Week Eleven - Attention

Question 1

What is arousal/alertness?

Answer 1

Global state of attention

Question 2

What is arousal regulated by?

Answer 2

The RAS

Question 3

What is vigilance/sustained attention?

Answer 3

Maintenance of attention for infrequent events over long periods of time

Question 4

What is Selective Attention?

Answer 4

Attending to some stimuli while ignoring others

Question 5

What is Divided Attention?

Answer 5

Ability to allocate central attentional resources to perform more than one task at a time

Question 6

Selective attention can be what 2 things?

Answer 6

Voluntary: Intentional, top-down, goal-directed & endogenous

Reflexive: Stimulus driven, attentional capture, exogenous, bottom-up

Question 7

What is Overt Attention?

Answer 7

When we might move our eyes, head, body towards a region of interest

Question 8

What is Covert Attention?

Answer 8

Attention to spatial locations independent of eye gaze ie. cocktail party effect

Question 9

What two concepts indicate our selective attention?

Answer 9

cocktail party

dichotic listening

Question 10

Explain Broadbent’s Bottleneck Theory of Attention

Answer 10

There is a selective filter that switches between competing sensory inputs so that only one input gains access to STM.

Question 11

Explain the late selection models of attention

Answer 11

Suggest that all sensory inputs receive some low level of analysis which then reach a stage of semantic encoding

Question 12

What is the Attenuation Theory?

Answer 12

All information receives some processing, allowing our information to be directed if it considered important

Question 13

What is Unilateral Spatial Neglect?

Answer 13

Failure to attend to space at the opposite side of the region following unilateral damage to cortical areas.

ie. not eating food on certain side of plate

Question 14

What occurs in space-based neglect?

What occurs in object neglect?

Answer 14

Patients don’t attend to objects in left hand side of space

Patients attend to object on left but only half of the objects

Question 15

There is a double dissociation between what two forms of neglect?

Answer 15

Perceptual (external) and representational (imaginal) neglect

Question 16

What is Extinction?

Answer 16

A failure to perceive or act on stimuli contralateral to lesion when simultaneously presented with stimuli ipsilateral to lesion

impairs the ability to perceive multiple stimuli of the same type simultaneously.

Question 17

What is Balint’s Syndrome?

Answer 17

Inability to perceive more than one object at a time
Inability to reach in direction of an object under visual guidance
Inability to voluntarily shift gaze to new visual stimuli

Question 18

What is the Feature Integration Theory?

Answer 18

Suggests features are registered early, automatically and in parallel while objects and identified separately and at a later stage in processing

Single Feature: parallel - single feature maps (colour etc) in extra striate areas

Conjunction: Serial - spotlight of attention deployed sequentially to integrate feature maps onto master map of location

Question 19

Selective attention can be directed to where, resulting in what?

Answer 19

Selective attention can be directed to spatial locations, features or objects resulting in enhanced processing in modality specific sensory/perceptual areas of the brain

Question 20

Explain the Attentional Network Model

Answer 20

There are 3 functionally and structurally separate networks involved in attention

1) Alerting: Associated with general level of arousal/vigilance
2) Orienting: Directing of attention to prioritise external information
3) Executive Control: Higher level regulation of information from other systems

Question 21

Alerting Network?

Answer 21

An automatic arousal base network which originates in the Locus coeruleus which are norepinephrine projections from the midbrain to the cortex and this is part of the reticular activating system

2 types of alerting -
Tonic Alerting: General level of vigilance (vigilance tasks)
Phasic Altering: Cued to the fact that something is about to happen (warning)

Question 22

Orienting Network

Answer 22

The orienting network helps us to prioritise sensory information by selecting certain locations or features or modalities or objects and this network can be either automatic or voluntary

Dorsal System: which is comprised of parts of the frontal eye fields and also parts of the parietal lobe and this is involved in top-down visuospatial orienting (voluntary)

Ventral System: which includes the parts of the ventral frontal cortex and this system is important for bottom-up reorienting

Mediated by acetylcholine

Question 23

Executive Control Network

Answer 23

Important for top-down control over the other systems, it helps to prioritise that information that is important for current goals and also the voluntary control over the current focus of attention

Fronto-Parietal: which is important for moment-to-moment aspects of completing a task so like starting or stopping

Cingulo-Percular: which helps in terms of task set maintenance

Mediated by Dopamine

Question 24

What are frontal eye fields important for?

Answer 24

Voluntary eye movements, gaze shifts, and covert visuospatial attention

Participate in the top-down guidance of attention

Question 25

Ventral Attention Network and Dorsal Network difference in involvement

Answer 25

The dorsal network is primarily involved in that voluntary control of spatial attention

The ventral network which is involved in stimulus-driven attention and in particular detecting novelty and attentional reorienting

Question 26

What is the Superior Colliculus important for?

Answer 26

Detecting and shifting attention to salient locations via reflexive eye movements

Question 27

What is the Pulvinar of the thalamus important for?

Answer 27

Covert and overt engagement of spatial attention, and filtering distracting information

greater activation in the Pulvinar when distraction is high

Question 28

What does the injection of GABA do to the Pulvinar?

Answer 28

Disrupts shifting of covert attention