Jan 25 Attention 1

• Different theories exist to explain when we decide something is irrelevant.
• The way information is processed can result in missing important information that is considered irrelevant.
• Attention implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state which is called distraction.
• Attention is best understood in terms of what it does rather than what it is.
• Top Down Attention: Observer guided controlled attention involves frontal-parietal brain regions such as IPS and FEF.
• Bottom Up Attention: Stimuli guided automatic attention involves temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) and VFC.
• Arousal: Alertness and Awareness is controlled by the Autonomic Nervous System and the Reticular Activating System.
• A network of regions across frontal and parietal lobes is involved in attention.
• Endogenous Attention: When an individual chooses what to pay attention to (goals and intention) involves top-down processing and is located in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and FEF.
• Exogenous Attention: When stimuli in the environment drives us to pay attention involves bottom-up processing and is located in the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) and VFC.
• Spatial Neglect: Damage to the right hemisphere, ventral parietal cortex results in deficits in spatial attention and egocentric representations in the contralateral field of view, and prevents attention or reporting of stimuli on the opposite side of the lesion.
• Balint Syndrome: Bilateral parietal and occipital lobe damage results in symptoms such as Optic Ataxia, Oculomotor Apraxia, and Simultanagnosia.
• Top-Down Attention:

  • Sustained attention involves maintaining focus on one input for a long period of time
  • Divided attention involves shifting attentional focus between tasks
  • Selective attention involves focusing on one input and ignoring other information.
• Selective Attention: We have limited information processing resources and must prioritize what to process.
• Early selection filter models, Atanuator model, Late selection model, and Load theory are theories of selective attention.
• Broadbent’s Early Selection Filter Model: Information is filtered at the level of perception, before information is processed for meaning (semantic analysis), and selected information is processed for meaning, enters awareness.
• Controlled Tasks are those that require effort and voluntary top-down attention, for example, Stroop: naming the color of the ‘ink’.
• Dichotic Listening Tasks present two simultaneous messages to each ear and participants are better to recall ear by ear than the simultaneous message.
• Late Selection Filter Models involve processing input to the level of the meaning, and then selecting what we want to process further.
• In certain situations, unattended information can “break through”, for example, at a party, you can attend to one conversation, yet hear your name if spoken in a non-attended-to conversation.
• Automatic Tasks are those that are highly familiar and well-practiced and do not require voluntary top-down attention, for example, Stroop: reading color names.
• For the interference effect to occur on the Stroop task, you must process the written color name (unattended information) for the meaning.
• Treisman’s Attenuator Model involves an early filter dialing down the influence of unattended material.
• The Load Theory suggests that attentional filtering (selection) can occur at different points of processing, depending on the match between the relevant and irrelevant information.
• According to the Multiple Resource Capacity View, there are multiple resources from which attention resources are allocated, and attentional load depends on the match between the relevant and irrelevant information.
• Dichotic Listening: Shadowing tasks involve people not remembering the content of an unattended message, but noticing some sensory features such as a new noise or the gender of the speaker.
• Selective attention is a top-down process which is the result of our limited processing capacity, focusing on what you think is important and ignoring what is not.
• In a driving simulator task under two conditions, if the load is low (auditory), driving with no radio, and high (auditory), driving and listening to the radio, it is harder to pay attention to the road if listening to a set of directions than viewing it on your phone.
• Information is selected for attention, at perception.
• According to the Central Resource Capacity View, there is one resource pool from which all attention resources are allocated.
• Frontal eye fields are not involved in bottom-up processing