Week 9 Flashcards
Why can you not tickle yourself?
- Corollary discharge inhibits expected afferent feedback from self-generated movements
- If someone tickles you… You don’t have efference copy to generate corollary discharge → nothing gets inhibited, allafferent information gets passed on to cortex
attention is a _______ _______ resource
limited cortical
What is divided attention?
“multitasking”
- ability to focus on multiple forms of sensory information
- can be investigated in an experimental condition
- dual task paradigm
What is the dual task paradigm?
- primary task & secondary task
- measure performance on both
- can be manipulated with different intervention
- performance on both tasks will be worse than if performed seperately
What is selective attention?
- ability to focus attention on one specific task
- exogenous → external, reflexive; focus on objects/stimuli that stand out
- endogenous → internal, voluntary; incorporates intention, goal orientation, previous knowledge
What is attention blindness? Define the two type of blindness we should know
- due to attentional demand, can experience types of “blindness” to your environment
- inattentional blindness → miss something
- change blindness → don’t notice something has changed
What is the primary visual cortex (V1)?
- located within occipital lobe
- arranged retinotopically
- all visual information passes through the lateral geniculate nucleus (within thalamus) → relayed to cortical areas (V1 and visual association)
V1 is arranged retinotopically. What does this mean?
specific groups of neurons represent/respond to specific parts of our visual field
Visual processing is a complex process. There are theories to explain how we process and understand our visual world such as…
two stream hypothesis
What are the three areas involved in the two stream hypothesis?
secondary somatosensory cortex, V1, inferotemporal lobe
What is the secondary somatosensory cortex’s involvement in the the two stream hypothesis
- involved in dorsal stream
- located in posterior parietal lobe
- in complex movement sequences, role in:
→ confirming which movements have already taken place
→ deciding what movement comes next
What is V1’s involvment in the two stream hypothesis?
- receives visual signal from eyes
- passes through visual association areas
- relayes information to two primary areas
What is the inferotemporal lobe involvement in the two stream hypothesis?
- involved in ventral stream
- involved in visual memory (input from hippocampus)
- role in object recognition
- helps understand complex stimuli like faces and scenes
What is the dorsal stream?
V1 → secondary somatosensory cortex
- object location and motion
- detecting & analyzing movements
- spatial awareness and guidance of action
- “where and how” pathway
What is apraxia? What stream does it impact?
dorsal stream
- damage to the secondary somatosensory cortex
- movement disorder which impairs the ability to perform tasks or movement, especially sequences
- does not impair ability ti plan or execute movements, but disrupts how they are performed → leaves sequences fragmented & confused
What is the ventral stream?
V1 → inferotemporal lobe
- object recognition & form representation
- “what?” pathway
What is visual agnosia? What stream is it involved in?
- ventral stream
- damage to the inferotemporal lobe
- disorder which impairs the ability to recognize objects
- does not impair ability to see objects, but instead to process and understand what the object is
the ventral & dorsal streams project to the _________
prefrontal cortex
In the context of complex voluntary movements, what does the prefrontal cortex do?
- decision making centre of the brain
- decides what response you want to have to your environment
“should I make response X or response Y’
The prefrontal cortex projects to the…
premotor cortex
Once the prefrontal cortex projects to the premotor cortex, what happens?
- we answer: what do we need in order to carry out the chosen response
- premotor cortex will:
→ help plan movement
→ project to other motor areas to carry out desired movement
Deciding on response & ability to carry out that response are influenced by the…
the amount of attention you are paying to task (limited resource)
