Week 8B – Attention II - Foundations of Biological & Cognitive Psychology

Thirty vocabulary flashcards covering concepts of object-based attention, Hemispatial Neglect, Visual Search theories, and temporal attention mechanisms like the Attentional Blink.

Egly, Driver & Rafal (1994)

A study providing behavioral evidence for object-based attention, showing that target detection was slower on invalidly cued trials when the cue was in a different object.

O'Craven, Downing & Kanwisher (1999)

A study using superimposed house and face stimuli to demonstrate that selecting one element (like movement) activates neural areas for the whole object (FFA or PPA).

Fusiform Face Area (FFA)

The specific area of the brain associated with neural activity when participants attend to face-related elements of an object.

Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA)

The specific area of the brain associated with neural activity when participants attend to house-related elements of an object.

Hemispatial Neglect

A condition, typically following right parietal damage, where a patient fails to identify or acknowledge stimuli on the contralesional side of space.

Contralesional

A term referring to the side of space or the body opposite to the side where a brain lesion occurred.

Ipsilesional

A term referring to the same side of space or the body as the brain lesion; the side that is not neglected by a patient.

Extinction

The failure to detect a contralesional stimulus when it is presented simultaneously with an ipsilesional stimulus, suggesting difficulty disengaging the attentional spotlight.

Hemianopia

A primary visual field deficit that features a sharp and absolute border between neglected and non-neglected space, unlike the gradient found in neglect.

Marshall & Halligan (1988)

Research showing that neglect patients can still process some unattended information semantically even without conscious awareness.

Piazza del Duomo experiment

A study by Bisiach & Luzzatti (1978) demonstrating that hemispatial neglect can also impair a patient's internal mental imagery and memories.

Visual Search

The task of detecting a specified target among non-targets or distractors within a visual display as rapidly as possible.

Set Size

The total number of items to be searched in a visual display, which can range from $1$ to $30$ items in laboratory tests.

Serial Process

A type of visual search where the reaction time is affected by the display size; the search continues until the observer responds or a time limit is reached.

Parallel Process

A type of visual search where the reaction time is not affected by the display size, often occurring when a target has a unique physical characteristic.

Pop-out

An effect where a target is identified rapidly regardless of the number of distractors because of a simple physical characteristic.

Feature Integration Theory (FIT)

Treisman's theory proposing that visual search involves an initial rapid parallel process followed by a slower serial process for combining features.

Preattentive stage

The rapid initial parallel stage of FIT where individual physical characteristics or 'features' of objects are processed.

Focused attention stage

The secondary serial stage of FIT where features are combined by attending to the specific location of an object.

Illusory conjunctions

Random combinations of features that occur due to problems in binding features to form objects at a relatively late stage.

Conjunctive search

A search for a target based on a combination of features (e.g., a green T among green Ls and blue Ts), which shows a large set-size effect.

Single-feature search

A search for a target defined by one distinct characteristic (e.g., a blue letter among red letters) where set size has little effect on search speed.

Duncan & Humphreys (1989, 1992)

Researchers who highlighted that similarity among distractors and similarity between targets and distractors influence visual search efficiency.

Threat Superiority Effect

The phenomenon where individuals are faster to notice potentially threatening stimuli compared to positive or neutral stimuli.

Temporal Attention

Attention focused on when information appears in time, which is critical for tasks like catching a ball or understanding speech.

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP)

A methodology where stimuli are presented successively at a rate between $6$ to $20$ items per second at a single location.

Attentional Blink (AB)

A phenomenon where the report of a second target (T2) is inaccurate when it occurs between $100$ to $500\,\text{ms}$ after the first target (T1).

Raymond et al. (1992)

Researchers who showed the attentional blink does not occur if the first target (T1) does not require attention, ruling out simple perceptual interference.

Luck, Vogel, & Shapiro (1996)

A study that found a neural response (ERP) to an unreported T2 during the attentional blink, suggesting the brain still processes the missed target.

Awh & Pashler (2000)

Researchers who used a $5 \times 5$ grid to show that attention does not necessarily include the space between two cued locations, challenging the zoom lens model.