effort - the pop-out effect
selective attention
- objects (conjunction of features) are processed slowly, serially and require effortful attention
binding problem
need to bind/unbind features to complete target search
often processed by different brain regions/cells
guided search
often our everyday visual search uses what we know to limit the scope of your search
hemi-neglect
parietal brain damage results in spatial attentional neglect
always contralateral side (right side of the brain damaged = left side of vision affected)
not a loss of vision, but a loss of attention to information in that field
attention manifests…
across the brain!
attention serves to filter and select targeted information, so our brain has mechanisms to…
enhance relevant information and inhibit unwanted stimuli
attention can modify how … respond to stimuli, like FFA for faces and PPA for scenes
regions in the brain
attention enhances or inhibits a region depending on ____ ____
task goal
3 ways attention can impact orientation selectivity
enhancement (decrease selectivity = more orientations)
sharper tuning (increase selectivity = less orientations)
altered tuning (shift selectivity to one direction or another)
The Posner Cuing Paradigm is usually a test of _____ and _____ attention.
a. overt, selective
b. overt, sustained
c. covert, selective
d. covert, sustained
c
Which of the following is a demonstration of the binding problem?
a. a hemineglect patient ignoring the left side of space even though they are sensing it
b. a participant using covert attention to focus on something they could just move their eyes to
c. an object popping out in visual search despite there being many distractors
d. a person falsely remembering a blue circle from an array that only had red circles, but had other blue objects
d
with the idea that attention can be object-based, people are much faster in finding the target when …
the cue was part of the same rectangle (object) even if the spatial distance was greater
in hemineglect, neglect travels with …
object
key symptom of balint’s syndrome
simultanagnosia
simultanagnosia
only one object can be attended to at one time no matter what
if shown red and green circles, report only one or the other. But if these circles are connected with a line patients can report both
benefits of object-based attention
object tracking
- as objects move through space, may not be able to overtly attend to all of them, but can potentially track them via object-based attention
a valid cue is given on trial of the Posner Cuing Paradigm. However, the cue actually slows the participant’s response relative to no cue at all. Which of the following would produce this result?
a. trial was a symbolic cue
b. trial was a peripheral
c. trial’s SOA was long enough to cause inhibition of return
d. trial’s SOA was so fast the participant couldn’t attend to it
c
bottleneck
more information is available than can pass through attention
can result in attentional blink or change blindness
Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) task
show stimuli for under 10 ms, all you have to do is report if you saw a particular one
task gets harder if you are looking for 2 pieces of information
attentional blink
if 2nd item appears within 200-500 ms after 1st item, it may be missed
why does attentional blink happen
part of the role of attention is to maintain information over time
you only have so many attentional resources (only so much you can process at once) to apply to a given task or stimulus
two pathways to scene perception (object based)
non-selective pathway
- picks up gist and overall broad scene features, relatively automatic
selective pathway
- allows you to pick out particular objects in a scene, usually serially and only one or two at a time
- more effortful attention/serial processing
ex) shown an image of cluttered kitchen
non - pick up cues quickly that tell us it is a kitchen
selective - need to focus attention to find particular items though
ensemble statistics
along with non-selective pathway
the average of properties across the scene like overall color, types of objects, etc.
gist based memory
part of non-selective pathway
quite accurate
change blindness
fail to notice a change between scenes because the overall gist is the same
not necessarily attending to or encoding specific details
inattentional blindness
type of change blindness
where you fully miss a new item because it is not expected
monkey business study is an example as well as gorilla in CT scans
some attentional resources are _______, or shared across senses
global
dual task inference generally worse if tasks share a domain, suggesting some ________ resources
specific
dual task
things like making a response likely resource general
ex)
- if your brain is already engaging in response, it will take until you’re done with first response to engage another response
aka psychological refractory period
ADHD
most common disorder of attention
doesn’t have a strong impact on things like visual search or RSVP
evidence there may be particular difficulty inhibiting off-task distraction, which these tasks don’t necessarily test
A patient with hemineglect for the left side of space is shown a diamond (left) connected to a star (right) with a line. The object is then rotated 180 degrees. What will the patient perceive before (1st) and after (2nd) the object is rotated?
a) 1st: Diamond, 2nd: Star
b) 1st: Diamond, 2nd: Diamond
c) 1st: Star, 2nd: Diamond
d) 1st: Star, 2nd: Star
d
A patient with Balint’s Syndrome is shown the below objects to their left visual field (a pacman with three blue dots to its left). They note they can only see 1 object, a small blue circle near closest to the center of their visual field. How could you adjust this image to help the patient see all of the objects?
a) Shift the objects to their right visual field
b) Rotate the objects 180 degrees
c) Draw a line through the objects connecting them
d) There is no way a for them to perceive all of the objects at the same time
c
Paula is a participant in a divided attention study. Her primary task is to detect the presence of a red T in a RSVP paradigm that flashes colored letters. There are two dual task conditions:
Condition 1 – Audio also plays and she must detect when the audio says the letter Q.
Condition 2 – She must also monitor for when the screen slightly darkens
What is the most likely outcome from this experiment?
a) Only condition 2 will impact her RSVP performance, since it is also visual
b) Both conditions will equally impact her RSVP performance
c) Both will impact her performance, but Condition 1 will impact it more than Condition 2
d) Both will impact her performance, but Condition 2 will impact it more than Condition 1
d, if the dual task shares a domain it will increase difficulty
example of global resource
phone calls interfere with driving performance
example of domain-specific resource
listen to a basketball game while playing a visual matching game
