Unit 2 Multiple Choice and Short Answer Flashcards
(176 cards)
What are the three main educationally relevant abilities, and how do they interact?
EF is a domain general ability, while math and reading are domain specific abilities, and EF drives specialization of neural circuits for math and reading
domain general vs. domain specific
domain general areas (e.g., executive function) are applicable to many areas of life, whereas domain specific areas (e.g., math and reading) are applicable only in specific contexts
What is “cool” cognition, and where does it occur?
refers to reasoning and planning, occurs in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
What is “hot” emotional regulation, and where does it occur?
refers to aspects of social cognition and selecting appropriate behaviors (inhibition of rash, unjustifiable actions), occurs in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)
What is attention?
the ability to focus awareness on one stimulus, thought, or action with ignoring others (like a filter); many models and theories for attention exist, and some overlap, so it gets confusing
selective attention
what we attend to at any level of arousal…can be voluntary/endogenous (cued) or involuntary/exogenous (loud noise or flash of light)
2 proposed pathways of attention
- Bottom-up
- Top-down
Bottom-up pathway of attention
information from the world is filtered immediately and automatically at the level of perception before neural representations form (salience filters)
Top-down pathway of attention
working memory uses conscious decision making to adjust control of what we focus on/attend to, and sensitivity control regulates signal strength based on this conscious allocation of attention
sensitivity control (functional component of attention)
regulation of signal strength based on conscious allocation of attention by working memory; implicated in top-down pathway of attention
salience filters (functional component of attention)
automatic filtering at the level of attention (i.e., ignoring things immediately without having process with our senses); heavily implicated in the bottom-up pathway of attention
competitive selection (functional component of attention)
answers “What gains access to working memory?” We have limited resources and can’t pay attention to everything, which is where competitive selection comes into play
What is the “spotlight” idea of attention?
the central visual field is often the focus of our attention, and we can move it around “like a spotlight,” ignoring or blurring out other peripheral inputs and enhancing visual processing of the spotlighted part of the scene; can be moved voluntarily or automatically drawn to salient stimuli
4 different conceptions of attention
- Overt vs. covert
- Bottom-up vs. top-down
- Exogenous vs. endogenous
- Three attention networks
overt vs. covert attention
- Overt attention: turn your body/head/eyes towards the thing you are attending to; often measured via eye-tracking
- Covert attention: location you are facing/looking at is different than where you are focusing your attention
Both are voluntary attention and implicated in the cocktail party effect
cocktail party effect
phenomenon of the brain’s ability to focus attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, such as when a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room; this is a direct implication of overt vs. covert attention - can attend to conversation across room without diverting eyes
How is the cocktail party effect tested in the lab?
via dichotic listening, i.e., two different inputs are played into each ear, but listener is able to focus attention on one or the other and repeat the input; this is powerful because with limited attentional resources, we can tell that recital of input is directed by purposeful attention (overt or covert)
spatial cueing paradigm
Keep your eyes focused on the + and you will see a cue telling you where the * will appear. The task is to raise the according hand (L or R) as quickly as you can when you see the target, which is a dot appearing.
80% of trials are “valid condition,” where the cue matches the target location, while 20% are “invalid condition,” where the cue does not match the target location.
Shows that responses to invalid trials take longer, indicating the need to move attentional spotlight.
ERP analysis of spatial attention
- In auditory tests, ERP shows increased neural response (larger N1 peak) to the attended location/auditory stream (L or R ear) relative to the unattended stream (other ear)
- In spatial cueing paradigm tests (visual), spiking in occipital lobe contralateral to spotlight of attention is greater (larger P1 peak) than ipsilateral
How does ERP P1 relate to perception?
P1 from visual stimulus is usually related to perception; notable in ERP analysis of spatial attention, which shows heightened P1 peak with attention
Is spatial attention represented ipsilaterally or contralaterally in the brain?
contralaterally; seen in fMRI as well as ERP analysis of spatial cueing paradigm
fMRI analysis of spatial attention
For visual attention (in spatial cueing paradigm), we see increased activity in areas contralateral to spotlight; this correlates with the larger P1 peak of ERP in occipital lobe contralateral to spotlight
space-based attention
process that allocates attention to a specific region, or location(s), in the visual field, whereas object-based attention directs attention to coherent forms or objects in visual space; this is the process in the flashing trees from the Sphinx GIF in class
What brain region is dedicated to attention?
no lone area of the brain specifically dedicated to attention, instead a distributed frontal-parietal network; no strict localization, more like nodes in a distributed network
Top-down and bottom-up attention have two unique neural representations within this frontal-parietal network (see other slides for the brain regions implicated in each)