Week 2: Attention

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

It is the mechanism that we use to select for further in-depth neural processing items that are of most interest to us.

Question 2

Attention

Answer 2

Does not only select external sensory items of interest to receive further processing, but also internal thoughts and memories.

Question 3

Train of Thought

Answer 3

Sequences of related thoughts or ideas.

Example: Thinking about your grocery list while planning your dinner menu

Question 4

Attention Bias

Answer 4

A tendency to preferentially focus on certain types of stimuli.

Humans have a natural bias towards faces, especially emotional ones. This bias can be exaggerated in individuals with mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.

Question 5

Negative Attentional Bias

Answer 5

The tendency to preferentially focus on negative information or stimuli while overlooking or downplaying positive or neutral information.

Cognitive bias that directs attention toward threats, errors, or negative outcomes.

Question 6

What Grabs Our Attention?

Answer 6

1) Salient Stimuli (loud, bright, sudden) - helps us identify potential danger/threats
2) Novelty (new or unexpected) - we’re always curious and seeking new info
3) Motion (moving or changing objects)

Question 7

Motion Transients

Answer 7

Visual changes that automatically draw our focus.

Question 8

Exogenous Attention (bottom-up/automatic)

Answer 8

The automatic allocation of your attention based on the
properties of the stimuli themselves.

Question 9

Endogenous Attention (top-down/intentional)

Answer 9

Not automatic, but instead is the allocation of
attention to items that you’ve chosen to pay attention to.

Question 10

Preattentive Processing

Answer 10

The subconscious and automatic processing of information from the environment without conscious effort or attention.

Question 11

Preattentive Processing

Answer 11

It’s the initial stage of perception where our brains rapidly take in sensory data and extract basic features like color, shape, orientation, and motion.

Question 12

Pop Out Search (Feature Search)

Answer 12

The target differs from distractors by one fundamental dimension (i.e., colour, shape, size).

A search based on a single distinctive feature of the target

Question 13

Conjunction Search (Serial Search)

Answer 13

The target shares features with distractors, requiring a more detailed search.

Question 14

Set Size

Answer 14

The number of distractors in a visual search.

Question 15

Parallel Search

Answer 15

A search process where multiple items can be processed simultaneously.

Question 16

What happens to items we don’t pay attention to?

Answer 16

They are filtered out

Question 17

Inattentional Blindness (Mack & Rock)

Answer 17

When we don’t pay attention, can be effectively blind even to salient visual stimuli.

Question 18

Inattentional Blindness

Answer 18

The failure to notice a clearly visible object because attention is focused elsewhere.

Question 19

Sustained Attention

Answer 19

Paying attention to the same item for a sustained period of time.

Question 20

Tactile

Answer 20

Sense of touch

Question 21

Right Parietal Cortex

Answer 21

Has a crucial role in sustaining attention across time.

Involved in spatial processing, alertness, distraction inhibition, and sensory integration.

Question 22

Visual Spatial Neglect

Answer 22

The syndrome that results from right parietal damage.

Patients suffering from such neglect one whole side of the world and they act as if it no longer exists.

Question 23

Attention and Awareness

Answer 23

If you lose the ability to pay attention you lose the ability to be aware of those things too.

Question 24

Contralesional

Answer 24

Opposite side of the brain lesion

Question 25

Ipsilesional

Answer 25

Same side of the brain lesion

Question 26

Bisection Task

Answer 26

Patients are presented with horizontal lines and asked to bisect the line - that is mark the middle of the line.

Question 27

Cancellation Task

Answer 27

Patients are asked to cancel out all of one type of stimuli.

Question 28

Representational Neglect

Answer 28

The inability to attend to mental images on the neglected side of space, despite intact memory for those details.

Question 29

Implicit Processing

Answer 29

Refers to the unconscious or unintentional influence of information on thought and behavior. It occurs without conscious awareness or deliberate effort.  

Question 30

Implicit Detection of Thread

Answer 30

When emotionally threatening stimuli are presented on the neglected side there is some residual processing.

Question 31

Extinction

Answer 31

A milder form of neglect where patients can detect stimuli on the neglected side when presented alone but fail to detect them when presented simultaneously with stimuli on the attended side.

Question 32

Threatening Stimuli

Answer 32

Can bypass conscious awareness and be implicitly processed in neglect patients.

Question 33

Emotional Salience

Answer 33

A measure of how much an event or piece of information captures our attention and evokes an emotional response.  

Question 34

Attention

Answer 34

A cognitive process that allows us to selectively focus on specific information while filtering out irrelevant stimuli.

Question 35

Selection

Answer 35

The process of focusing on specific information from the environment or internal thoughts and memories. It involves choosing what to attend to and what to ignore.

Question 36

Awareness

Answer 36

The state of being conscious or having knowledge of something. It encompasses a wide range of mental states, from being fully alert and attentive to a vague sense of something.

Question 37

Conscious Awareness

Answer 37

A state of being fully alert and aware of one's surroundings and internal thoughts. It involves active processing and understanding of information.

Question 38

Residual Processing

Answer 38

The continued processing of information, often below the level of conscious awareness. It refers to the idea that some information may be processed even when we are not consciously attending to it.