CogSci C127 Final Exam Questions and
Answers
Balint's Syndrome - Answers -Severe disturbance of visual attention and awareness
due to bilateral damage to regions in posterior parietal cortex and occipital cortex.
Can only see one item at a time when shown multiple
Selective attention - Answers -Ability to prioritize some info and ignore others
Selective attention vs arousal - Answers -Arousal - global state of organism; level of
arousal is hyper aroused state to not
Selective attention - not global, how people code sensory inputs regardless of arousal
Unilateral Spatial neglect / Neglect - Answers -Brain's attention damaged in one
hemisphere. Deficits in attending to and acting in direction opposite of dmg.
Vision is intact.
How is neglect tested - Answers -Neurophysiological test. Line cancellation test. Bisect
lines precisely in middle
Extinction - Answers -Can detect normally when presented in isolation but when in both,
fails because of competing stimulus
3 main deficits of balint's syndrom - Answers -Simultanagnosia - difficulty perceiving
visual field as whole scene.
Ocular Apraxia - Deficit in eye movements
Optic Ataxia - Visually guided hand movements
Voluntary attention - Answers -Intentionally attend to something
Goal-driven -- goals, knowledge, expectations used to guide it
Covert Attention - Answers -Paying attention when not directing gaze
Overt Attention - Answers -Paying attention when orienting towards
Reflexive attetion - Answers -Bottom up - banging sound
Dichotic Listening - Answers -2 Competing speech inputs and shadow one ear while
ignoring the other. Usually can't report details of unattended ear.
, Bottleneck - Answers -Information processing bottlenecks occur at stages with limited
capacity. Attention limits information to just the most relevant to prevent overloading the
limited capacity stages
Early selection - Answers -Stimulus can be selected for processing or tossed out before
perceptual analysis
Limited Capacity - Answers -Perceptual system with stages that can only process
certain amount of information at any given time and results in processing bottlenecks
Late selection - Answers -Inputs processed equally by perceptual system and selection
occurs at higher stages with internal decisions
Endogenous cuing - Answers -Cye predicts location of target on most trials. Orients
attention to the cue because of the meaning behind the cue.
Valid trial -- correctly predicts
Invalid trial -- misled
Neutral Trial -- no info
Helps study voluntary attention
Thalamic Reticular Nucleus - Answers -Neurons with which neural projections of the
human retina synapse. Surrounds LGN.
Synaps onto the LGN neurons with inhibitory signals.
Inhibition of return - Answers -When more than 300ms pass between task irrelevant
light flash and target, participants respond more slowly to stimuli in the vicinity of flash of
light.
Prevent reflexive attention from being stuck at location for prolonged time.
Feature integration theory of attention - Answers -Concept explaining why conjunction
search would take longer when shown whether target is present or absent in array given
number of distracters.
This is because although elementary stimulus features can be analyzed preattentively,
spatial attention must be directed to relevant stimuli to integrate features into perceived
object and must be sequential for each item in array.
Tested by Wolfe -- people took longer to find targets when deliberate movements of
attention were required in visual search task compared to when not required and search
was automatically proceeded. Brain automatically scans.
Superior Colliculus - Answers -Midbrain structure.
Project multiple outputs to thalamus and motor system that control eye movements that
change focus of attention.
People with degeneration of this area cannot shift attention and slow to respond and is
also involved with visual search. Reduced IOR.
Answers
Balint's Syndrome - Answers -Severe disturbance of visual attention and awareness
due to bilateral damage to regions in posterior parietal cortex and occipital cortex.
Can only see one item at a time when shown multiple
Selective attention - Answers -Ability to prioritize some info and ignore others
Selective attention vs arousal - Answers -Arousal - global state of organism; level of
arousal is hyper aroused state to not
Selective attention - not global, how people code sensory inputs regardless of arousal
Unilateral Spatial neglect / Neglect - Answers -Brain's attention damaged in one
hemisphere. Deficits in attending to and acting in direction opposite of dmg.
Vision is intact.
How is neglect tested - Answers -Neurophysiological test. Line cancellation test. Bisect
lines precisely in middle
Extinction - Answers -Can detect normally when presented in isolation but when in both,
fails because of competing stimulus
3 main deficits of balint's syndrom - Answers -Simultanagnosia - difficulty perceiving
visual field as whole scene.
Ocular Apraxia - Deficit in eye movements
Optic Ataxia - Visually guided hand movements
Voluntary attention - Answers -Intentionally attend to something
Goal-driven -- goals, knowledge, expectations used to guide it
Covert Attention - Answers -Paying attention when not directing gaze
Overt Attention - Answers -Paying attention when orienting towards
Reflexive attetion - Answers -Bottom up - banging sound
Dichotic Listening - Answers -2 Competing speech inputs and shadow one ear while
ignoring the other. Usually can't report details of unattended ear.
, Bottleneck - Answers -Information processing bottlenecks occur at stages with limited
capacity. Attention limits information to just the most relevant to prevent overloading the
limited capacity stages
Early selection - Answers -Stimulus can be selected for processing or tossed out before
perceptual analysis
Limited Capacity - Answers -Perceptual system with stages that can only process
certain amount of information at any given time and results in processing bottlenecks
Late selection - Answers -Inputs processed equally by perceptual system and selection
occurs at higher stages with internal decisions
Endogenous cuing - Answers -Cye predicts location of target on most trials. Orients
attention to the cue because of the meaning behind the cue.
Valid trial -- correctly predicts
Invalid trial -- misled
Neutral Trial -- no info
Helps study voluntary attention
Thalamic Reticular Nucleus - Answers -Neurons with which neural projections of the
human retina synapse. Surrounds LGN.
Synaps onto the LGN neurons with inhibitory signals.
Inhibition of return - Answers -When more than 300ms pass between task irrelevant
light flash and target, participants respond more slowly to stimuli in the vicinity of flash of
light.
Prevent reflexive attention from being stuck at location for prolonged time.
Feature integration theory of attention - Answers -Concept explaining why conjunction
search would take longer when shown whether target is present or absent in array given
number of distracters.
This is because although elementary stimulus features can be analyzed preattentively,
spatial attention must be directed to relevant stimuli to integrate features into perceived
object and must be sequential for each item in array.
Tested by Wolfe -- people took longer to find targets when deliberate movements of
attention were required in visual search task compared to when not required and search
was automatically proceeded. Brain automatically scans.
Superior Colliculus - Answers -Midbrain structure.
Project multiple outputs to thalamus and motor system that control eye movements that
change focus of attention.
People with degeneration of this area cannot shift attention and slow to respond and is
also involved with visual search. Reduced IOR.
