Attention 1

Attention = the process by which certain information is selected for further processing and other
information is discarded.

Limited capacity to process all received information, so selection is based on relevance or importance
to current goals.

Attention tends to be directed to locations in space (space is a common dimension of different

sensory systems and our motor system), attention to objects, attention to time.

William James said that attention is the taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one
out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thoughts…. It implies
withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.

We need attention for selection: our cognitive system is limited in capacity and resources.

- Selection for perception

- Information selection for response/action

Focused attention = a situation in which individuals try to attend to only one source of information
while ignoring other stimuli – also known as selective attention.

Divided attention = a situation in which two tasks are performed at the same time – also known as
multitasking.

Attention control – the ability to focus on task-relevant information while ignoring distractions.

How does attention work? The spotlight metaphor of attention:

- Spotlight may move from one location to another (e.g. in visual search)
- It may zoom in or out (narrow or wide beam) e.g. if attending to words or attending to
central letter in a word.
- Disengage – move – engage.

Paradigms to measure spatial selective attention:

Covert attention – attentional shifts to a given spatial location in the absence of an eye movement –
Posner (1980).

Endogenous cues are called central cues, Exogenous cues are called peripheral cues - Valid cues have
the fasted response, invalid the slowest. Neural cues are in the middle of these.
Posners Attentional Systems:

Endogenous system = controlled by the individuals intentions and expectations and is involved when
central cues are presented.

Exogenous system = automatically shifts attention. Is involved when uniformative peripheral cues are
presnted. Stimuli that are salient or that differ from other stimuli are most likely to be attended.

Posner and Cohen (1984) – this tasl is an example of exogenous orienting (externally driven by the
stimulus). Endogenous orienting occurs when attention is guided by the goals of the perciever (e.g.
when searching for an object in an array e.g. wheres wally type puzzles).

Inhibition of return (IOR): A bias favouring novel locations and objects.

- Posner and Cohen (1984) – short cue-target delays (<300ms) – responses for cued targets are
faster than for those in non-cued locations
- With longer delays – responses for cued targets slower than for those in non-cued locations.

Spatial selective attention:

- Inhibition of Return: When the cue precedes the target by up to 150 ms, participants are
significantly faster at detecting the target at that location. At longer delays (above 300 ms)
the reverse pattern is found: participants are slower at detecting a target in the same
location as the cue. This can be explained by assuming that the spotlight initially shifts to
the cued location, but if the target does not appear, attention shifts to another location
(called “disengagement”). There is a processing cost in terms of reaction time associated
with going back to the previously attended location. This is called inhibition of return.

Attentional network:

Bottom up = stimulus driven control.

Top-down attentional system: An endogenous, dorsal system

- The brain network involved in the goal-directed attentional system.

- Consists of a dorsal fronto-parietal network.

Bottom-uo attentional system: An exogenous, ventral system.

 - A stimulus-driven attentional system – attention more likely captured by distractors
resembling task-relevant stimuli.
- Provides a circuit-breaking function (TPJ) – for sudden shifts in environment.
- Consists of right hemisphere ventral fronto-parietal network.

Attentional Networks: How do they work?

- Two cortico-cortical systems involved in attending to environmental stimuli (Corbetta &

Shulman, 2002).
- Top down – generates and maintains endogenous signals based on current goals and pre-
existing information (top - bottom; frontal - visual).
- Bottom-up: detects salient and behaviourally relevant stimuli in the environment, especially
when unattended (stimulus-driven action).

Disorders of spatial attention and treatment:

Disorders of visual attention: Neglect

- A lack of awareness of stimuli presented to the side of space on the opposite side to the
brain damage.
- Damage typically in right hemisphere’s inferior parietal lobe – tempero-parietal junction,
angular gyrus.
- Impairment typically in contralesional left visual field.

Possible therapeutic approaches:

- Prism adaptation
- Video games
- ^ on slides 29,30.

Attention 2 –

How are we supposed to follow just one conversation when several people are all talking at once?

Colin Cherry (1953) - the cocktail party problem:

- How do we focus on one conversation at a time?

- The ability involves using physical differences to maintain attention to a chosen auditory
message.
- Dichotic listening task.

Dichotic listening task –

- Simultaneously sending a message to a person’s right ear and a different to the left ear at the
same time.
- Participants are asked to listen to both messages at the same time and repeat what they
heard.
- Effective cues for message selection = physical separation i.e. in which ear the message was
presented (most effective cue), physical acoustic of the voices (e.g. pitch, male/female).

Early theories of attention: Early vs Late selection debate – Bottleneck theories of attention:

- Limited capacity requires a bottleneck in the flow of information processing.

 - Different theories on how the information that passes through the bottleneck is selected.
- Early studies on attention: Dichotic listening and shadowing effect.

Selective attention: Early bottleneck/filter theory – Broadbent (1952,1958) interpreted these results
as follows:

- Stimuli that do not need a response are discarded before they have been fully processed (i.e.
before they access the semantic level).
- Physical features of the input are effective cues for separating and selecting messages in
input.
- A filter operates at the level of physical features, allowing the selected information to go
through the filter for further processing.
- For unattended messages, only physical properties of the input seemed to be detected and it
is these properties that can guide the setting of the filter.

Broadbents Filter Theory – Conceptualising human performance in terms of information processing.

- Two stimuli or messages presented at the same time gain access in parallel (at the same
time) to a sensory buffer.
- One of the inputs is then allowed through a filter on the basis of its physical characteristics,
with the other input remaining in the buffer for later processing.
- The filter prevents overloading of the limited capacity mechanisms beyond the filter.

Neurophysiological studies –

- Auditory ERPs
- BERs (0-10ms) reflect varies stages along the brainstem aud. path – assessing aud. pathology
e.g. in infants.
- Fronto-central component (75ms)
- Vertex max (100ms)
- Lateral distributed component (150ms)
- ^Modulated by attention
- Provide support for early selection theories – Woldorff et al, 1993.

Critique to filter theory –

- Treisman (1960): Relationship between attended and unattended information.

- Attended channel = passage from a novel.
- Unattended channel = a) a different passage from the same novel OR b) technical passage
about biochemistry book, message in a forgein language, or nonsense syllables.
- RESULTS: A interfered more with recall than B.

Treisman’s Attenuation model (1960):

Treisman (1964) proposed that the filter is not such an all-or-nothing affair as Broadbent said. Rather
than blocking out all information that does not meet the selection criterion for attention, the filter
attenuated or reduced the strength of the unattended channels. If incoming information is not
totally blocked off, then partial information that is consistent with current expectations might be
sufficient to raise the activation of those words above the threshold of consciousness.

General problems with early models –

Shadowing

- Inability of naïve participants to shadow successfully. This is due to their unfamiliarity with
the shadowing task rather than the inability of the attentional system.

Dichotic Listening

- The main problem with dichotic listening experiments is that we can never be sure that the
participants have not actually switched attention to the unattended channel.
- Memory for unattended channel may depend on familiarity, importance or similarity to the
attended channel.
- There are effects of practise on unattended information.
- The is implicit memory for the unattended channel even when there is not explicit memory.

Problems with the Treisman’s Attenuation model

- Does not explain how semantic analysis works.

- The nature of the attenuation process has never been precisely specified.

Late selection theories of attention – Deutsch and Deutsch (1963)

- Proposed that all stimuli are fully analysed, with the most important or relevant stimulus
determining the response.
- This theory places the bottleneck in processing much nearer the response end of the
processing system than treisman’s attenuation theory.

Load theory of attention –

- Perceptual processing can only become selective when the limits of perceptual capacity are
reached.
- If a task imposes sufficient demands to exceed capacity, task-irrelevant items are not
processed and can therefore be successfully ignored (early selection can occur).
- By contrast, if a task imposes only low perceptual demands, the remaining capacity is
automatically allocated to the processing of task-irrelevant items, which may then cause
distraction (reflecting late selection).
Distractions and its effects –

- Being highly distracted in daily life can interrupt task performance and have a variety of
negative consequences.
- Including – poorer academic performance, reduced efficiency in the workplace as adults,
increased risk of car accidents.

Load theory – low load

- Visual search paradigm

- Brief display presentations – task = speeded response X or N? Measure reaction times.
- Irrelevant distractor – cartoon image presented on 10% of the displays.
- Participants were easily distracted by low load stimuli.

Inattentional blindness = or perceptual blindness occurs when an individual fails to perceive an

unexpected stimulus in plain sight, purely as a result of a lack of attention rather than any vision
defects – e.g., gorilla experiment

^Critiques low load

Load theory – high load cognition

- Irrelevant distractor – cartoon image presented on 10% of the displays.

- Not much difference between distractor and non-distractor results.

Response competition task also used to measure load theory.

Load theory and its application –

- Inattention and distractibility key to ADHD.

- Inattentive symptoms of ADHD are more likely to persist into adulthood than hyperactivity.
- Such symptoms can be highly disruptive in many daily life contexts from the workplace to the
drive home from work. Indeed, many disadvantages reported by adults with ADHD, such as
academic failure, workplace problems, and increased risk of car accidents (Faraone et al.,
2000), have also been associated with increased daily life distractibility in nonclinical
populations (Forster & Lavie, 2008b, for review), suggesting that symptoms of distraction
may (at least partially) mediate the risk of functional impairments in ADHD.

Load Theory and ADHD –

- ADHD patients more distracted – low load = nearly twice distracted than the control group.

Load theory and mind wandering –

Mind wandering = task unrelated thoughts – anything other than thoughts about the task being
performed.

Task related thoughts – thoughts related to the task.

- Similar task to the above, but they added a thought probe – so they asked participants what
they were thinking just now - before the probe appeared. Press A for task or Z for something
unrelated.
- Results: Task unrelated thoughts (TUT) were reduced in the high load condition.

Mind wandering
 - Can be modulated by the level of perceptual load in the task performed.
- This implies that despite obvious differences between task unrelated thoughts and external
distractions, the process of the distraction may involve common mechanisms.
- The experiments further clarify that the reduction in the level of task unrelated thoughts
reported under high perceptual load is not simply due to a change in the demands on verbal
working memory, rate of response and response feedback or the level of motivation or
deliberate intention to engage in task unrelated thoughts.

Attention 3 – Video games in the spotlight.

- After training for 10hrs in a lab on control video games and action video games, people got
more correct on space graphs.
- Action games improved attention the most.
- Improved ability to focus and divide attention.
- Increased capacity to attend to multiple stimuli.
- Faster detection/recognition of relevant events.

Top-down attention – attentional control

- Flexible attention allocation to objects.

- Flexible attention allocation in space.
- Flexible attention allocation in time.

Middle Frontal Gyrus = negotiates between our goal-directed behaviours and our reactions to
external events, reconciling information from the orbitofrontal cortex with sensory information from
the rest of the cerebral cortex.

Neural markers of top-down attentional control –

- Video game players show reduced recruitment of the fronto-parietal network as compared
to non-video gamers.
- Less recruitment of frontal areas when task difficulty increases in VGPs compared to NVGPs
due to a greater automaticity.
- Automatization of processing results in diminished cortical recruitment, also shown in other
tasks such as motor, verbal and perceptual learning and more executive levels.
- More efficient orientation of attention in the time range of 100ms indicated by neural signals
such as event-related potentials.
- Enhanced ability to ignore irrelevant distractors related to enhanced activity in the temporal
parietal junction.

Video games during development –

- Older children (>10) were able to optimally integrate visuo-haptic information when
distinguishing the height of 2 blocks, whereas younger children focused on haptic cues.
- After video game intervention, children showed optimal multisensory integration, as their
measured thresholds did not differ from the maximum likelihood estimate. Only the Action
video game group improved their visual-haptic integration abilities after training.
- The action video game group showed improved multiple objects tracking after training.
 - short training with action‐like mini games can promote optimal integration of multisensory
signals during a particular developmental phase in which this ability has been reported
to be sub‐optimal
- even though our findings may suggest that multisensory integration improvements go hand
in hand with visual attention enhancement, it should be noted that we did not find any
correlation between the two tasks, which in turn suggests that the improvements observed
in the two tasks may reflect different mechanisms underlying attention and multisensory
learning skills

Action video games also been shown to improve visual performance.

Amblyopia –

- occurs in 2% of the general population, the second most common cause of functional low
vision in children in low-income countries.
- The term amblyopia = derived from the Greek language and means dull vision.
- Refers to poor vision caused by abnormal visual development.
- Video game intervention improved visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, stereoacuity and
reading speed.

Action video games increase mental rotation, multiple object tracking, enhance cognitive control in
older adults.

Action video games increase midline frontal theta activation – this is the part of the brain involved
with working memory, sustained attention and interference resolution. Multitasking training
improved activation the most.

Attention 4 – Meditation and Attention

Meditation = form of mental training that aims to improve an individual’s core psychological
capacities, such as attentional and emotional self-regulation.

Monkey mind = the inability to quiet our mind when there are many thoughts, ideas, and worries
swirling around in our head.

Forms of meditation –

- Attention based vs concentration-based techniques.

- Objects of concentration – respiration, thoughts, images, concepts, inner energy, aspects of
the body, love, god.
- Active (moving) vs passive (calm) techniques.
- Formal/informal meditation
- Guided meditation
- Individual or group
- Mindfulness meditation – focused attention and open monitoring of present-moment
experiences.
Components of mindfulness –

Compassion = to be mindful is to pay attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present

moment, and nonjudgmentally.

Meditation and attention –

- Mindfulness is a form of attention training an attention is essential for most types of

learning.
- Mindfulness can also assist with emotion regulation, reducing mind wandering and
improving executive functioning.
- Improved conflict monitoring.
- Reduced attentional blink.
- Changed in altering.
- Enhanced orienting.

Attentional blink –

- Time-based attention
- Is the phenomenon that the second of 2 targets cannot be detected or identified when it
appears close in time to the first.

Attentional network task –

- Measures performance in alertness, orientation, and conflict monitoring.

- Experimental groups showed improved conflict monitoring.
- Experimental groups showed lower cortisol levels after intervention and more
immunoreactivity after intervention.

Emotions and mood –

- POMS = profile of mood state – lowered scores after intervention.

Mindfulness training –

- Improvements in discrimination

Meditation and the brain –

- Lutz et al. (2009) studied a group of long-term Tibetan Buddhist practitioners who
underwent mental training for 10 000 to 50 000 hours over time periods ranging from 15 to
40 years. Compared with a group of novices, the practitioners self-induced higher-amplitude
sustained electroencephalography g-band oscillations and long-distance phase synchrony, in
particular over lateral fronto-parietal electrodes, while meditating. Importantly, this pattern
of g-oscillations was also significantly more pronounced in the baseline state of the long-
term practitioners compared with controls, suggesting a transformation in the default mode
of the practitioners.

- 8 brain regions were found to be consistently altered in meditators.

- the frontopolar cortex (related to enhanced awareness following meditation practise)
- the sensory cortices and insula (related to body awareness)
- the hippocampus (related to memory processes)
- anterior cingulate cortex, mid cingulate cortex, and the orbitofrontal cortex (areas known to
be related to self and emotion regulation)
- superior longitudinal fasciculus and corpus callosum (involved in intra and inter
hemispherical communication).

- Mindfulness meditation might be associated with greater cortical thickness and might lead to
enhanced white matter integrity in the anterior cingulate cortex.

Anterior cingulate cortex –

- The effects of mindfulness training include:

- ACC enables executive function and control.
- Cross-sectional studies have reported enhanced activation.
- Detects the presence of conflicts emerging from incompatible streams of info processing.
- The ACC and the fronto-insular cortex form part of a network that facilitates cognitive
processing.
- The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex response was also enhanced during executive processing.
 - Amygdala activation (emotion) is diminished in response to emotional stimuli – decrease in
emotional arousal.

Digital meditation –

- Technology multitasking research has shown that this behaviour is associated with
challenges to their attention abilities that present as increased distractibility, diminished
attention span, poorer academic performance and reduced personal contentment.
- Medi train experiment found that greater levels of both mid-frontal theta and earlier parietal
latencies after intervention.
- ^frontal and parietal networks drive the benefits of sustained attention.
- The frontal theta rhythm has been established as a marker of attentional control and we
have previously shown that frontal theta power changes in response to interventions that
enhanced cognitive control.
- Medi train also found increased working memory performance post testing.

Challenges in meditation research –

- Findings not replicated.

- Researchers may be meditators themselves which may blind their critical judgement.
- Strong bias towards the publication of positive results.
- Few longitudinal studies.
- Small sample sizes.
- Not based on elaborated theories.
- Possible that pre-existing differences may be linked to other factors.