Week 4: Lecture Flashcards
(31 cards)
How did William James define attention?
The mind’s possession of one object among many possible, withdrawing from others to deal effectively.
List five characteristics of attention.
- Processes relevant info and ignores irrelevant,
- Limited capacity,
- Flexible,
- Covert and voluntary,
- Sets processing priority.
What is covert vs. overt attention?
Covert: attention shift without eye movement. Overt: attention shift with eye movement.
What is change blindness?
Failure to notice changes in environment unless prompted or expecting it.
What is bottom-up attention?
Stimulus-driven, automatic attention guided by saliency.
What is top-down attention?
Goal-driven attention guided by working memory, LTM, or actions.
Which brain areas are involved in object vs. face processing during attention?
PPA for objects, FFA for faces.
What is Broadbent’s bottleneck model of attention?
Attention acts as a filter with limited capacity, selecting info before or after semantic analysis.
What is the cocktail party effect?
Hearing personally relevant information (like your name) among background noise.
What are the three networks in Posner’s attentional control theory?
Alerting, Orienting, and Executive.
What is the role of the pulvinar nucleus in attention?
Integrates sensory and cognitive input, modulating cortex activity.
What are four core components of executive function?
Anticipation, planning, execution, self-monitoring.
What is the role of the ACC?
Conflict monitoring and processing emotional responses, especially pain.
What is the function of the OFC?
Mood, personality, evaluation of social and emotional information.
What does vmPFC regulate?
Information from the brainstem and amygdala.
What did Phineas Gage’s case reveal?
Damage to OFC can alter personality and emotional regulation.
What is shown by the Iowa Gambling Task?
PFC and amygdala lesions impair decision-making and learning from reward/punishment.
What does the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task assess?
Cognitive flexibility and response to feedback; impaired by OFC and dlPFC lesions.
What does the Tower of London task measure?
Planning and sequence organization.
Which region is central to working memory and planning?
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).
How is the n-back task structured?
Participants must identify when current stimulus matches one seen N steps earlier.
What happens in 2-back tasks for patients with dlPFC lesions?
Increased errors compared to other prefrontal lesions.
What are the three phases of memory processing?
Encoding, consolidation, retrieval.
What did patient H.M. show about memory?
Hippocampus is critical for forming new memories (anterograde amnesia).
