BCS 172 Lecture 12

What is attention?

“It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thoughts.

• Murderer example

• “The ability to allocate mental resources to certain tasks”

  • Different types of attention:

    • Selective

    • Divided

A penny for your thoughts

• When was the last time you used a penny?

• Ages 5-20

• 3 pennies/day x 365 days/year x 15 years

• = 16,380

• Penny example on slides

  • Less than half of people were able to identify the correct penny

Top-down vs bottom up attention

• Stroop effect involved a conflict between top-down and bottom-up process

• *Reading colors example on slides

Top-down attention

Top-down attention is goal-directed and voluntary

• Driven by the brain’s internal goals, intentions, and expectations

• Demands a lot of attention

Bottom-up attention

Bottom-up attention is stimulus-driven and involuntary

• Occurs when attention is automatically captured by salient and unexpected stimuli in the environment

• Demands little to no attention

Selective Attention

The ability to select certain stimuli in the environment to process, while ignoring distracting information

Cocktail party effect

phenomenon where people are able to focus their attention on a specific conversation or stimulus, even in noisy environment, like at a party

Dichotic listening studies

• Refers to the situation when two messages are presented simultaneously to an individuals, with one message in each ear

• Subjects will likely be asked to repeat back or “shadow” one of the messages as they hear it 

• *image on slides, playing 2 different sounds in one

Results of dichotic listening studies

Participants had to problem recalling the message in the ear that they were asked to pay attention to

What could be heard in the unattended ear?

• They could tell:

  • If a voice was present

  • If the voice changes from man to woman (or vice versa)

  • If the voice becomes a tone

What was not heard in the unattended ear?

• They could not tell:

  • The content of the message

  • Speech vs nonsense backward speech

Models of selective attention

-

Broadbent’s Filter Model (1958)

• *image on sensory storage on slides

  • Input → left ear + right ear → filter, filters out information from one ear during dichotic listening → perceptual and/or meaning analysis → short term memory (awareness) → response

Late selection model (1963)

Input → left ear + right ear → perceptual and/or meaning analysis → filter, filters out information from one ear during dichotic listening → short term memory (awareness) → response

Subliminal perception

• Refers to visual and auditory information presented at a speed and/or intensity that is below the conscious threshold of perception 

  • *graph on slides

  • There is a threshold of stimulus intensity, and whether the stimulus is above or below this threshold determines whether you recognize it or

Multimode Model (1990)

• Suggests that the stage at which selection occurs can vary depending on the task at hand, allowing selection to take place either early or late

• The filter is “moveable” and can occur at various stages of precising, depending on the observer’s needs

Divided attention

• Refers to the ability to distribute your attention across multiple tasks or stimuli at once

• Unless a task is fully automated, researchers suggest that “multi-tasking” doesn’t really exists; you are just rapidly switching your attention back and forth between tasks

Kahneman’s capacity theory (1973)

• Proposed that our attention operates like a pool of mental resources that we can distribute across various tasks. This pool of resources is limited, and once it’s depleted, our performance on tasks deteriorates

  • When doing hard task, all of your attention is fully dedicated to it

Temporal constraints

• *graph on slides

• When we have to allocate our attention to something, we don’t have the resources to give attention to something else

Spatial constraints

-

Speed accuracy trade-off

• How many targets can be accurately tracked?

  • As the number of targets increases, speed decreases

Number of objects tracked in control group? (tetris)

• *graph on slides

• The number of circles led to a decrease in their recall

Number of objects tracked after 30h of action video game training

The number of circles correct was increased after action video game training

Sustained attention

• Refers to the ability to “mobilize and maintain selectivity and concentration”

• Children under ~4.5 years often struggle with tasks requiring sustained attention: they might not complete the task or omit responses

• Older preschoolers (5-5.5 years) are faster and more consistent in responding, showing that sustained attention improves with age

• Why?

Sustained attention in Preschoolers

Preschoolers were tested with three different measures of attention

• Puppet show (unstructured)

  • As age increased, focus attention increased

• Reaction time task (structured)

  • Attention also increased with age

• Free play (unstructured)

  • Attention increases with age

Inhibitory control and sustained attention

• Inhibitory control: ability to suppress impulses and off-task behaviors

  • Essential for staying focused on uninteresting or boring tasks

• Prefrontal cortex (PFC)

  • Governs inhibitory control, self-regulation, planning, attention

  • Matures slowly, not fully developed until adulthood

Testing Inhibitory Control

*Playground games like Simon says

Brooks et al 2003

• In the same condition, kids would sort cards that are similar to one another

  • Example: matching two cards of a plane

• In the silly condition, they would match cards that are very different from one another

  • Example: matching a dog card to a plane card

Results

• 3-year-olds

  • Can perform both games with simple, monochrome stimuli (~77% ACC)

  • Struggle with more complex stimuli (color sock and cups), especially the “silly” game

  • Tend to repeat the “same” response, showing difficult inhibiting prepotent responses

Neurotransmitters

• Dopamine - antipsychotic medication exerts influence by diminishing dopaminergic activity in the brain, especially the subcortical portions

• Tardive dyskinesia and akathisia may result from exposure to medication use to treat schizophrenia

• In extreme cases, treatment for Parkinson’s disease with medication that increases dopamine availability will result in symptoms that mimic schizophrenia

Psychological Intervention

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for psychosis (CBTp) - helps manage persistent positive symptoms, delusions, hallucinations, and distress; also improves overall symptoms and quality of life

• Family interventions / family psychoeducation - educates families, reduces expressed emotion, and lowers relapse rates; includes support and communication training

• Social skills training - interpersonal and daily living skills

• Cognitive remediation - targets cognitive deficits (e.g., memory, attention, executive function) through structured exercises