Attention (lec. 7 + 8)

Question 1

Attention according to William James

Answer 1

““Everyone knows what attention is …. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state which…is called distraction”. Attention is best understood in terms of what it does rahter than what it is.

Question 2

Neural mechanisms of attention

Answer 2

A network of regions across frontal and parietal lobes:
- Intraparietal sulcus and lobule (Ips/IPL): controlled, preparing to attention and setting goals
- temporoparietal junction (TPJ)
- frontal eye fields (FEF)
- ventral frontal cortex (VFC): automatic attentional orienting

Question 3

Divisions of attention

Answer 3

• Endogenous attention: When an individual chooses what to pay attention to (goals and intention). Top-down processing, in intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and FEF
• Exogenous attention: When stimuli in the environment drives us to pay attention. Bottom-up processing, in temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and VFC

Question 4

Spatial neglect

Answer 4

• Damage to the right hemisphere, ventral parietal cortex
• Deficits in spatial attention and egocentric representations in contralateral field of view, cannot attend or report stimuli on opposite side of lesion
• Left side of the world is out of awareness (read only words on the right side, eat from one side of the plate, describe half of imaginations and memories, etc.). The deficit is present across different sensory modalities (not just vision)
• Severity can be modulated by behavioral interventions over short timescales (ex. training to increase alertness)

Question 5

Balint Syndrome

Answer 5

Bilateral parietal and occipital lobe damage. Symptoms:
1. Optic ataxia: problems with grasping or visual control.
2. Oculomotor apraxia: Inability voluntarily shiftgaze.
3. Simultanagnosia: Inability to identify or use more than one object in a scene.
Patients can’t focus on more than one thing. They can see local features but struggle to see global feature.

Question 6

Top-down attention types

Answer 6

• Sustained attention: maintain focus on one input for a long period of time, vigilance
• Divided attention: shifting attentional focus between tasks, multi-tasking
• Selective attention: focus on one input and ignore other information

Question 7

Selective attention

Answer 7

We have limited information processing resources, we must prioritize what to process. This will depend on goal (what you want to attend to). Theories on how that happens:
1. Early selection filter models
2. Attenuator
3. Late selection filter models
4. Load theory

Question 8

Broadbent’s early selection filter mode

Answer 8

You filter information at the level of perception, before information
is processed for meaning (semantic analysis). You select information via perception (spatial location, frequency of
sound). Selected information is processed for meaning, it enters awareness. Thr information not selected by the filter decays and is not processed for meaning

Question 9

Dichotic listening tasks

Answer 9

Present two simultaneous messages to each ear . Participants are better to recall ear by ear than the simultaneous message. Conclusion: information is selected for attention, during initial perception

Question 10

Dichotonic listening: shadowing task

Answer 10

People do not remember the content of an unattended message, but they notice some sensory features (ex. a new noise, the gender of the speaker, etc.). This provides vidence that unattended information is not processed for meaning but we still percieve it.

Question 11

Evidence against early selection

Answer 11

• In certain situations, during the dichotonic listening task, un-attended information can “break through”. For example, at a party, you can attend to one conversation, yet hear your name if spoken in a non-attended-to conversation
• Participants were presented with a word (ex., apple) paired with a shock. They were asked to attend the words in one ear, but if the shocked word (apple) was presented in the unattended ear, the participant had increased skin conductance (proof of a reaction to unattended words).

Question 12

Treisman’s attenuator model

Answer 12

An early filter dials down the influence of unattended material. Some aspects of unattended material to be processed for meaning

Question 13

Late selection filter models

Answer 13

We process input to the level of the meaning, and then select what we want to process further

Question 14

Controlled and automatic tasks

Answer 14

• Controlled tasks: Those that require effort and voluntary top-down attention. Ex. for Stroop: naming the color of the ‘ink’ (different from the name of the color)
• Automatic tasks: Those that are highly familiar and well-practiced and do not require voluntary top-down attention. Ex. for Stroop: reading color names (does require access meaning, but done automatically
  For the Stroop taks, there can be congruent trials (ink and color name match) and incongruent trials (don’t match; resulting in slower processing)

Question 15

Stroop task and late selection filter models

Answer 15

For the interference effect to occur on the Stroop task, you must process the written color name (unattended information) for the meaning

Question 16

Removing automatic processing

Answer 16

• Hypnotized English-speaking participants to think color names were meaningless (removes the automatic processing of meaning of the words)
• Result: No Stroop interference effect!

Question 17

The load theory

Answer 17

Attentional filtering (selection) can occur at different points of processing. Filter placement will depend on how much of your resources are required for your current task: If low resource load, we process non-attended information to a later stage. If high resource load, we process non-attended information only to an early stage

Question 18

Load theory, early vs. late filter

Answer 18

• Early filter: A difficult task with a high load: We process all information (relevant and irrelevant) only to the level of perception. Our attention is selected early and is focused.
• Late filter: An easier task with a low load. We process all information (relevant and irrelevant) to the level of meaning. Our attention is selected later, we process irrelevant information for meaning

Question 19

To ways to define load

Answer 19

• Central resource capacity view: One resource pool from which all attention resources are allocated
• Multiple resource capacity view: Multiple resources from which attention resources are allocated. Attentional load depend on the match between the relevant and
  irrelevant information. For example, attentional capacity is reached sooner if relevant and irrelevant information are from the same modality.

Question 20

Support for different views

Answer 20

• Central resource capacity view: Visual driving simulator task under two audio load conditions. Low load: driving with no radio. High load: driving and listening to the radio. The detection of the visual target was worse in high load condition
• Multiple resource capacity view: Listen to people speaking. Low load: Determine if the words spoken in a loud or quiet voice. High load: Listen for bisyllabic words among mon– and tri-syllabic words. Participants were presented visual distractors ; measured neural visual processing. There was no difference in processing between load condition

Question 21

Change blindness

Answer 21

• The failure to detect changes in stimuli
• Continuity errors in film: we (and filmmakers) fail to see objects that are different in the same scene (shot in several takes)

Question 22

Flicker technique paradigm

Answer 22

• Two similar visual images (e.g., scenes; A, A’) are presented with an interstimulus “mask” (I)
• Across trials, small changes are made to the images (e.g., removal of window)
• Participants asked if something changed between the images
• Result: people are inaccurate

Question 23

Inattentional blindness

Answer 23

• Change blindness is the inability to detect changes in a scene
• Inattentional blindness is not noticing something new in your
  focus of attention. It’s a failure to attend to new or unexpected events in attended-to environment. For example, a deer jumps in front of your car; you don’t notice it even though you are attending to that space (the road)

Question 24

Measuring inattentional blindness

Answer 24

Participants are shown black screens with white crosses and are asked to determine which cross arm is longer. In the critical trials, a small white square is included next to the cross (in the attentional space). Participants were later asked if they saw this white square, and many said “no”. However, if you replace the white square with the words and then ask the participants to complete a word puzzle, they show evidence of having perceived the word, even without knowing it.

Question 25

Functions of and ways to measure attention

Answer 25

1. Pre-activating attention and the Posner spatial cuing task
2. Integrating features and visual search
3. Embodied theories of attention and measuring eye movements

Question 26

Activating attention

Answer 26

Posner’s (1980) attentional spotlight theory: attention is about focusing on space and ignoring what is located ‘outside’ of the focused space. When moving the attentional spotlight, we disengage from tje current focus and shift to another area. Attention for pre-activating processing shifts

Question 27

The Posner cueing task

Answer 27

1. Fixation display: Fixate on the center a screen
2. Cue Display: A ‘space’ cue directs attention to an area
3. Target Display: Reaction time to detect the target is measured. The target appears in the same location as the cue display in valid trials and in a different location in invalid trials. Reaction times to valid trials area are faster than to invalid trials

Question 28

SOA in Posner cueing task

Answer 28

Stimuli onset asynchrony: the time between the cue and target. Short time interval (SOA) < 200 ms. Long time interval (SOA) ~ 300 ms

Question 29

IOR in Posner cueing task

Answer 29

• Inhibition of return (IOR): attention is inhibited from going to a recently attended space after a long duration between space cue and target (SOA)
• Adaptative, it helps us search our environment efficiently

Question 30

Integrating features

Answer 30

Attention needed to integrate features to perceive and find objects. Demonstrates interplay of perception and attention. Feature-based attention evident during visual search tasks. Two types of attention for these tasks:
* Pre-attention phase: Object features are separately coded. Bottom-up processing, automatic
* Focused attention phase: Object features are integrated to guide a search. Top-down processing, voluntary attention

Question 31

Visual search tasks

Answer 31

• Feature Search: Search for an object that differs from the distractors based on one feature. Bottom-up attention (automatic)
• Conjunction Search: Search for an object that differs from distractors across many features. Top-down attention (voluntary). The display set size influences reaction time.

Question 32

The pop out effect

Answer 32

• Time to find a target that is different by one feature from distractors is independent of the number of distractors (set size)
• ONLY for features processed automatically in the visual cortex

Question 33

Embodied theories of attention

Answer 33

• Eye movements detect visual attentional goals
• Overt visual attention (attending to something with your eye movements)
• Covert visual attention (attending to something without eye movements)

Question 34

Cultural differences in visual attention

Answer 34

Eye movements as two groups (Western, East Asian) attended to images with a central object (tiger, airplane) and background (mountain, forest). East Asian focus more on background (and Western and East Asian focus on object the same amount)

Question 35

Sustained vs. divided attention

Answer 35

• Sustained attention: The ability to focus on one task. Vigilance or concentration. Ex. baggage scanners at the airport
• Divided attention: The ability to attend to more than one task; Multi-tasking. Ex. restaurant servers who take order, collect payment, etc.

Question 36

Divided attention: Task switching

Answer 36

Changing from working on one task to working on another task. Involves using top-down processes to switch between mental sets associated with each task.
Mental sets: method of organizing information based on the goals. A tendency in how you approach situations or solve a task. Switching it requires attention, experiments show that switching causes a decline in performance (reaction time, accuracy). The attentional system must be ‘re-set’ to engage the next task.

Question 37

Attentional capture

Answer 37

• Bottom-up cues (these are automatically processed)
• Examples: The sound of a car crashing; sirens. Seeing a mouse scurry in the corner of a room
• It is about surprise or a prediction error. It happens to information that is important for survival (it’s adaptive for this information to be automatically processed)
• Many of these cues (salient colors, faces, human bodies, etc.) have functionally specialized processing regions in the brain.

Question 38

What capture’s attention?

Answer 38

Fearful stimuli, many with evolutionary roots (the ‘preparedness premise’, ex. snakes; evoke fear-network response in the brain centering on the amygdala)
* Personally relevant stimuli, such as our names
* Addictive stimuli for individuals, ex. cigarettes capture attention for smokers

Question 39

Measuring attentional capture

Answer 39

We can use a modified go-no-go task: A ‘signal’ (circle) is presented under three conditions – superimposed in faces, objects, or nothing.
* Go Trial: When the signal is green, indicate if there is a vertical line is on the left or right of the image
* No-go Trial: When the signal is red, press a task neutral button, do nothing
One study showed that the presence of human faces slowed down attentional processes for the go/no-go task because they capture attention.

Question 40

General questions about attention

Answer 40

• How does attention affect what you perceive and remember?
• How can knowledge about attention help us learn about and treat attention deficit conditions?
• What are you missing in your life because you weren’t paying attention?