week 2 chapter 5 Attention

Question 1

Unilateral Neglect Syndrome

Answer 1

Ignore all inputs from 1 side. Typically, damage to right parietal lobe, causing neglect of left space awareness.

Question 2

Selective Attention

Answer 2

To skillfully focus on something (by withdrawing attention from other tasks)

Question 3

Dichotic Listening

Answer 3

2 different audio (1 per ear). Can pay attention to one ok, but unattended channel hardly reaches awareness. Might notice words in unattended channel if are of significance (eg your name).

Question 4

Shadowing

Answer 4

Repeating or being so absorbed in attended channel, thus unattended channel’s strong (usually)puts go unnoticed (eg gorilla in room).

Question 5

Inhibiting Distractors

Answer 5

We can select to inhibit (filter out) unwanted distractors, But, still need to be able to observe and judge new distractors and learn to filter them.

Question 6

Inattentional Blindness

Answer 6

Failure to see something prominent, (may be staring straight at it), because attention is focused elsewhere.
May also fail to to feel/hear.
Theories of either limit in Perception, or limit in Memory.

Question 7

Change Blindness

Answer 7

Is often very hard to perceive changes in a scene being looked at directly (even harder when changes are in periphery).

Question 8

Early Selection Hypothesis

Late Hypothesis Selection

Answer 8

Seek to explain why may not react to stimuli (touch,audio, visual etc) in situations such as Inattention blindness/Change Blindness etc.

1. Early selection Hypothesis;unattended input receives little analysis and therefore is NEVER PERCEIVED.
2. Late Hypoethesis Selection; all inputs are perceived and analysed, but then selection occurs (which may mean some items never, or only briefly, reach consciousness).NOT REMEMBERED

Question 9

Unconscious Perception

Answer 9

Are influenced by background stimuli despite being apparently unaware of it.

Question 10

Test yourself

1. What information do people reliably pick up from the attended channel? And the unattended channel?
2. how is inattentional blindness demonstrated? What real world situations reflect this?
3. What evidence seems to confirm early selection? What late?

Answer 10

1. Most. And from unattended;own name and things of significance to oneself.
2. asking subject to fix gaze on centre, but watch for something just off centre. Change the centre, and subject who does not notice, is demonstrating inattentional blindness. In real world, often gazing right at what looking for in the fridge but cannot see it.
3. evidence for early selection is can show brain activity greater for attended stimuli.evidence for late selection is at times, can demonstrate unconscious perception is occurring.

Question 11

Priming

Answer 11

Perception occurs faster when detectors are already primed or in activated state. 2 types;
1. Repetition priming-based on frequent or recent encounters of stimulus. No extra effort needed. eg will hear own name.
2.Expectation-driven priming-with conscious control, deliberately prime for expectations. 2 subtypes;
a) Low validity priming; not super accurate, but fast processing,benefit when correct and little cost when incorrect.
b)High validity priming;high accuracy, much faster processing (when correct) but slows down (costs) when incorrect.
Fastest response achieved with combo of repetition priming and high validity priming.
Different areas of brain shown activated in expectation based attention, or stimulus based attention.

Question 12

Spatial attention

Answer 12

ability to focus on a particular position in space. Limited capacity system (to focus more on right, lose some focus from left)
Unilateral neglect Syndrome (Hemispatial neglect)=attention disorder where (usually) ignore left field, due to damage to right cerebral cortex. However if object is focussed on, and gradually shifted from right field to left, can see it.

Question 13

Adjusting “beam of attention”

Answer 13

One can focus attention wide or narrow on a scene and have different interpretations. This attention focusing has been shown to be faster than eye movements.
If pay attention to left side of scene, there will be increased activity in right visual cortex.
There are cultural differences with where tend to focus-eastern cultures attend a bit more to the peripheral figures.
What chose to focus on depends on task and preference.
Exogenous control of attention=some element in scene seizes your attention.
Endogenous control is where consciously choose to attend.

Question 14

Brain sites for attention

Answer 14

Many areas involved:
alerting system:frontal area, posterior area, thalamus
orienting system:frontal eye field, superior parietal lobe, temporoparietal junction,pulvinar, superior colliculus
executive system; prefrontal area, anterior singulate gyrus.

Question 15

ADHD

Answer 15

Difficulty focussing attention on chosen target.
Symptoms: impulsivity, fidgety, unable to maintain attention. Definite condition but differs greatly in mildness to severe. Possibly overdiagnosed.
Cause theories:ecephalitis, lead toxicity, genetics, food allergies. Possibly less effective inhibitory circuits, therefore cannot switch off distractions.
Treatments;environmental/behavioural=remove distractions, and reinforce tasks. or medication eg Ritalin (common side effects of weight loss, insomnia, anxiety, slower growth). Ritalin activates inhibitory brain circuits
However symptoms of ADHD do tend to abate as get older

Question 16

Dorsal Attention System

Ventral attention System

Answer 16

Dorsal Attention System employed for spatial tasks and Ventral attention System for non-spatial.

Question 17

test yourself
IN WHAT WAY does the notion of a spotlight beam accurately reflect how spatial attention functions?
IN WHAT WAY DOES THE NOTION DIFFER FROM how spatial attention functions?
WHEN YOU FIRST START PAYING ATTENTION to an input, attention mainly space-based. Then once learnt a bit about the input, attention seems to be object-based. How does this pattern fit with idea that you pay attention by anticipating the input?

Answer 17

1. What is in darkness is ignored. Can chose wide or narrow focus.
2. there are other controls apart from just “beam focus” eg exogenous control-something in scene grabs focus.
3. if don’t know what coming, tend to be more broad focussed, but then once start seeing something, can anticipate and use priming and become more object based with attention. The idea that one can anticipate input can be verified with faster processing.

Question 18

Divided Attention

Answer 18

ie multi-tasking. Works well if resources are adequate. If doing 2 similar tasks however (eg both language based), will struggle more as need same resources. Some different tasks though do share resources, therefore struggle with talking on phone and driving.
Conversations with passenger though cause little problems as passenger can also see when driver needs to attend, and slow their conversation accordingly.

Question 19

Executive Control

Answer 19

Mental processes which help keep current goal in mind, and have the ability to change the plan when necessary. Required to maintain attention. Tasks may tie up the resources of Executive Control.

Question 20

Pre -frontal cortex

Answer 20

Thought to house The Executive Control. Patients with damage here may suffer from Goal Neglect (fails to behave towards goal) and Perseveration Error (same response is repeatedly produced, despite the situation crying out for a change in plan).

Question 21

test yourself
WHY IS IT EASIER to divide attention b/n very different activities than similar ones?
WHAT IS EXECUTIVE CONTROL?Why does it limit ability to divide attention between simultaneous tasks?

Answer 21

1. Because attention is a limited resource and similar tasks require similar resources.
2. Executive Control is a system of managing attention. it too, has finite resources, therefore limiting ability to attend to tasks simultaneously.

Question 22

Automaticity

Answer 22

With practice, tasks need less resources from the Executive Control. Automaticity occurs when tasks occur with virtually no Executive Control (almost a mental reflex).

Question 23

Stroop Interference

Answer 23

An example of Automaticity. Words of colours, printed in different colours, cause people to struggle to read the actual word instead of the visual colour. A form of automaticity. Highlights how automaticity can sometimes trip you up.