Attention

Attention

the cognitive function that focuses on some external or internal stimulus at the expense of fully processing other information

Attention is a ______ processing

selective

Only ______ information reaches threshold to enter into consciousness

attended

Conscious processing depends on

focusing neural resources according to the contingencies of the moment

Endogenous attention

voluntary allocation of attention resources, goal oriented, top down

exogenous attention

things outside of you that grab your attention, environmental, bottom up attention

Inhibition of return

* when your attention gets taken and then after it happens you lose the capacity to process stuff

Overt attention

orienting head and eyes to stimulus, signing visual and auditory information and improving perception

Covert attention

even fixating gaze on a particular point on the visual field, information in he attended location is better reported

Supramodal attention

stimuli in one modality concurrently stimulates another modality “spreading of attention”

sound cue, stimulates visual perception

Hemispatial neglect

* inferior parietal lobe on right side fucked
* cant attend to any information in the left
* could see some stimuli in the left if they were salient

FEF

* initiatives eye movements towards what you want to attend to
* task switching
* FEF stimulation increases neuronal activity in the visual cortex
* generates saccadic eye movements
* exogenous attention
* more activated cortex, better visual processing

Superior colliculi

* attention circuit
* Sprague effect - have hemispatial neglect, lesion to left superior colliculus, hemispatial neglect solved
* pulvinar nucleus of thalamus connects SC to parietal cortex

Attentional control network

* tasks involving attention activate a set of brain regions in the dorsal parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices
* same regions when attending to spatial or non-spatial information voluntarily
* Exogenous/unexpected events re associated with more ventral areas of the parietal cortex and dorsal regions of the frontal cortex

When participants direct sustained attention to a \[articulat visual field location, increased activity is elicited where?

in extrastriate cortex

Microstimulation of ______ improves performance in attentional tasks and increases activity in V4 - “pre-motor theory of attention”

FEF

Asimultagnosia: Balint syndrome

* damage to posterior parietal and lateral occipital cortex
* cant attend to two stimuli or features at the same time regardless of location

Something is salient if …

a) its novel

b) its physically intense

Saliency

* emotional component
* \