Deck 7: Attention

Question 1

Joan is a patient who had a stroke in her right parietal lobe and has extinction as a result of her injury. When placed in a driving simulator she would be most likely to miss which stimulus when stopped at a virtual crosswalk and staring straight ahead? (Note: For this question, assume drivers sit on the left side of the car.)

A)a pedestrian on the driver side
B)a pedestrian on the passenger side
C)a pedestrian on the driver side when a second pedestrian is on the passenger side at the same time
D)a pedestrian on the passenger side when a second pedestrian is on the driver side at the same time

Answer 1

C

Question 2

The involuntary failure to attend to sensory stimuli presented on the side of space opposite to the site of brain injury (in the absence of sensory problems) is called ________ syndrome.

A)agnosia
B)neglect
C)blindsight
D)hemianopia

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The main deficit in Bálint's syndrome is that patients can focus attention only on

A)contralesional objects.
B)ipsilesional objects.
C)one object at a time.
D)the foveal part of the visual field.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Patients with neglect have deficits in _________ attention and those with Bálint's syndrome have deficits in _________ attention.

A)object-based; scene-based
B)scene-based; object-based
C)visual; kinesthetic
D)kinesthetic; visual

Question 5

If a patient were demonstrating characteristics of unilateral neglect, which of the following would best explain the patient's symptoms?

A)Left hemisphere structures contain a full map of visual space, whereas right hemisphere structures contain only a map of contralateral space.
B)Left hemisphere structures contain a full map of visual space, whereas right hemisphere structures contain only a map of ipsilateral space.
C)Right hemisphere structures contain a full map of visual space, whereas left hemisphere structures contain only a map of contralateral space.
D)Right hemisphere structures contain a full map of visual space, whereas left hemisphere structures contain only a map of ipsilateral space.

Question 6

Your brother sees that you are talking to a friend through a Bluetooth piece in your left ear while the news is on TV in the room. What is he likely to observe after you hang up?

A)You do not remember anything.
B)You can accurately report the news for the day.
C)You can remember the details of your friend's conversation.
D)You are equally accurate at reporting what happened in the world today and what your friend spoke to you about.

Question 7

Which component of attention is associated with the pulvinar?

A)the ability to engage visual attention at a particular location in the visual field
B)the capacity to move the focus of visual attention from one location to another
C)the ability to disengage attention from a particular location in the visual field
D)the ability to locate a conjunction target that is embedded in a field of distracters

Question 8

The ability to direct attention independently of gaze or eye fixation is called

A)overt attention.
B)covert attention.
C)the attentional spotlight.
D)visual search.

Question 9

When Bisiach and Luzzatti (1978) asked patients with the neglect syndrome to describe their own mental images of the Italian city in which they lived, the researchers found that

A)these patients demonstrated a deficit in moving attention from one location in their mental images to another.
B)patients had great difficulty in generating mental images in general.
C)there was no evidence of neglect for internally generated mental images.
D)the patients also neglected the contralesional side of their own mental images.

Question 10

The observation that extinction is worse when identical, rather than different, stimuli are simultaneously presented to the ipsilesional and contralesional sides of the visual field indicates that

A)neglected stimuli do not undergo perceptual processing in the absence of focused attention.
B)neglected stimuli undergo perceptual processing in the absence of focused attention.
C)neglected stimuli can capture attention involuntarily.
D)neglected stimuli are often confused with stimuli that are successfully attended.

Question 11

Patients with extinction are unable to detect a visual stimulus presented on the contralesional side of space if

A)the stimulus is presented alone in the visual field.
B)this stimulus is presented at the same time as a stimulus on the ipsilesional side of the visual field.
C)there is no cue that precedes the stimulus.
D)the stimulus is presented with another at a more lateral position in the contralesional visual field.

Question 12

Attention can be divided into two broad categories:

A)neglect and extinction.
B)voluntary and reflexive.
C)cortical and subcortical.
D)major and minor.

Question 13

________ refers to the ability to choose certain sensory inputs for further information processing while ignoring others.

A)Vigilance
B)Arousal
C)Visual search
D)Selective attention

Question 14

Which of the following phenomena is the most problematic for a strong early-selection view of attention?

A)endogenous cuing
B)the cocktail party phenomenon
C)exogenous cuing
D)intrusion of the unattended

Question 15

The primary functional problem that results from damage to the attentional network and that produces neglect syndrome is that patients

A)fail to process sensory information from the ipsilesional side of space.
B)fail to process sensory information from the contralesional side of space.
C)cannot disengage attention from information in the ipsilesional side of space.
D)cannot disengage attention from information in the contralesional side of space.

Question 16

During a particularly boring lecture, you carefully note the time on a clock that is mounted on the side wall of the classroom while keeping your eyes fixated on the professor's face. This is an example of

A)covert attention.
B)inhibition of return.
C)extinction.
D)conjunction search.

Question 17

The term ________ refers to the operations involved when we select for further processing a limited subset of information from the total information available to us from our sensory systems and stored mental representations.

A)arousal
B)vigilance
C)attention
D)cuing

Question 18

Why isn't the neuropsychology of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) typically studied as a model to understand the anatomy of attention networks?

A)ADHD is primarily a sensory issue.
B)Because ADHD is so much more common in boys than in girls, the findings would be too heavily gender biased.
C)Both the anatomical and behavioral differences in ADHD make it a more complex phenomenon to study than neglect or Bálint's syndrome.
D)The brains of children with ADHD are still developing.

Question 19

In one of the earliest studies of visual attention, Helmholtz (1894) constructed a screen on which letters were painted at various distances from the center. Following a brief illumination, he found that

A)he could perceive letters located within the focus of his attention better than letters outside, even when his eyes remained at the center of the screen.
B)he could remember all the letters on the screen if he scanned the screen with his eyes prior to the brief illumination.
C)he could perceive letters located within the focus of his attention better than letters outside, but only if he moved his eyes to bring the letters to the center of his visual field.
D)he could remember all the letters on the screen, demonstrating that visual iconic memory increases in capacity with attentional focus.

Question 20

You are sitting in a coffee shop talking to your best friend while everyone around you talks and music is playing in the background. The fact that you can attend to your friend and ignore the other sounds around you is best described by which of the following items?

A)dichotic listening
B)vigilance
C)the cocktail party effect
D)endogenous cuing

Question 21

In ERP studies of performance on the dichotic listening task, Hillyard and colleagues (1973) found that attended signals are accompanied by a negative-polarity waveform that is relatively large and peaks at approximately 180 milliseconds after stimulus presentation. This waveform is called the auditory ________ potential.

A)N1
B)P3
C)ERF
D)sensory

Question 22

Directing attention to a visual stimulus produces a positive ERP waveform called the P1 waveform if participants are

A)overtly, rather than covertly, directing attention.
B)selectively attending to the stimulus based on its location.
C)exogenously (externally) cued rather than endogenously (internally) cued to the stimulus.
D)shown a different stimulus in each eye.

Question 23

All of the following describe differences between early-selection and late-selection models of attention EXCEPT

A)early-selection models argue that selection occurs before semantic analysis of incoming stimuli.
B)late-selection models argue that human information processing has limited capacity, whereas early-selection models argue that capacity is unlimited.
C)early-selection models argue that all higher-level information processing requires the use of attention.
D)late-selection models argue that a stimulus may be categorized or even identified before selection.

Question 24

To explain dichotic listening findings such as the observation that a participant usually notices when his or her own name is embedded in the ignored channel, Treisman (1969) proposed that

A)unattended information is not completely excluded from higher analysis, but merely attenuated.
B)attention can be explained only in terms of late, rather than early, selection mechanisms.
C)relatively unique types of stimuli, such as names, do not require attention for processing.
D)familiar stimuli that have been learned previously by participants do not require attention for processing.

Question 25

Hillyard and colleagues (1973) recorded event-related potentials (ERP) from participants while they performed a dichotic listening task. When comparing the ERPs collected when participants attended to a given signal to those collected when they ignored this signal, the researchers found that auditory ERPs

A)began later for attended versus unattended signals.
B)began earlier for attended versus unattended signals.
C)were larger for attended versus unattended signals.
D)were smaller for attended versus unattended signals.

Question 26

The Posner spatial cuing task (1980) showed that cuing participants to the location of an upcoming target

A)increased reaction time to detect the target.
B)decreased reaction time to detect the target.
C)failed to affect reaction time but did increase detection accuracy.
D)failed to affect either reaction time or detection accuracy.

Question 27

Techniques such as EEG are particularly well suited to studies of attention. However, one difficulty in using these techniques is that

A)one must also use a structural neuroimaging technique to isolate the source of attentional activation to a specific brain structure.
B)one must also use a functional neuroimaging technique to isolate the source of attentional activation to a specific brain structure.
C)EEG is an expensive and extremely invasive neuroimaging technique.
D)electrical signals in the brain are not affected by the use of focused attention.

Question 28

Which of the following phenomena is the most consciously mediated?

A)inhibition of return
B)reflexive attention
C)exogenous cuing
D)endogenous cuing

Question 29

In dichotic listening studies, it has been found that a participant usually notices when his or her own name is embedded in the ignored channel. This finding is considered evidence that

A)selection occurs late in perceptual processing.
B)selection occurs early in perceptual processing.
C)there is a separate cognitive system for name recognition.
D)recognition of familiar stimuli does not require attention.

Question 30

One finding demonstrated by the Posner spatial cuing task (1980) is that

A)the focus of attention can be moved separately from eye fixation.
B)compared to neutral cues, valid cues result in slower reaction time to targets.
C)compared to invalid cues, neutral cues result in slower reaction time to targets.
D)attention cannot be directed spatially without a corresponding eye movement.

Question 31

The observation that participants are actually slower to detect targets that appear at recent previously attended locations is called

A)attentional fatigue.
B)exogenous cuing.
C)inhibition of return.
D)pop-out search.

Question 32

You are walking down the street and talking to a friend when suddenly, a car screeches its tires, causing you to turn and look toward the sound. This is an example of _____ attention.

A)endogenous, covert
B)endogenous, overt
C)exogenous, covert
D)exogenous, overt

Question 33

Both early- and late-selection models of attention share the idea that

A)a large proportion of incoming sensory information is filtered from further analysis before meaning is extracted.
B)information is excluded from higher-level processing only after stimuli have been identified.
C)the human information processing system cannot fully process every piece of information it receives.
D)semantic encoding and analysis precede selection in information processing.

Question 34

You are working diligently in the chemistry laboratory when suddenly a small explosion occurs in the rear of the room, immediately and automatically capturing your attention. This is an example of

A)inhibition of return.
B)exogenous cuing.
C)voluntary orienting.
D)controlled processing.

Question 35

Alexandra believes that the effects of attention on perception occur very quickly on a fine temporal scale. Which of the following techniques should she use to investigate the changes in perceptual processing that may accompany focused attention?

A)CT (computerized tomography)
B)PET (positron emission tomography)
C)MEG (magnetoencephalography)
D)MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

Question 36

The process of directing one's attention to a specific external stimulus is called

A)vigilance.
B)arousal.
C)orienting.
D)extinction.

Question 37

In attention experiments, cues that correctly predict the location of the target are called ________, whereas cues that predict other locations are called ________.

A)endogenous; exogenous
B)benefits; costs
C)valid; invalid
D)overt; covert

Question 38

________ is the idea that a stimulus does not have to be completely analyzed before it can be either selected for further processing or rejected as irrelevant.

A)Sensory arousal
B)Dichotic perception
C)Early selection
D)Late selection

Question 39

Results of the Posner spatial cuing task (1980) showed that cuing participants to the location of an upcoming target decreased their reaction time to detect it because attention enhanced perceptual processing for the target. This finding is most consistent with ________ models of attention.

A)gating
B)bottleneck
C)early-selection
D)late-selection

Question 40

On one trial of the Posner spatial cuing task (1980), a flash of light validly cued the location of an upcoming target and enhanced the participant's reaction time to detect that target. Which of the following statements about the participant's subsequent responding to this location is most accurate?

A)Detection of targets that appear in this position on subsequent trials will also be enhanced.
B)Detection of targets that appear in this position on subsequent trials will be unaffected.
C)Detection of targets that appear in this position on subsequent trials will be inhibited from now on.
D)Detection of targets that appear in this position on subsequent trials will be temporarily inhibited.

Question 41

What is the neurological syndrome known as neglect? Describe the typical symptoms and associated brain regions. How does complete neglect differ from extinction?

Question 42

In exogenous cuing, the orienting of attention to the cue is driven primarily by the participant's goals.

Question 43

Models of late selection hypothesize that attended and ignored inputs are processed equivalently by the perceptual system, reaching a stage of semantic analysis.

Question 44

You are chasing a tennis ball that has been hit away from you. Which of the following brain areas is least involved in tracking that stimulus?

A)the parietal lobe
B)the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
C)the inferotemporal cortex
D)V1

Question 45

ERP studies of visual and auditory attention suggest that early ERP components like the P1 and N1 are not modulated by the participant's attentional state.

Question 46

Unilateral spatial neglect typically results from damage to the left temporal lobe.

Question 47

Studies of attention employing the P1 waveform and the N1 waveform suggest that

A)both vision and audition involve a late-selection mechanism.
B)both vision and audition involve an early-selection mechanism.
C)visual attention primarily involves early selection, whereas auditory attention primarily involves late selection.
D)auditory attention primarily involves early selection, whereas visual attention primarily involves late selection.

Question 48

Spatial attention to one hemifield leads to increased neural activity in the fusiform gyrus in the ipsilateral hemisphere.

Question 49

When spatial attention is introduced to one stimulus in a spatial array, simultaneous presentation of competing stimuli interferes less compared to the absence of spatial attention.

Question 50

Injury to which brain structure results in a deficit in moving focused attention from a particular location in the visual field to another?

A)the posterior parietal lobe
B)the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus
C)the superior colliculus
D)the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus

Question 51

In general, it could be said that ___________________ areas tend to be involved with the control of attention, whereas __________________ areas are affected by attention.

A)frontal and parietal; sensory processing
B)subcortical; parietal and frontal
C)sensory processing; temporal and parietal
D)sensory processing; frontal and parietal

Question 52

At the neuronal level, the fundamental effect of selective attention is understood to be that selective attention results in

A)increased neuronal activity throughout the brain.
B)increased neuronal activity in areas that would be processing the attended stimulus.
C)increased neuronal activity in areas that would otherwise not be processing the attended stimulus.
D)a change in the brain regions that would typically be processing a stimulus.

Question 53

Visual search for ________ targets requires the use of selective attention, whereas visual search for ________ targets can occur without sequential attention.

A)pop-out; conjunction
B)pop-out; feature
C)conjunction; feature
D)feature; conjunction

Question 54

Extrastriate cortical regions specialized for the processing of color, form, and motion are modulated by visual attention to these stimulus features.

Question 55

Your friend is looking for you and sees your face on someone else's body. This is most likely due to an error in which attentional system?

A)the ventral system
B)the dorsal system
C)neither the ventral system nor the dorsal system
D)both the ventral system and the dorsal system

Question 56

The P1 ERP is associated most closely with the

A)direction of attention to the spatial location of a visually presented object.
B)pop-out of feature-based visual targets in visual search.
C)direction of attention to the specific ear through which a particular signal is presented.
D)increased activity of cells in the primary and secondary auditory cortex.

Question 57

Visual search is slowest when

A)the focus of attention is driven by voluntary, controlled search.
B)the focus of attention is driven by the sensory information.
C)the number of distracters in the display is large.
D)the number of features in the display is large.

Question 58

Attention can be directed to both spatial and nonspatial features of target visual stimuli.

Question 59

In visual search tasks, the amount of time it takes to find a target among distracters is independent of the number of distracters if the target can be identified by a single feature.

Question 60

You are looking for a friend who is supposed to meet you in a crowded lecture hall. You know that she is wearing a grey sweatshirt and glasses. Which kind of visual search best describes this situation?

A)conjunction search
B)feature search
C)pop-out search
D)parallel search

Question 61

What is the difference between voluntary attention and reflexive attention, and between overt and covert attention? Are the distinctions the same? If not, how do they differ?

Question 62

Describe the role of attention in perception. What might you conclude based on behavioral studies? How do studies of the neural substrate inform behavioral results?

Question 63

Describe the basic findings of the visual search research conducted by Treisman and colleagues. In particular, describe the difference between a feature search and a conjunction search. Draw a figure illustrating a typical response-time pattern for the two search types.

Question 64

Describe the experimental design of a Posner cuing experiment. In your answer, provide definitions for the terms exogenous cuing, endogenous cuing, valid trial, invalid trial, and inhibition of return.

Question 65

How do early- and late-selection models of attention differ? Propose a dichotic listening experiment that would provide evidence to distinguish between these two models.

Question 66

Can object representations modulate spatial attention? Please describe evidence to support your answer.

Question 67

Describe the subcortical structures involved in attention. Do you think these structures contribute to voluntary or reflexive attention? Why or why not?

Question 68

Describe the cortical structures involved in attention. Do you think these structures contribute to voluntary or reflexive attention? Why or why not?

Question 69

Please describe the dorsal and ventral system of attention. What role do they play in neglect?