Matt Roser L3

Question 1

What is attention?

Answer 1

The preferential treatment/selection of a subset of that information

Question 2

Broadbent’s model (1958)?

Answer 2

Selective attention - top-down selection of relevant inputs at an early stage of processing

Question 3

What study looks at attention in space and its evidence for early selective attenuation?

Answer 3

Posner’s cueing paradigm

Question 4

In Posner’s cueing paradigm, what does it suggest when the valid condition showed quicker RTs?

Answer 4

It suggests that stimuli presented were preferentially processed

Question 5

What is ERP?

Answer 5

Event-related potentials - recordings of brain activity that are linked to the occurrence of an event; derived from an EEG

Question 6

What happens to attention when shown central, symbolic cues? Validity effects?

Answer 6

It evokes voluntary shifts in attention - validity effects show up with long SOAs

Question 7

What is SOA and what does it mean?

Answer 7

Stimulus onset asynchronies - the delay between the presentation of the cue and the presentation of the target

Question 8

What happens to attention when shown peripheral, non-symbolic cues? Validity effects?

Answer 8

It evokes reflexive shifts in attention - validity effects show up with short SOAs.

Question 9

How are targets with single features identified?

Answer 9

preattentively

Question 10

How are targets defined by feature conjunctions identified?

Answer 10

serial attention

Question 11

What is a strategy used to increase the efficiency of serial visual search?

Answer 11

Guided visual search - restriction to subsets

Question 12

Hemispatial neglect (damage + impact)

Answer 12

right parietal damage - manifests as neglect of contralesional space (usually left side) - also deficit is present in visual memories (egocentric reference frame).

Question 13

Attention selects information for preferential processing in a number of ways (3):

Answer 13

spatial location, item attributes and objects

Question 14

what type of process is attention?

Answer 14

It is a modulatory process, it influences the processing of distinct brain modules, ramping up activity when processing information is attentionally relevant

Question 15

What do FMRI studies tell us about attention in the brain?

Answer 15

Multiple regions are activated and linked via reciprocal connections through the thalamus

Question 16

What might attention lead to prior to stimulus input?

Answer 16

Synchronisation of neural firing

Question 17

What is top-down modulation?

Answer 17

The ability to focus attention on task-relevant stimuli and ignore irrelevant distractions

Question 18

What are the 3 main attentional networks in the brain?

Answer 18

Alerting (high state of sensitivity), orienting (source of sensory signal) and executive (goals)

Question 19

What do executive functions do? (2)

Answer 19

Give organisation and order to our actions and behaviour, govern a number of domains (cognitive, linguistic and motor)

Question 20

Examples of executive functions (5):

Answer 20

representing/maintaining goals, planning for the future, inhibiting/delaying responding, initiating behaviour & shifting between activities flexibly.

Question 21

3 characteristics of PFC neuroanatomy

Answer 21

Late phylogenesis (evolutionary system), Late ontogenesis (developmental history) and Highly interconnected with virtually all brain areas

Question 22

What do dorsolateral lesions lead to?

Answer 22

frontal executive syndrome

Question 23

What can ventromedial damage lead to?

Answer 23

Problems with emotional control

Question 24

Problems associated with frontal executive damage

Answer 24

problems in planning, difficulties adapting to new situations and withdrawal from social situations

Question 25

What part of the brain, if damaged, sees dramatic impacts on working memory? What is the impact on rules?

Answer 25

Dorsolateral Prefrontal cortex - unable to flexibly attend to a change in sorting rules due to impacts to working memory

Question 26

Goal setting and patients with frontal brain damage:

Answer 26

Fixation on a less important sub-goal without consideration of other goals, often leading to failure of the overarching goal

Question 27

Working memory impact on goals

Answer 27

WM allows information to be selected, maintained and manipulated to support coherent goal-directed behaviour

Question 28

How are interactions between frontally-mediated WM systems and posterior processing areas governed?

Answer 28

As task difficulty increases the anterior cingulate gyrus becomes increasingly active

Question 29

What does the anterior cingulate do?

Answer 29

It monitors environment, one's behaviour and the relationship between the two

Question 30

How does the anterior cingulate keep behaviour on track?

Answer 30

Environment/behaviour relationships are thought to be encoded as schemata, providing a top-down influence on the schema that is applied to a situation

Question 31

What does the anterior cingulate do when an error has been made?

Answer 31

It sends a signal called Error-Related Negativity (ERN)

Question 32

How does the anterior cingulate avoid errors?

Answer 32

It works hard when doing tasks, for example, Stroop tasks, and works to inhibit habitual responses

Question 33

What is a neural substrate?

Answer 33

A term to indicate a certain part of the nervous system responsible for a certain behaviour, cognitive process or psychological state

Question 34

What is Domasio's somatic marker hypothesis?

Answer 34

Bodily sensations (e.g. emotions) act as a heuristic guide to making decisions

Question 35

Which cortex is involved in emotional processing?

Answer 35

The ventromedial cortex

Question 36

Lesions to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex often result in (6):

Answer 36

- Reduced inhibition of effect (Rude/hostile) - Deficits in reversal learning - Myopia (impulsivity) - respond to momentary hedonic tendencies - Impaired reward expectation - Impaired long-term planning - Impaired at maintaining healthy social/professional life

Question 37

What are hedonistic tendencies?

Answer 37

Consumption of goods and services to seek satisfaction and pleasure

Question 38

Posterior to anterior gradient of control who and what are the levels (4):

Answer 38

Koechlin & Summerfield 2007 The selection of processing is based on sensory information, contextual information, current episode and finally context of prior episodes or events (Branching -> episodic -> contextual -> sensory)

Question 39

Posterior to anterior gradient of control by abstraction - who and explain?

Answer 39

Badre 2008 Posterior regions of the prefrontal cortex implement control on the basis of more concrete dimensions which become more abstract as one moves in the anterior direction (context -> dimension -> feature ->response conflict)

Question 40

What is the positioning of the subregion on the PFC that deals with inhibition?

Answer 40

Ventral

Question 41

What is the positioning of the subregion on the PFC that deals with maintenance and manipulation

Answer 41

Lateral

Question 42

Attention to a particular class of objects may manifest in an fMRI study as:

Answer 42

Increased or decreased activity in separate ventro-temporal brain areas when contrasting object class conditions