Chapter 14 - Attention and Higher Cognitive

Cards (46)

  • attention
    a state or condition of selective awareness or perceptual receptivity, by which specific stimuli are selected for enhanced processing
  • vigilance
    the global, nonselective level of alertness of an individual
  • overt attention
    attention in which the focus coincides with sensory orientation
  • covert attention
    attention in which the focus can be directed independently of sensory orientation
  • cocktail party effect
    the selective enhancement of attention in order to filter out distracters
  • shadowing
    a task in which the participant is asked to focus attention on one ear or the other while different stimuli are being presented to the two ears, and to repeat aloud the material presented in the attended ear
  • inattentional blindness
    the failure to perceive nonattended stimuli that seem so obvious as to be impossible to miss
  • attentional bottleneck
    a filter created by the limits intrinsic to our attentional processes, whose effect is that only the most important stimuli are selected for special processing
  • perceptual load
    the immediate processing demands presented by a stimulus
  • sustained-attention task

    a task in which a single stimulus source or location must be held in the attentional spotlight for a protracted period
  • voluntary attention
    the voluntary direction of attention toward specific aspects of the environment, in accordance with our interest and goals
  • symbolic cuing
    a technique for testing voluntary attention in which a visual stimulus is presented and participants are asked to respond as soon as the stimulus appears on a screen. each trial is preceded by a meaningful symbol used as a cue to hint at where the stimulus will appear
  • reaction time
    the delay between the presentation of a stimulus and a participant's response to that stimulus
  • reflexive attention
    the involuntary reorienting of attention toward a specific stimulus source, cued by an unexpected object or event
  • peripheral spatial cuing
    a technique for testing reflexive attention in which a visual stimulus is preceded by a simple task-irrelevant sensory stimulus either in the location where the stimulus will appear or in an incorrect location
  • inhibition of return
    the phenomenon, observed in peripheral spatial cuing tasks when the interval between cue and target is 200 milliseconds or more, in which the detection of stimuli at the former location of the cue is increasingly impaired
  • feature search
    a search for an item in which the target pops out right away, no matter how many distractors are present, because it possesses a unique attribute
  • conjunction search
    a search for an item that is based on two or more features that together distinguish the target from distractors that may share some of the same attributes
  • binding problem
    the question of how the brain understands which individual attributes blend together into a single object, when these different features are processed by different regions in the brain
  • temporal resolution
    the ability to track changes in the brain that occur very quickly
  • spatial resolution
    the ability to observe the detailed structure of the brain
  • event-related potential
    averaged EEG recordings measuring brain responses to repeated presentations of a stimulus
  • auditory N1 effect

    a negative deflection of the ERP, occurring about 100 ms after stimulus presentation, that is enhanced for selectively attended auditory input compared with ignored input
  • P3 affect
    a positive deflection of the ERP, occurring about 300 ms after stimulus presentation, that is associated with higher-order auditory stimulus processing and late attentional selction
  • visual P1 effect
    a positive deflection of the ERP, occurring 70-100 ms after stimulus presentation, that is enhanced for selectively attended visual input compared with ignored input
  • superior colliculus
    a gray matter structure of the dorsal midbrain that processes visual information and is involved in direction of visual gaze and visual attention to intended stimuli
  • pulvinar
    in humans, the posterior portion of the thalamus that is heavily involved in visual processing and direction of attention
  • lateral intraparietal area
    a region in the monkey parietal lobe, homologous to the human intraparietal sulcus, that is especially involved in voluntary, top-down control of attention
  • intraparietal sulcus
    a region in the human parietal lobe, homologous to the monkey lateral intraparietal area, that is especially involved in voluntary, top-down control of attention
  • frontal eye field
    an area in the frontal lobe of the brain that contains neurons important for establishing gaze in accordance with cognitive goals rather than with a characteristics of stimuli
  • temporoparietal junction
    the point in the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, playing a role in shifting attention to a new location after target onset
  • hemispatial neglect
    failure to pay any attention to objects presented to one side of the body
  • Balint's syndrome

    a disorder, caused by damage to both parietal lobes, that is characterized by difficulty in steering visual gaze (oculomotor apraxia), in accurately reaching for objects using visual guidance (optic ataxia), and in directing attention to more than one object or feature at a time (simultagnosia)
  • simultagnosia
    a profound restriction of attention, often limited to s single item or feature
  • ADHD
    a syndrome characterized by distractability, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity that, in children, interferes with school performance
  • consciousness
    the state of awareness of one's own existence, thoughts, emotions, and experiences
  • default mode network

    a circuit of brain regions that is active during quiet introspective thought
  • cognitively impenetrable

    referring to basic neural processing operations that cannot be experienced through introspection
  • easy problem of consciousness
    understanding how particular patterns of neural activity create specific conscious experiences by reading brain activity directly from people's brains as they're having particular experiences
  • hard problem of consciousness
    understanding the brain processes that produce people's subjective experiences of the conscious perspectives - that is, their qualia