Chapter 5: Attention Flashcards
What is Unilateral neglect syndrome
result of damage to the parietal cortex, patients ignore all inputs coming from one side of the body. Most of the time the right parietal cortex.
Define inattentional blindness
You only see/hear things where when you pay attention, rest falls away
What is dichotic listing?
Attended and unattended channel
What is a exception for inattention blindness audiotory?
Due to lowered threshold on detectors you can hear your name on the unattended channel, know whether is was voice or music. Also called Cocktailparty effect
What is selective attention?
the skill through which a person focuses on one input or task while ignoring other stimuli. Implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others
What is shadowing and what is it’s purpose?
repeating back a stimuli (which is close to perfect), focusing attention there on, proving that other stimuli will often not be given attention to/noted
What is inattentional blindness (what can be the result?
people fail to see a prominent stimuli even when starting at it
What happens with inattentional blindness?
So absorbed in other thoughts they become blind to otherwise important stimuli
Define change blindness
inability to detect changes in scenes people are looking at (due to limited resources changes are not detected)
What is the early-selection hypothesis?
Unattended input is not analysed or hardly; unattended input receives little analysis and is therefore never perceived/concious while attended input gets priority
What is the late-selection hypothesis?
All inout is analysed but we are only aware of the attend input ;
Both attended and unattended input are analysed and selection occurs after analysis
Is there a proof for either early- of late- selection hypothesis?
No, different researches show different findings. (Müller-Lyers illusion for example and brain activity) => Both true.
How does selection depends on resources?
Complex stimuli involve more effort, leading to early selection while easy stimuli involve less effort, leading to late selection
What is the function of priming?
Lowering threshold of detector leading to easier recognition. “you know what to expect”
Give the two types of priming:
Stimulus and expectation
Define stimulus/repition-based priming
stimulus warms up detector => when same stimulus is presented, reaction is faster; costs no resources
Define expectation-based priming
expectation warms up detectors => when expectation is met reaction is faster; does have a cost
Define the limited-capacity system and where it came from;
There is a limit in the amount of resources mentally, you cannot do more than your resources allow.
Why is there a cost associated with being misled by expectation based priming?
You spend some resources on the expected detector, which makes you divide less resources over the other detectors, making you worse off than no priming. Refocussing costs 50ms.
Spatial attention:
When you expect a stimuli in a direction you pay spatial attention there, you will notice faster.
Attention is based on:
both object-based and location-based
Which three brain systems are involved in attention? And where are they located?
Orienting system, alerting system, executive system. All around the brain.
What does the orienting system? (3)
disengages attention from a target, shifts it and engages attention to new target
What does the alerting system?
achieves and maintains alert state
