Attention

Question 1

What is selective attention?

Answer 1

When resources are focused on one type opf stimulus while ignoring others

Question 2

What is the endogenous visual system?

Answer 2

• Top-down voluntary and goal directed

- Dorsal fronto-parietal network

Question 3

What is the exogenous attentional system?

Answer 3

• Automatic, involuntary stimulus-driven system

- Right hemisphere of the ventral fronto-parietal network

Question 4

What is the evidence for dissociation?

Answer 4

Virtually no overlap in the brain areas associated with bottom-up and top-down processing

Question 5

What are the two types of visual neglect and what is this condition associated with?

Answer 5

Persistent neglect - ignore left visual field

Personal neglect - neglect of left side of the body

Question 6

What is the spotlight theory and what evidence is there for it?

Answer 6

• Small area of focus with little outside this area

- Reaction time fastest when probe is in the middle of a word (La Berge 1983)

Question 7

What is the multiple spotlight theory?

Answer 7

• Split attention where attention can be allocated to more than 2 non-adjascent areas of visual space
• Evidence from Awh & Pashler 2000 with number grid

Question 8

Describe two pieces of evidence for object based attention?

Answer 8

Dorsal simultagnosia - only a portion of the visual field is perceived and patients act as if they can only se 1 object at a time
Balint’s syndrome - Can describe objects but only see one of the two

Question 9

What evidence is there for a space and object based attentional system?

Answer 9

Tipper & Behrmann (1996) experiments with patients with unilateral neglect

Question 10

What is inhibition of return?

Answer 10

Reduced perceptual priority for information in a region that recently enjoyed a higher priority

Question 11

What two factors affected the processing of unattended visual stimuli?

Answer 11

Perceptual load - distraction greater under low perceptual load
Load on executive cognitive control - distinguishing between targets and distractors

Question 12

What is divided attention?

Answer 12

The allocation of resources when performing two tasks at the same time

Question 13

Which 3 factors influence dual task performance?

Answer 13

• Task similarity
• Practice
• Task difficulty