PSYC 330 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Grand Strategy, Everytime, Electrophysiology
4 Jun 2018
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PSYC CH9 Attention Networks
Brain Structure
Critical brain areas for attention
- Reticular activating system (RAS)
- Superior colliculus
- Pulvinar (region of thalamus)
- Anterior cingulate cortex
- Parietal cortex
- Frontal cortex (Include in cingulate cortex)
- Controls other types of processing, esp orienting network
- Cortical areas play a greater role in goal-driven attention
- More planned out, decide if you’re
going to shift after looking
- Subcortical areas play a greater role in
stimulus-driven attention
- More reflexive, good for survival
- P who have subcortical (PSP) or cortical
(TPJ lesion) damage to do direct &
symbolic cues task
- P with subcortical damage → difficulty
in stimulus-driven task
- P with cortical damage → difficulty in goal-driven task
Studying attention in monkeys
- Monkey overall response times are slightly
faster than humans when performing
target detection tasks involving direct
location cueing, but response time costs
and benefits show the same pattern
■ Human IPS / monkey LIP
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- may play a similar role voluntary orienting of attention to a particular location
- Activation of LIP neurons are enhanced when attention was directed to locations
associated with their receptive field
- Regardless attending to auditory or visual information
- Bilateral voluntary attention shifts (attending to the left visual field results in
activation of the right hemisphere IPS)
■ Human TPJ/ Monkey Area 7a
- Spatially-specific enhanced responses for unattended stimuli
- TPJ activation plays a role in processing targets after their onset than in shifting
attention to their expected locations prior to onset
- Lateralized in the right hemisphere
- Occur when the target is at an unattended, unexpected location (eg invalid-cue)
- When it is relevant to the task
Attention-related neurotransmitters
- Chemicals that take a nerve signal across the synaptic gap between a sending and
receiving neuron
■ Dopamine
- Regulate frontal cortical function (voluntary control of attentional processing)
- If not enough, Parkinson’s disease
■ Serotonin
- Involved in arousal and alerting
- Production decreases when attention is shifted to new objects
- Related to depression, anxiety
■ Norepinephrine
- Involved in alerting
- Involved in maintaining sensory readiness to external stimuli, but not in shifting
the attentional focal point
- Increases when serotonin decreases
■ Acetylcholine
- Involved in reorienting attention from the location of an invalid cue to that of
the target
Subcortical Processing
- “Older part of the brain”
- Communication b/w superior colliculus and
pulvinar nucleus (overlapping location)
- Thalamus is centered in the brain, act as a filter
Reticular activating system (RAS)
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- Located in the brainstem below the superior colliculus
- Outputs project diffusely to many regions of the brain
- Control of overall arousal and attention
- Neurotransmitter systems are involved in the innervation of structures that mediate
covert orienting
Superior colliculus
- Difficult to study with electrophysiological methods (eg
ERP, MEG), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), or
fMRI due to its small size, deep location and proximity
to pulsating vascular structures
- Obtain data from monkeys (from saccadic EM)
- Eg single-cell recording, microstimulation, lesion
- Involved in localization of visual stimuli, control of
saccades, stimulus-driven attention shifts to stimuli in
visual space
- Results of single-cell recording studies indicate
that neurons in the superficial layers of SC
respond to transient and moving visual stimuli,
shifts of visual attention
- Microstimulation improved performance by
causing attention to be focused on a specific region in visual space w/o an
accompanying saccade
- SC lesions disrupt ability to locate targets
■ Superior colliculus & IOR
- Damages to the SC → no IOR
- SC is not the only brain area involved → IOR is mediated by a network of brain
- Progressive Superanuclear palsy (PSP) affects superior colliculus
- Similar symptoms to Parkinson’s
disease
- But PSP affects eye movements
- Experiment at those in
earlier stages of PSP: P can
move their attention left/
right (and show IOR), but
has difficulty for top/
bottom shifts (show less
IOR)
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Document Summary
Controls other types of processing, esp orienting network. Cortical areas play a greater role in goal-driven attention. More planned out, decide if you"re going to shift after looking. Subcortical areas play a greater role in stimulus-driven attention. P who have subcortical (psp) or cortical (tpj lesion) damage to do direct & symbolic cues task. P with subcortical damage difficulty in stimulus-driven task. P with cortical damage difficulty in goal-driven task. Monkey overall response times are slightly faster than humans when performing target detection tasks involving direct location cueing, but response time costs and benefits show the same pattern. May play a similar role voluntary orienting of attention to a particular location. Activation of lip neurons are enhanced when attention was directed to locations associated with their receptive field. Regardless attending to auditory or visual information. Bilateral voluntary attention shifts (attending to the left visual field results in activation of the right hemisphere ips)
