Attention and Consciousness

Question 1

What is attention - At the psychological level?

Answer 1

Preferential allocation of processing resources to specific environmental stimuli

Question 2

What is attention - At the neural level?

Answer 2

Alternations in the selectivity, intensity, and duration of neuronal responses to those stimuli

Question 3

Structure analogies: Filing Cabinet

Answer 3

The hippocampus

Question 4

Structure Analogies: Reward/Prize

Answer 4

Nucleus Accumbens

Question 5

Structure analogies: Long-term storage

Answer 5

Neocortex

Question 6

Structure analogies: Alarm

Answer 6

Amygdala

Question 7

Alertness

Answer 7

Basic requirement of being alert/awake

Question 8

Selective attention

Answer 8

Ability to select relevant stimuli from the environment

• Mental spotlight focuses conscious awareness on limited aspect

Question 9

Vigilance/Sustained attention

Answer 9

Ability to sustain attention in the face of distractors

Question 10

Divided Attention

Answer 10

Ability to split attention towards multiple stimuli in parallel

Question 11

Overt and Covert Shifts of attention

Answer 11

• We often consciously associate changes in the focus of our spotlight as involving the movement of our eyes
• not actually necessary

Question 12

Top-Down vs Bottom-up attention

Answer 12

• Bottom-up are “sensory first”
• Top-down are “brain first”
• Influence each other
• Not a matter of which, so much as when and in which direction

Question 13

Vigilance can be: _______ or ___________-specific

Answer 13

Stimuli or person-specific

Question 14

Vigilance: Stimulus example

Answer 14

Think about sustained attention for something

e.g. social media

Question 15

Vigilance: Person-Specific example

Answer 15

ADHD children have challenging time remaining vigilant in the face of any distractor

or

Anxious individuals show greater vigilance for anxiety approaching stimuli

Question 16

How is divided attention often assessed?

Answer 16

Dichotic listening tasks

Question 17

Are perception and consciousness the same thing?

Answer 17

No

Question 18

Inattentional Blindness

Answer 18

Much information that enters our perception never makes it way into consciousness

Question 19

Change blindness - Example study

Answer 19

While a man provides directions to construction worker, two experimenters rudely pass between carrying a door, man switches out

50% of people do not notice the switch

Question 20

Blindsight

Answer 20

• Cortically blind due to extensive damage to V1
• patients can report above chance bright lights or shapes, they can’t actually report having seen
• Do not have access to visual perception, but will give the correct answer
• Perceive left and right separately

Question 21

Visual system: Low road

Answer 21

• Evolutionarily primitive
• Simple
• reflexive
• Faster

Question 22

Visual System: High road

Answer 22

• Evolutionarily newer
• More complicated
• Less reflexive
• This is what is damaged in blindsight

Question 23

Standard “high road” visual processing stream

Answer 23

Dorsal/Ventral pathway

Question 24

Primitive, low-road processing stream

Answer 24

reticular activating system

Question 25

Subliminal processing

Answer 25

- Stimuli we do not see, still get in - Blindsight is the opposite of this

Question 26

Blindsight is evidence of what?

Answer 26

Attention and consciousness are not the same thing

Question 27

What is consciousness?

Answer 27

Strange paradox, hard to define - Definition relates to state or content

Question 28

State of consciousness

Answer 28

Relates to "what IS consciousness" Philosophy, psychology, perhaps neuroscience

Question 29

Content of consciousness

Answer 29

Relates to "what REACHES consciousness" Cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience

Question 30

Does all brain activity stop when unconscious?

Answer 30

No in fact, some brain regions activate and increase when unconcsious

Question 31

What areas are active when unconscious?

Answer 31

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex Posterior parietal cortex Medial frontal cortex Posterior cingulate

Question 32

Training phase - Study

Answer 32

- Showed coma pts. Images, ask them to adjust brain activity based on stimuli - If red square, do this, blink eye (can't actually blink eye, but motor cortex that could activate successfully - Yes region, no region, ask questions

Question 33

Quality of consciousness

Answer 33

Potential objective qualities of individual stimuli

Question 34

Qualia of Consciousness

Answer 34

Subjective quality of individual experience e.g. way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a rose