THE ATTENDING BRAIN (exam 3)

what is the definition of attention

the cognitive process of selectively focusing on certain information while ignoring other stimuli

posners spotlight model of visual attention

attention acts like a spotlight that enhances processing of stimuli in a specific region of the visual field and posners experiment showed faster responses to targets appearing where attention was cued

exogenous vs endogenous cue

exogenous cues are automatic attention shifts triggered by external stimuli endogenous cues are voluntary attention shifts guided by goals or expectations

visual search with similar distracters

when distracters are similar to the target people use a conjunctive search which is slower and requires focused attention

kanwisher and wojciulik 2000 study

participants viewed the same visual stimulus but were asked to attend to different aspects such as faces or houses and brain activation differed depending on what they focused on showing attention modulates visual processing

errors in attention due to limitations

inattentional blindness change blindness and attentional blink

attentional blink in rsvp

when two targets appear in rapid serial visual presentation people often miss the second target if it appears within about two hundred to five hundred milliseconds after the first

dorsal dorsal and dorsal ventral pathways

dorsal dorsal pathway processes spatial location and visually guided actions dorsal ventral pathway processes object features and action planning

right vs left hemisphere salience processing

the right hemisphere processes both salient and less salient stimuli while the left hemisphere mainly processes salient stimuli shown in mevorach et al two thousand six using tms disrupting parietal cortex

attention perception and awareness

subliminal processing occurs when stimuli influence behavior without conscious awareness while conscious processing occurs when stimuli reach awareness through attention and perception

feature search vs conjunctive search

feature search involves finding a target defined by a single feature and is fast conjunctive search involves a combination of features and requires more attention

early vs late processing in attention

early processing filters information before semantic analysis while late processing allows information to be processed for meaning before attention selects it

negative priming and semantic relationships

responses are slower to a stimulus that was previously ignored especially if it is semantically related to the previously ignored item

premotor theory of attention

shifts of attention are linked to the brain systems involved in planning eye or motor movements even if no movement actually occurs

attentional neglect

a disorder where a person ignores stimuli on one side of space usually the left side due to damage in the right parietal lobe