Attention

Question 1

What is Attention?

Answer 1

1. Selective prioritization of the neuronal representation that are most relevant to one’s current behavioral goals.
2. Task performance is faster and more accurate when subjects attend to the right place at right time.

Question 2

What are two kinds of Attention?

Answer 2

1. Involuntary (stimulus driven)
2. Voluntary (goal-directed)

Question 3

What does attention depend on?

Answer 3

1. The voluntary (top-down) attention depends on prefrontal and parietal cortex networks.

Question 4

What does the parietal cortex correlate with?

Answer 4

1. Attention paid to objects

Question 5

Involuntary (bottom-up) attention

Answer 5

1. Depends on the ascending arousal system from the brain stem.

Question 6

Competition for Attention

Answer 6

1. Attention remaining for a secondary task is reduced when the primary task is more complex

Question 7

Prefrontal cortex function

Answer 7

1. Higher level decision making

Question 8

What are two examples of competition for attention?

Answer 8

1. Stroop task
2. Cocktail party effect

Question 9

Stroop task

Answer 9

1. Word of a different color than is actually being displayed.

Question 10

Cocktail party effect

Answer 10

1. Focus on single thing and ignore other stimuli

Question 11

3 neurotransmitters (ascending projections)

Answer 11

1. Noradrenaline (locus coeruleus
2. Acetylcholine (lateral tegmentum)
3. Dopamine (ventral tegmental area)

Question 12

Attentional Blink

Answer 12

1. Illustrates the temporal limitations of conscious perception.
2. A phenomenon that the second of two targets cannot be detected or identified when it appears close in time to the first.
3. Imagine driving your car down a road and you notice the car Infront of you starts to drift, your attention becomes focused on the car which limits your driving ability.

Question 13

Inattention blindness

Answer 13

1. Explains why we fail to recognize an unexpected stimulus right in front of us.
2. When a person is driving a car, they fail to notice smaller events happening around them as they focus on the road.

Question 14

What are two stimulus actions that can interfere at the level of response selection (choices to be made)

Answer 14

1. Controlled processing: Slow and attention demanding tasks cannot be performed “simultaneously”
2. Automatic processing: Fast and non attention demanding tasks do not generate much interference to each other.

Question 15

Psychological refractory period

Answer 15

1. The mind is temporarily refractory to process a second stimulus when it is still processing the first stimulus

Question 16

Prefrontal Cortex

Answer 16

1. Planning complex cognitive behavior.
2. Personality expression.
3. Decision making.

Question 17

What does automaticity allow skilled athlete’s to do?

Answer 17

1. It allows skilled athlete’s to process information about their opponents movements quickly and respond.

Question 18

Inverted-U principle

Answer 18

1. Sporting performance improves as arousal increases but there is a threshold point.
2. At low arousal, performance quality is low.
3. At high performance, past threshold, performance decreases.

Question 19

Simple vs Complex tasks (Arousal)

Answer 19

1. Simple tasks can be completed at higher levels of arousal than complex tasks can.

Question 20

How can the inverted U principle change?

Answer 20

1. Each individual person has differences in excitability and some can perform better or worse at different arousal levels.

Question 21

Noradrenaline (norepinephrine)

Answer 21

Bodies fight or flight response, increases during high arousal and may alter performance.