Attention & Higher Cognitiom

What is attention?

The ability to be selectively aware to a certain stimulus

Attention is a ______ process.

conscious

True or False: We cannot choose what we pay attention to.

False

Things can unconsciously capture our attention too (Ex: lights, noise, etc).

True

Attention has a limited capacity, in humans the attention span is ________.

8-12s

The _ cortex controls voluntary attention and executive function.

Frontal cortex

The _ controls sensory gating & arousal (alertness).

Thalamus

The _ system is responsible for visual attention.

Visual system

Divided attention means

attending many things at once (multi-tasking).

Selective attention means ___________.

attending to specific info

What is the cocktail party effect?

The ability to focus on one conversation in a loud and noisy environment (filtering out distractions).

What is the Dichotic Listening Task?

Selective processing where listeners can ignore input from one ear.

To "shadow" in a dichotic task means

to repeat what is said in one ear only while blocking out the stimuli in the other ear.

Cocktail party effect and Dichotic Listening Task are ___________.

reciprocals of one another

Inattentional blindness is

the failure to perceive non-attended stimuli even when it's incredibly obvious and hard to miss

Example of inattentional blindness.

Gorilla & basketball experiment.

Attention bottleneck refers to our brain's limited capacity to process information at one time, so it ____________.

filters out or delay processing for some stimuli to focus on others

The early selection model means ________________.

we filter out stimuli (information) before it is processed (where we make meaning of it)

The late selection model means

perceptual processing happens prior to filtration and then it is blocked before reaching awareness.

Broadbent's Filter Model states

the filter happens before perceptual processing occurs.

Treisman's Attenuation Model suggests

unattended stimuli are weakened but not necessarily filtered out completely.

Perceptual Load Theory says

selection depends on stimulus complexity.

High perceptual load means

if we focus on a stimulus that requires a lot of perceptual processing, then we block out other stimuli.

Divided attention tasks test

if attention can be divided evenly between two different & (semi)unrelated tasks.

True or False: Multitasking has no effect on performance.

False

Trade-off in multitasking might mean

sacrificing performance on one task.

Bottom-up processing means

lower mechanisms (ex: sensory input) trigger higher cognitive processing.

Top-down processing means

high order cognitive areas control lower mechanisms.

Example of bottom-up processing.

An alarm goes off, and everyone looks over before processing what happens.

Example of top-down processing.

Making the decision to sit down and focus on a specific task.

True or False: Attention involves only bottom-up processing.

False

Default Mode Network (DMN) is

a collective of brain regions that remain active during introspection & deactivate during goal-directed tasks.

The _ Junction shifts attention driven by stimuli (bottom-up).

Temporoparietal Junction

The _ Network is responsible for voluntary control of attention (top-down).

Dorsal Frontoparietal Network

Intraparietal sulcus is necessary for

shifting attention between things.

Frontal eye field helps

establish gaze based on what we want to look at.