Attention Flashcards
(11 cards)
What is attention?
A cognitive process that selects certain sensory information for processing while ignoring others.
What did William James say about attention?
It is the mind’s ability to focus on one of several things and withdraw from the rest.
What are the types of attention?
Top-down (goal-directed), bottom-up (stimulus-driven), covert, overt, divided.
What is the cocktail party effect?
Ability to focus on one voice in a noisy room (Cherry, 1953).
What did Hillyard et al. (1971) find?
ERP N1 was larger for attended sounds.
What did Van Voorhis & Hillyard (1977) show?
P1 component increased for attended visual locations.
What did Mesgarani & Chang (2012) find?
Auditory cortex encodes only attended speaker in mixed input.
What role does the PFC play in attention?
Controls attention signals and modulates thalamic gating.
What is the role of the thalamus in attention?
Acts as a sensory gate via the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN).
What does the superior colliculus do?
Supports rapid orienting to stimuli; spatial attention map.
What are the dorsal and ventral attention networks?
Dorsal = top-down; Ventral = bottom-up (Corbetta & Shulman, 2002).
