This is a very detailed summary on Chapter 7 - Attention of the Consciousness book (S.Blackmore) Third Edition
If you read the summary you do not need to read the book
Metaphor “spotlight of attention” comes easily to mind because paying attention feel this
way like directing a light on some things but not others
Experiments found£: a real attentional “spotlighting” effect in visual perception
- When participants attended to the textures (not moving eyes) they could clearly
distinguish them
- In tasks where enhanced resolution makes the task garder the effect of
improvement in spatial resolution was found for focused attention (participants
got worse)
- Attention actually increases the spatial resolution of what we see
- “Attention makes things brighter, more prominent or more focused”
James (quotes Fechner): someone who focuses attention on something doesn’t see its
color as brighter or its sounds as louder but “feels the increase (intensity) as that of his
own conscious activity turned upon the thing” → Phenomenologist: explore the
structures of consciousness from first-person perspective - stress how attention moulds
the structure of consciousness
- Accounts of how attention provides a “experiential highlighting” allowing us to
track, inspect and act with respect to another person/object
(Ned Block): such changes in experience should be thought of as changing not the content
of the experience but the nature of the “mental paint” we apply when paying attention
DIRECTING ATTENTION
1) Conscious effort and perception not always required
Attention can be involuntarily and intentionally directed because processes depend on
different brain systems
Involuntary Attention: (wheen react quickly to something, or name being called)
- Depends on ventral attention system: alerting and vigilance systems (right
hemisphere in frontal, parietal and temporal areas=
Example: bottom-up control of eye movements /saccades (happen several times a
second) our eyes constantly jump around from one fixation to another
Control saccadic eye movements voluntarily → involves primarily cells in superior
colliculus
“Smooth pursuit”: eyes track moving object (keep image roughly same part of fovea)
- Hard to make without an actual moving target and is affected by drug use and
conditions (schizophrenia, autism and PTSD)
- Can continue without conscious awareness
Movement may be necessary for accurate pursuit, awareness of the movement is not
BUT if you know which way a target will move you can initiate smooth pursuit before any
movement happens
- You can continue if the moving target is temporarily hidden by another object & if
you move your hand in the dark - proprioceptive motion signal replaces the visual
signal
+Head and body move so mechanisms to coordinate these movements
, Ex: info from motor output for body and eye movements can be used to maintain a stable
relationship to world even when they’re all moving
Some control systems based on retinocentric coordinates (keeping objects stable on
retina)
Some use cardiocentric coordinates: keeping the world stable with respect to head
Involuntary visual attention in perceptual “pop-out”
The differences in different stimuli is so obvious to visual system that the target pops out -
search is parallel so doesn’t take longer if the total number of items increase
- Obvious item can also be distractor (slowing down the search for other items)
BUT directing eyes to something is not equivalent to paying attention
1) Possible to be blind to something we’re looking right at because not attention
(inattentional blindness)
2) Short attentional blink after directing attention to one thing and neglecting
another
3) Attend visually 2 locations at once
a) Multiple spotlights of attentional selection (fMRI) Activation in retinotopic
maps in primary visual cortex corresponded to both sports but not the
central stimulus in between
Deliberate Attention: someone speaking, try to ignore….
- Use dorsal attention system
- Bilaterally in frontal and parietal areas - response systems in PFC and anterior
cingulate gyrus & orienting system in posterior intraparietal sulcus and frontal eye
fields
Flebile control of attention:
- Need dynamic collaboration of ventral and dorsal attention systems to balance
“top-down” goals with “bottom-up” sensory inputs
- fMRI studies: basic functional organization of the 2 can be seen even when no
external demand
Covert attentional scanning: can look directly at one object and pay attention somewhere
else
- Neurons in posterior parietal cortex in shifts of attention happening independently
of gaze
Overt scanning: pay attention where looking
- Superior colliculus and frontal eye fields (ass. With switches of gaze and attention)
THEORIES OF ATTENTION
Dichotic Listening: 2 different streams of sound are played to each ear
- Certain kinds of stimuli can break through the unattended ear & others can have
effects on behaviour without being consciously heard
- If the message being listened moves to other ear - people usually follow the
meaning and don’t even notice they’ve swapped ear
Bottleneck: preconscious sensory filters needed to decide what should be let through to
deeper stages of processing
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