Psyc 330 Ch. 5

Front 1

Herman von Helmholtz

Back 1

Credited with being the first to study attention shifts in a systematic manner

Suggested that the attentional focal point can be shifted independently of ocular fixation

Front 2

Orienting response

Back 2

The adjustment of an animal's position relative to a stimulus in question, usually involves a body, head, and/or eye movement

Front 3

Reticular activating system (RAS)

Back 3

Is involved in cortical arousal

Front 4

Overt orienting

Back 4

Shifts of attention associated with detectable body movements. Attention shifts occur in synchrony with changes in body position

Front 5

Covert orienting

Back 5

Shifts of attention not associated with any directly observable body movements. Attention shift occurs independently about a position

Front 6

Describe the location cuing method used to study covert orienting

Back 6

1 there is essential fixation point that subject must continually direct their eyes toward

2. Visually presented the target

3. Location cue presented immediately before targets appearance

Cue indicates, with a certain probability, the impending targets location

Front 7

Cue-target onset asynchrony

Back 7

delay between the presentation of the cue and the target

if CTOA < 200 ms, no concern about eye movement

if CTOA > 200 ms, eye movements might contribute to attention shifts instead of cueing

Front 8

valid cue trial

Back 8

trials on which the target appears at the cued location

Front 9

invalid cue trial

Back 9

trials on which the target does not appear at the cued location

Front 10

Neutral Cue

Back 10

Does not provide any information about target location

Front 11

Direct cue

Back 11

usually underlines, outline boxes, or bar markers that are presented in close proximity to expected target location

Front 12

Symbolic cue

Back 12

usually centrally presented arrows or digits that subjects understand to indicate the expected target location

Front 13

what is the purpose of using a neutral cue?

Back 13

allows researchers to determine whether or not:

1. valid location cues facilitate response

2. invalid cues inhibit responses

Front 14

what is cost/ benefit analysis?

Back 14

indicates the magnitude of facilitative and inhibitory effects of location cuing on response times

cost: the difference b/w the average invalid cue and the average neutral cue trail response times

benefit: difference b/w the average valid cue trial and the average neutral cue trial response times

Front 15

how to the use of different cues effect response times?

Back 15

Cues with valid cuing lead to faster responses

Valid cues lead to more accuracy when identifying

Front 16

Lamplight Theory

Back 16

proposed by Alcmaeon (450 BCE)

hit his head and "saw stars", so thought we had fire in our heads

influenced the spotlight metaphor centuries later

Front 17

Spotlight metaphor

Back 17

focused attention can be shifted to cued locations like a moving spotlight

we ignore surrounding stimuli and focus only on what's of interest or in "attentional beam"

Front 18

Head Start

Back 18

valid cue trials - spotlight of attn. initially at fixation point when cue presented, move attention to location. When target shows up, attn already there.

** decreases time required to detect target

Front 19

False Start

Back 19

invalid cue trials - shift of attn. spotlight initiated to location on opposite side of display from actual target location. Has to re-align spotlight with correct target location.

**increases time required to detect target onset

Front 20

Will a visual cue facilitate a response to an auditory target, and vice versa?

Back 20

studies have found that they do! which disproved the separate pool theory

Front 21

stimulus driven cues

Back 21

Attention shift by a direct cue, its the external stimuli itself that pulls attention away. Involuntary, no effort required.

Front 22

Goal driven cue

Back 22

Attn shift initiated by symbolic cue. voluntary.

Front 23

Describe the Concurrent Task experiment using direct and symbolic cues

Back 23

method: ss doing either direct cuing or symbolic cuing task while performing another task at same time.

Findings: 1. direct cuing is not effected by a concurrent task. 2. symbolic cuing responses are decreased with a concurrent task

suggests that symbolic cuing is more cognitive than direct.

Front 24

How does cue effectiveness change with varying presentation time?

Back 24

Direct cues more effective when 100ms before target BUT effectiveness decreases if presented any longer - sensory activation, decreases with time

Symbolic cues more effective when 300+ ms before target, and ineffective when shorter - cognitive

Front 25

cue validity

Back 25

percentage of trials on which the target will appear at cued location

Front 26

low validity cue

Back 26

20% accuracy, poor indicator of impeding target location

Front 27

High validity cue

Back 27

80% accuracy, good indicator of impeding target location

Front 28

Which attention shift is most effected by cue manipulations?

Back 28

manipulations of cue validity have a greater effect on goal-driven attention shifts (symbolic cues)

Front 29

Why does the "effectiveness" of the symbolic cues drop over time with low validity condition trials?

Back 29

over course of trials ss learn that cues are not useful for determining location therefore do not use them to direct attn.

Front 30

what are some examples of questions brought on by the introduction of the spotlight metaphor?

Back 30

1. at what speed can the attentional focal point be shifted from one location to another?

2. is the attentional focal point shifted in an analog or discrete manner?

3. is the size of the focal point variable?

4. if so, what is the min. and max. focal size?

5. Can it be split into multiple foci?

Front 31

Analog shift

Back 31

spotlight of attention stays on during attention shift. remains actively engaged.

Front 32

discrete shift

Back 32

spotlight of attention turns off during attention shift. becomes disengaged.

Front 33

What area of the brain is thought to be responsible for attention disengagement?

Back 33

Parietal Lobe

Front 34

What brain area is thought to be responsible to re-engaging attention?

Back 34

Pulvinar

Front 35

What brain area is thought to be responsible for the shifting of attention?

Back 35

Superior Colliculus

Front 36

Describe a, possible, process of attention shift.

Back 36

1. initially, attn is engaged at one location.

2. when new object appears in visual field, the sequence of operations begins with the disengagement of attn.

3. while attn is disengaged, midbrain processes encode location coordinates of shift destination and prepare channel of attn to be opened at this position

4. after shift is complete, attn is re-engaged at location of new object and attentive analysis of properties begins.

Front 37

Law of 2 levels

Back 37

Titchener (1908) - observers can choose between two different states of attentional focus depending on the visual task at hand

if attn focused on an object/ location, then its concentration would be distributed within a narrow focal point.

If not focused on anything in particular, then broad focal point.

Front 38

IOR - Inhibition of Return

Back 38

the inhibition of responses to objects appearing at recently cued or recently attended locations.

suggested that associated with mechanisms that inhibits processing from returning to previously inspected objects. abolished by midbrain lesions.

Front 39

Zoom lens proposal

Back 39

refined version of the spotlight metaphor, that better accounts for attentions variable spatial extent.

concentration of attn and the spatial extent of its focal point has a reciprocal relationship.

low resolutions = broad field

high res = narrow field

Front 40

Can the attentional focal point to divided into multiple foci?

Back 40

no. think about it.

Front 41

Activity Distribution model

Back 41

takes into account sensory contributions of location cue onsets.

an activity distribution is an accumulation of neural activity that, when large enough to exceed a criterion threshold, can cause a channel of attention to open at its corresponding location with a higher level representation.

Front 42

Spatial indexing

Back 42

mediates non-attnal maintenance of location information during visual analysis