quiz 3 - attention

Question 1

what is the dorsal attention network functions?

Answer 1

associated with orienting and maintaining attention toward relevant external information

Question 2

what regions are involved in the DAN

Answer 2

intraparietal sulcus (superior parietal lobule) - IPS/SPL
frontal eye fields (FEF)
supplementary eye fields (SEF)
posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)

Question 3

what is the biased competition model

Answer 3

argues that objects in the visual field compete for cortical representation and cognitive processing, suggesting that attention is limited
- attention biases are more useful in larger useful receptive fields because there are more objects

Question 4

rank the size of receptive fields in each visual area from smallest to largest

Answer 4

V1 -> V2 -> V4 -> MT -> IT

Question 5

what is unilateral spatial neglect

Answer 5

patients do not react to environmental stimuli originating from the contralateral side of a brain lesion - usually caused by damage to right parietal (left side neglect)
- attention problem

Question 6

lateral geniculate nucleus vs the pulvinar nucleus

Answer 6

LGN
- receives 90% of fibers through the retinogeniculate pathway
- primary relay from retina to V1, direct projections

pulvinar
- receives 10% of fibers through tectopulvinar pathway
- higher order thalamic nucleus with more extensive network of connections, indirect projections

Question 7

what is the Posner cueing task & what is the theory behind it

Answer 7

1. participants asked to detect target stimulus when detected and respond to it
2. cues (exogenous or endogenous) in/validly cue the target

theory - “attentional spotlight”, enhanced visual processing occurs at the cued area because attention has been oriented
- valid cues response faster, invalid slower

Question 8

inhibition of return definition

Answer 8

when we attend to a location, the visual system tends to avoid returning attention to that area for a brief amount of time afterward

Question 9

pharmacologically boosting GABAergic transmission in the LEFT pulvinar nucleus has what kind of effect in the Posner cueing task? and why?

Answer 9

slower target detection when validly cued to the right visual field BECAUSE pulvinar nucleus involved in attention control, and boosting GABA inhibits the process

Question 10

what is the frontal eye fields function and when do they fire?

Answer 10

FEFs involved in cognitive aspect of eye movement control, primarily represent contralateral space
fire for visual stimuli in contralateral field & saccadic eye movement made to those stimuli

Question 11

what is the right temporoparietal junction’s function (and what is the left TPJ)?

Answer 11

shifting attention to unexpected (invalid) stimuli, reorienting attention

left = language processing & ToM

Question 12

what are the effects of pulvinar nucleus lesion

Answer 12

unilateral spatial neglect