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PSYC 445 Phillips > Attention > Flashcards

Attention Flashcards

1
Q

What are the two different kinds of attention?

A
  1. attention due to a novel event

2. deliberate attention to focus on a boring task

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2
Q

What are the general categories of attention?

A
  1. alterness/arousal
  2. vigilance/sustained attention
  3. selective attention
  4. divided attention
  5. resource of effort required
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3
Q

What is the biggest setback with attention?

A

It is inherently limited

- attention is resource dependent

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4
Q

Describe from the top down the attentional processes.

A

resource of effort required, divided attention, selective attention, vigilance/sustained attention, alertness/arousal

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5
Q

What brain regions are involved in attention?

A
  1. reticular activating system (RAS)
  2. superior and inferior colliculi
  3. thalamus
  4. parietal lobe
  5. anterior cingulate cortex
  6. frontal lobe
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6
Q

Which brain areas are associated with bottom up processes?

A
  1. RAS
  2. Superior and Inferior colliculi
  3. thalamus
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7
Q

Which brain areas are associated with top down processes?

A
  1. Parietal lobe
  2. anterior cingulate cortex
  3. frontal lobe
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8
Q

Define attention.

A

The process of selecting information for further processing

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9
Q

What is the multiple resource theory?

A

Attention is less effortful if stimuli are from two different modalities (ex. listening and looking)

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10
Q

At its fundamental level, what is happening when we are aroused by something?

A

A novel event/stimulation has captured our attention

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11
Q

What is sustained attention?

A

Our ability to focus on a task for a long period of time

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12
Q

Which brain structure is most involved in levels of arousal?

A

The reticular activating system

- involved in sleep-wake cycles

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13
Q

Describe the two paths of the RAS?

A
  1. dorsal system:
    - projects to the thalamus
    - is a Cholinergic system (effort for sustained attention; positive relationship(?))
  2. ventral system:
    - projects to the forebrain
    • raphe nucleus (serotonin system)
      • stress related arousal (PTSD)
    • locus coeruleus (norepinephrine system)
      • readiness to receive information
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14
Q

Describe the projection of information from the reticular activating system to the cortex? What is its primary neurotransmitter?

A

RAS > thalamus > cortex

- primary NT is glutamate

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15
Q

What is the pulvinar associated with?

A

Selective attention

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16
Q

What happens if the reticular activating system is damaged?

A

This leads to a coma

- coma = severe deficit in arousal

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17
Q

Describe more specifically what selective attention is?

A

Having multiple environmental inputs and selecting one to pay attention to (ex. finding a friend in a crowd)

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18
Q

Is selective attention top-down or bottom-up?

A

It is a bottom-up process (if the stimulus is novel) and top-down (when choosing what should be most important to focus on)

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19
Q

What happens to our attention if we are exposed to two identical stimuli close in time?

A

At first, the stimulus is novel and so we pay attention to it, but if an identical stimulus is presented again, since we have already selected for it, we can move on to other stimuli processing

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20
Q

What would be a late mechanism of selection?

A

The cocktail effect

- it is identified and then excluded

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21
Q

How can we modulate sensory input?

A

By directing attention (ex. either to the right ear or to the left)
- performance is enhanced when attention is directed to a stimulus

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22
Q

How quickly does attention act?

A

Between 80-100 milliseconds

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23
Q

What is bottom-up attention?

A

When a novel stimulus is presented unexpectedly to cause our attention to direct towards it automatically

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24
Q

What are the superior and inferior colliculi responsible for?

A

Automatically orienting towards stimuli in the visual and auditory modalities respectively

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25
Q

What is the superior colliculus activated by?

A

By visual stimuli as well as multisensory stimuli

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26
Q

Can we direct our attention without looking?

A

Yes

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27
Q

How quickly do voluntary saccades occur?

A

between 200-300 milliseconds

- this is willfully looking at something

28
Q

What is the inferior colliculus responsible for?

A

Orienting to stimuli in the auditory modality but is also involved in multisensory integration

29
Q

What are express saccades?

A

Automatic quick eye movements (approximately 120 milliseconds)

30
Q

What parts of the thalamus are involved in attention?

A
  1. lateral geniculate nucleus

2. pulvinar

31
Q

What is the role of the LGN in attention?

A
  • it is the visual relay centre in the thalamus (VA1)

- is is the gatekeeper - it either enhances or suppresses information depending on relevancy

32
Q

What is the role of the pulvinar in attention?

A

It aids in attention between cortical regions that are relevant; aids in synchronizing activity between those brain regions and therefore allows for integration of information

33
Q

What parts of the parietal lobe aid in attentional functions?

A
  1. superior parietal lobule
  2. inferior parietal lobule
  3. internal parietal sulcus
34
Q

Describe the role of the parietal lobe in general to attention?

A

It is responsible for allocation of attentional resources to a task

35
Q

What is the role of the superior and inferior parietal lobules?

A

Visual and spatial aspects of attention

  • superior parietal lobule = top down process
  • inferior parietal lobule = bottom up processes
36
Q

What is the role of the internal parietal sulcus?

A

It integrates top-down and bottom-up streams

37
Q

What is one way we can think of attention (in reference to space)?

A

Attention is the glue that lets you know a particular item is at a particular location in space

38
Q

What is the feature integration theory?

A

Directing attention to particular points in space; allows the feature of an item at that location to be bound together

39
Q

What is attention switching?

A

The ability to switch attention from one stimulus to another

40
Q

What is hemispatial neglect?

A

The inability to process spatial information contralateral to the lesion

41
Q

What is BA8?

A

Frontal eye fields

42
Q

Describe the Posner paradigm.

A
  • visual display with fixation cross, need to determine where target happened
  • target appears where cube lights up 75% of the time (i.e. it is a valid cue of where the target will be); 25% of the time it is an invalid cue (the cube lights up on the opposite side of the target)
  • requires disengagement, movement, and reengagement of attention
43
Q

What are the results of the Posner paradigm?

A

People are slower when the cue is invalid
- people with parietal lesions are especially bad when the cue is invalid and the target is contralateral to the cue (and the cue is ipsilateral) (< this happens due to a difficulty in shifting attention)

44
Q

What are the conclusions of the Posner paradigm?

A
  1. pulvinar is responsible for engagement of attention
  2. superior parietal lobe = disengagement/switching attention
  3. superior colliculus = moving/orienting attention
45
Q

What is the cingulate cortex involved in, when it comes to attention?

A

It is involved in executive control and working memory, as well as selection of appropriate responses
example: the stroop word task (two responses are competing for output)

46
Q

Which activates the cingulate cortex more: hard response mapping, or easy response mapping?

A

Hard response mapping

47
Q

Describe the attention network task (ANT) paradigm.

A

Its goal is to pull apart networks of attention using the same task as the Posner paradigm

  • subjects fixate their eyes on a centre cross
  • target appears above or below the fixation point (causing it to be a valid or invalid cue)
  • a middle arrow indicates the direction of the required response, but it is surrounded by either congruent or incongruent distractors
  • the cue possibilities are: no cue, centre cue, double cue or spatial cue
48
Q

In the ANT paradigm, what does it mean when the response to no cue is subtracted from the response to a double cue?

A

The alerting attention network is activated (the thalamus), because no information is given as to where the target will be located

49
Q

In the ANT paradigm, what does it mean when the response to centre cue is subtracted from the response to a spatial cue or a double cue?

A

The orienting attention network is activated (the parietal lobe). This is because the cue is sometimes valid at predicting where the target will be located

50
Q

In the ANT paradigm, what happens when the reaction from an incongruent distractor is subtracted from the reaction of a congruent distractor?

A

The executive/conflict network is activated (the anterior cingulate cortex). This is because the top-down conflict of which response is required means responding to the appropriate arrow

51
Q

Describe the Mesulam distributed model of attentional control.

A
  • hypothesis was generated by observing deficits of brain lesions
  • this model says that attention is a distributed network
52
Q

In Mesulam’s model, what is each brain area involved in attention responsible for?

A
  1. RAS - arousal/vigilance
  2. Cingulate cortex - spatial distribution of attention due to motivation
  3. Posterior parietal - sensory map of the environment
  4. frontal lobe - exploratory movements
53
Q

Describe Posner and Rothbart’s model of attentional control.

A
  • it is a bottom-up process
  • alerting helps us maintain sensitivity to information (tonic & plastic)
  • orienting aligns attention with the source of sensory information, and selects between multiple inputs
  • executive function controls the attention towards goals and desires
54
Q

Describe Corbetta and Shulman’s model of attentional control.

A

There are two subsystems involved in attentional control:

  1. the dorsal subsystem
    - this is a top-down modulation which prepares and applies goal-directed selection of stimuli and responses
  2. the ventral subsystem
    - this is a bottom up modulation which acts as a circuit breaker for detecting behaviourally relevant stimuli and is right hemisphere dominant
55
Q

What is contralateral neglect?

A

The inability to direct attention to space, while maintaining perfect sensory and motor capabilities

56
Q

What brain area, when, if damaged, leads to contralateral neglect?

A

Damage to the right parietal lobe

57
Q

What kinds of input are neglected in contralateral neglect?

A

All sensory modalities are neglected
- example: the visual modality is affected because the patient only sees from the midline to the left visual field, however, standing on the left side and calling out someone’s name will generate a response, though doing the same thing ipsilaterally to the damage will be ignored

58
Q

Is neglect only specific to external stimuli?

A

No, patients with neglect will fail to pay attention in their spatial memories as well

59
Q

How is reading difficult for people who have neglect?

A

Because words that can be subdivided (like hotdog) are read only as dog; though words like miscarriage will be read as carriage, because rriage is not a word

60
Q

What are the implications of the study of the cathedral in the piazza Milan?

A
  • memory is intact
  • neglect is not simply external
  • a hypothesis generated from this experiment suggests that stimuli on the non-neglected side are too salient, and therefore demand the full attention of the individual
61
Q

What is anosognosia?

A

A denial of the deficit of neglect

- this is a fundamental challenge with neglect, because there is a lack of awareness of the neglect

62
Q

What is simultaneous extinction?

A

The fact that, when stimulated on both sides of attention, contralateral neglect always chooses the dominant side (usually the right side)

63
Q

What is the default mode network?

A

It is a representation of brain networks; the brain’s default activity when it is not engaged in a task (i.e. just sitting and thinking).

64
Q

What is the default mode network involved in?

A
  • autobiographical memory retrieval
  • envisioning the future
  • imagining the perspectives of others
65
Q

What happens when the default mode network is disregulated?

A
  • When the degree to which these brain networks are highly correlated, the result is schizophrenia
  • when these networks are have a low correlation, the result is autism and Alzheimer’s

PSYC 445 Phillips (13 decks)

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