C3 Attention and performance

goal-directed attention

e.g. looking for a certain object, attending to a certain sound in a sequence, where’s waldo?, dichotic listening task

stimulus-driven attention

e.g. unexpected change in sound, a colour that stands out

modes of attention

active and passive

active mode of attention

goal-directed

top-down processed

endogenous (sisäsyntyinen)

intentional

passive mode of attention

bottom-up

stimulus-driven

exogenous (ulkosyntyinen)

incidental

attention

cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of one’s environment while ignoring other aspects

= process by which certain information is selected for further processing and other info is discarded or (more likely) attenuated

“withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others” - William James

attention might be needed to bind together the aspects of conscious perception, e.g. shape-colour, sound-vision

inattentional blindness

serial bottleneck

limit of attention; a point in the path from perception to action at which one cannot process all information in parallel

different types of information can be processed in parallel to some degree (different systems), but similar types of info cannot

attention studies

dichotic listening task

cocktail party effect

Treisman and Geffen’s experiment on attentional limitations (attenuation theory and Deutsch theory)

attending to part of vis field not focused

typical dichotic listening task

participants are presented with two streams of sound (story, message) in different ears and asked to shadow one

shadowing = repeating the words back from one message only

very little of the unattended message is processed (maybe just the sex of the voice or the language????tarkista)

goal-directed

auditory attention

cocktail party effect

situation of attending to one conversation and tuning out other noise and then hearing a meaningful sound (in this case one’s own name) and automatically shifting attention to that

Moray (1959)

auditory attention

filter theories

theories that try to answer the question: When do bottlenecks occur?

early selection theories (Broadbent, Treisman)

late-selection theories (Deutsch & Deutsch)

early selection theories

filter occurs before we perceive the entire stimulus (Broadbent)

attenuation theory (Treisman)

late-selection theories

filter occurs after we perceive the stimulus

Broadbent’s filter theory (1958)

Deutsch and Deutsch’s filter theory (1963)

Attenuation theory / Treisman’s filter theory 1964

modification of Broadbent’s model

auditory stimuli are never ______, but _____ and _____

auditory stimuli are never completely filtered out, but attenuated and enhanced

Treisman and Geffen’s experiment on attentional limitations

task:

two messages listened to simultaneously;

shadow message #1 while also trying to detect and respond with a tap to a target word, which can occur in either message

the photo shows predicted outcomes by the attenuation theory and Deutsch & Deutsch’s late-selection theory

support for the attenuation theory: 87% success rate in the shadowed ear and only 8% in the unshadowed ear

later experiments: there is not only attenuation of message #2, but also enhancement of msg #1

spotlight metaphor

attention can be moved to focus on different areas of the visual field

narrowing the spotlight allows maximal processing of the attended part of the visual field

attention can be focused on a part of the visual field that one is not focusing on (up to 24 degreed from the fovea)

• experiment: fixation cross, stimulus 7 degrees to the L/R of point, cues of side, participants were faster when stim appeared in expected location

Neisser & Becklen (1975), visual attention study (shadowing a video)

O’Craven et al (1999): superimposed photos, brain activity

Visual attention: neural basis

similar to neural basis of auditory attention

Mangun, Hillyard and Luck (1993): enhanced neural processing in the portion of the visual cortex corresponding to the location of visual attention

Roelfsema et al (1998): directing visual attention takes more effort when it is done on the basis of content (ERP within 200ms)  than on the basis of physical features (within 70-90 ms) 

photo: brain areas involved in atttn and some of the perceptual and motor regions they control

parietal regions and attention

particularly important in directing perception and allocating atttn

prefrontal regions and atttn

dorsolateral, prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate:

executive control

Visual search (atttn)

unique visual features = standing out

feature search/conjunction search: tasks that require recognizing a conjunction of features usually takes longer and gets harder with more distractors

The binding problem

how does the brain put various features in the visual field together?

illusionary conjunctions

Feature integration theory: ppl must focus attention on a stimulus before its features can be synthesized into a pattern

illusionary conjunction

Neglect

a disorder of visuospatial attention

lack of awareness of sttimuli when it is presented to the side of the visual field opposite to the side of the brain damage

(=typically impairment is in the contralesional visual field)

R/L parietal regions’ responsibilities (Robertson & Rofal (2008)

unilateral neglect

right parietal regions and neglect

the right parietal region is responsible for attention to global features; spatial location (Robertson & Rofal (2008))

=overall configuration, but not details

left parietal regions and neglect

the left parietal region is responsible for attention to local aspects of objects (Robertson & Rofal (2008))

=details, components, but not their spatial configuration

unilateral neglect

patients completely ignore one (contralesional) side of the visual field

typically damage is in the right hemisphere’s posterior parietal lobe

• temporo-parietal junction

• angular gyrus

object-based atttn

people focus their attention on particular objects instead of regions in space

Behrmann et al (1998) photo

Chen & Cave (2008): effect found in the Behrmann study disappears with brief stimulus presentations (0.12s)

(inhibition of return)

inhibition of return

after looking at a region of space, it is harder to return attention back to that region

inhibition of return study that also provides evidence for object-based atttn: Tipper et al (1991)

Central attention

cognition after the stimuli are attended to and encoded; selecting lines of thought to pursue

multitasking and different attentional resources

perfect time sharing

central bottleneck: inability of central cognition to pursue multiple lines of thought simultaneously

Byrne & Anderson (2001): simultaneous addition and multiplication is impossible

Schumacher et al (2001): simultaneous judgement of space and tone is possible

automaticity

when a skill has been practiced repeatedly, eventually it can be performed with little to no direct attention

hard to override aka inhibit (stroop)

procedural, implicit processes

DLPFC

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Executive control: setting intentions, controlling behavior (multitasking)

ACC

Anterior cingulate cortex

executive control: monitoring conflicts between tendencies (stroop task), cognitive control (simon says)

damage to prefrontal regions often results in …

deficits in executive control: increases stimulus driven behavior and failure to control behavior according to intentions