Lecture notes
Intro to Attention + Practice Questions
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A summary of lecture notes on attention, along with practice questions to help students better understand and test their knowledge on the concept
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ecture 06 - AttentionL
🧠William James acknowledged that attention was more complex than it was thought to be
🧠can’t give equal attention to everything (needs to be trade offs)
○ mental spotlight shines on where the mind is focused
■ don’t need to be looking at stimuli to give it attention
🧠our minds have a selective filter that chooses what information gets passed through for processing, like
a selectively permeable membrane or a bouncer at a nightclub
○ unimportant message is kept out so we don’t get distracted or overwhelmed
Reading ERPs For Attentional Processing
🧠p= positive
○ a wave that goes down
🧠n= negative
○ a wave that goes up
🧠# =can either represent the numbered wave (P1 = firstwave that occurs) or the number represents
how many ms it occurred after stimulus was presented (P1 = 100ms after stimulus)
🧠voluntary attention produces higher wave readings
○ the visual field the eyes are directed towards will have a higher P1/N1 reading
Theories
🧠Filter Theory:suggests that the selective filteroccurs early on in the processing pathway
○ it picks and chooses information before the presented stimulus is even understood
○ only relevant information gets passed through
○ states that whatever irrelevant information that isn’t sent to be processed gets thrown out of
the mind completely, won’t ever be retrieved
○ took a while to find data to support this theory
■ trials w/ EEG
● created ERPs (avg of EEG trials)
● placed over the early visual areas
, 🧠this theory goes for all other perceptual senses, however they become more complex when you go look
at the senses other than visual and auditory
🧠this theory was quite a good one for a while…until thecocktail party effectphenomenon was
presented
○ a theory that contrasts filter theory, but supportsattenuation theory
○ when in a room filled with people while having a conversation with someone, someone calls
your name and your attention turns towards the person that called you
🧠attenuation theory:the mind does filter out informationthat isn’t needed in the moment, but
instead of throwing it out it keeps it on the backburner for a while (short holding period)
○ suggests both early and late selection
■ early selection includes:
● registration
● perceptual analysis
■ late selection includes:
● semantic encoding/analysis
● executive functions
● directions memory
● response
The CE and DMN Networks
🧠CE = central executive network
○ AKA frontal parietal network
○ controlled attention
○ gives attention to the external world
○ subtraction method to find it:
■ [attention to external world] - [spacing out]
○ using Posner’s spatial cueing paradigm to measure controlled attention to space
■ arrow points to where the box to respond to pops up
■ invalid trials = arrow points to the wrong place
● shows the cost of not paying attention to the wrong thing
■ baseline/neutral = no cue at all
● responses were faster than invalid trials but slower than valid trial
■ a real life example of this would be, you’re looking for a friend in a crowd
● valid trial: told to look for a person with a red hat and that’s what they’re
wearing = find friend faster
● invalid trial: told to look for a person w/ a red had but they’re wearing a green
hat = harder to find the friend
○ the general idea is that attention boosts activity in the certain brain area that process it
■ focusing on colour boosts V4 activity
■ focusing on faces boosts FFA activity
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