Attention

Part 1
Processing bottlenecks and
selection

What is attention?
Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking
possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form,
of one out of what seem several simultaneously
possible objects or trains of thought.
My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only
those items which I notice shape my mind -without selective interest, experience is an utter
chaos. ..
(James, 1890, pp. 403-404)

What is attention?
But [attention's] towering growth would appear to
have been achieved at the price of calling down
upon its builders the curse of Babel...For the
word `attention' quickly came to be
associated with a diversity of meanings that
have the appearance of being more chaotic
even than those of the term `intelligence'.
(Spearman, 1937, p. 133)

Hallmarks of selective attention

Selective: some stimuli are picked out for
further processing
Capacity limited: only a small number may
be picked out
Effortful

Many different mechanisms produce

attention!

Attention
Selective Attention: chooses stimuli for further
processing
Perceptual tasks (detection)
Involves occipital, parietal and temporal cortices

Divided Attention: allocating resources to

multiple tasks
Multiple tasks of varying kinds
Involves prefrontal areas involved in inhibition,
working memory

Today: Selective Attention

Phenomena
Change blindness & Inattentional blindness

Filter Theories
Early Filter
Late Filter
A reconcilliation

Multiple mechanisms of selective attention

Spatial Attention: Parietal Lobe
Attention in Ventral Stream

Change Blindness
(Simon & Levin, 1997)
The world contains more information than we
can absorb
So we use the stable visual world as our
memory as much as possible.
We have poor memory for visual detail across
shifts in attention.
Unless accompanied by flicker or motion cues

Door studies: we encode both people but fail to

compare
Focusing attention on one event leaves less
attention for others

Filter Theories

All Models of Attention Assume:

There is limit on amount of information that can
be processed deeply
We can select what we process by using an
Attentional Template
Sometimes attention shifts automatically based
upon bottom-up properties of stimulus

Attentional Template:
Form:
BLUE ITEMS.
HORIZONTAL LINES

Spatial:
UPPER LEFT CORNER.

Temporal:
AFTER A TONE.

Bottleneck Theories
All information gets into sensory systems
Somewhere along the way, information is
filtered or selected for attention
Early: between sensory analysis and pattern
recognition
Late: after pattern recognition and prior to
response selection

Only selected information makes it into

awareness and long-term memory

Broadbent Model of Attention

(Early Filter)
Attentional Template:
based solely on physical properties of
stimulus

Bottleneck/Filter:
prior to pattern recognition/interpretation

Broadbent Early Filter Model

"Higher Level Processes"
(E.g., Pattern Recognition)
Contextual
Information

Brief Sensory Store

Sensory Processing

Input
(Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell, etc.)

Evidence consistent with early

selection

Dichotic Listening Task

The Unattended Message

(Cherry, 1958; Moray, 1959)
Properties Recalled:
Whether speaker had changed
Male vs. female voice
Human vs. musical instruments

Properties Not Recalled:

Content of Message
Whether or not it was grammatical
What language it was in

Easy to shift attention based on physical

properties of stimulus

Evidence thats problematic

for early selection

What about Cocktail Party effect?

As I was saying, my theory
of attention clearly states...

(Me!)

....Professor Snedeker
is so kind and witty!

Treisman (1960)
Please shadow RIGHT EAR ONLY!!!
"Jane and Susan liked to / me that
was..."

"Birds yourself tell

from / talk about
books...."

"Jane and Susan liked to talk about

books..."

Content of unattended message is getting through!

Context Effects
Attended ear:
They were standing near the bank

Unattended ear:
One of the following was presented
river
money

Later participants interpreted bank as

a riverbank if they heard river
a financial bank if they heard money

Early Filtering (Broadbent):

Filter
Input

Sensory
Processing

Pattern
Recognition

Late Filtering (Deutsch & Deutsch):

Filter
Input

Sensory
Processin
g

Pattern
Recognition

Problems with Early Filter Model

Awareness of unattended channel depends on
familiarity or importance (Cocktail party effect)
People can shadow meaningful message that
switch from ear to ear (Treisman, 1960)
There is implicit memory for the unattended
channel
Increased galvonic skin response to unattended
words paired with shock

Memory for unattended channel affected by

similarity to attended channel

Problems with Late Filter Model

Even if relevance is controlled for
We are more likely to notice information in the
attended channel then in the unattended
channel (e.g., 87% vs. 8%)

If selection is late
Why do we feel like were consciously
selecting early?

Neuroimaging studies show enhanced

processing of attended information at early
perceptual stages

An Impasse.
Problem for Early Filter
Awareness of unattended
channel affected by
semantic content
Cocktail party effect
Shadowing shifts with
meaningful message
Implicit memory for the
unattended channel
galvonic skin response
Memory for unattended
channel affected by
similarity to attended
channel

Problems for Late Filter

Some filtering occurs before
pattern recognition
Relevant information
detected *less* often in
unattended channel
If selection is late why do
we perceive our attention as
directed to particular
space/time/feature
Imaging studies show
effects of attention on early
perceptual processing

Reconciling Competing Data:

Motivation
Good support for both early and late selection
thus selection must be variable
But our theory should predict when
information will get through
Perceptual load theory (Lavie) specifies
conditions under which early and late
selection will occur

Perceptual Load Theory

Assumption 1: Must use whatever mental
capacity you have unless this is fully occupied
Assumption 2: Mental resources are limited
Consequently
If attentional resource is not fully occupied, they spill
to unattended channels => late selection
If resource is fully occupied => early selection

Test of perceptual load theory

Area MT (Middle Temporal) lobe is activated
when people see moving stimuli

reform

Rees, Frith, & Lavie, 1997

Task
Word overlaid on moving dots
Attend to word, ignore motion
Low load: upper or lower case?

High load: bisyllabic or not?

Activity in MT is measured with fMRI

Predictions
Task: attend to words, ignore dot motion
Early Selection: Motion filtered out
Low activation of MT in both conditions

Late Selection: Motion not filtered out

(pre-attentive processing)
High activation in MT in both conditions

Perceptual Load Hypothesis

High activation of MT in low load task
Low activation of MT in high load task

Red-yellow = Areas where

Motion Nonmotion was
greater during Low Load
task
Arrow = MT activation

BOLD signal in MT

during each task

Rees, Frith, & Lavie, 1997

Summary
Processing of unattended stimuli depends
on the resources that are available
High load task leads to early attenuation
Low load task leads to late attenuation

Expectations influence allocation of

attention
Wolfe et al
Target frequency
influences probability
of detection
Moral: Attentional
template can cahnge
based on experience
Blue = 1% present
Yellow = 10% present
Red = 50% present

Spatial Attention

Cuing Attention
1. Cue: Arrow pointing to left or
right
2. Target: box present or absent
on either left of right of screen
3. Response: press a button

Cue can be
Valid: points to target
Neutral: points in both
directions
Invalid: points away
How does cue affect
performance?

Results

Moral: Attention leads to

more rapid processing
of a stimulus
Can vary the kind of
cues
Exogenous Cue
Automatic bottom-up
Flashing light
Rapid Shift

Endogenous Cues
Voluntary top-down
Arrow/word
Slower Shift

Attention in the Dorsal Stream

(Parietal Lobe)
Anterior

Posterior

Superior
Frontal Lobe

Parietal Lobe
Where

What

Inferior

Occipital Lobe
Temporal Lobe

When Attention Is Lost

Right parietal lobe

damage often
spatial neglect
Patients fail to attend
to objects on left side
if there are competing
objects on right side

Spatial Neglect
Writing

Reading

Spatial Neglect

Spatial Neglect
Artist Anton Raderscheidt

The basic steps for shifting

attention
1. Localize
Define new attentional template

2. Disengage
Erase old attentional template

3. Move
Execute new attentional template

4. Engage
Fully process newly attended features
Posner

Which process accounts for (left)

spatial neglect?
1. Localize
Predicts slower reaction time for all left targets

2. Disengage
Predicts slower reaction time to left targets only
when there is an incorrect cue pointing right

3. Move
Predicts slower reaction time for all left targets

4. Engage
Predicts slower reaction time for all left targets

Right Parietal Damage

Right (Ipsilateral) Target
Correct Cue

Incorrect Cue

Like normals

FAST

SLOWER (50 - 100 ms)

Right Parietal Damage

Left (Contralateral) Target
Correct Cue

Incorrect Cue

Deficit to left
Only when miscued

FAST

MUCH SLOWER (500+ ms)

Which process accounts for (left)

spatial neglect?
1. Localize
Predicts slower reaction time for all left targets

2. Disengage
Right parietal lobe doesnt send signal to disengage to
left parietal lobe (so stuck on right target)

3. Move
Predicts slower reaction time for all left targets

4. Engage
Predicts slower reaction time for all left targets

Parietal Lobe
Plays critical role in spatial processing
and spatial attention.
Appears to be responsible for
disengaging attention from one location.
Asymmetry: Right Parietal Lobe,
especially superior right parietal lobe, is
utilized for spatial attention more than
Left Parietal Lobe.

Further evidence from PET scans

Corbetta et al.
Hold central fixation.
Test Condition: Attend to Moving Dot,
which zips around in the left or right visual
field.
Control Condition: Attend to fixation,
ignore the dot.

Attending to moving objects

Corbetta et al.
Attention in left:
contralateral (right)
activation as
expected

Attention in right:
contralateral (left)
activation
And left activation as
well

Attention in the Ventral Stream

Anterior

Posterior

Superior
Frontal Lobe

Parietal Lobe
Where

What

Inferior

Occipital Lobe
Temporal Lobe

Attention in the Ventral Stream

Anterior

Posterior

Superior
Frontal Lobe

Parietal Lobe
Where

What

Inferior

Temporal Lobe

Occipital Lobe

As we move along temporal pathway

receptive fields get huge..
V1 cell:
(0.2 deg)

IT cells:
(Inferior
Temporal)

(25 deg)

Attention Mechanisms in IT
Moran & Desimone (1985)
Cell in Inferior Temporal Cortex tuned to green bar

Cell fires

Fixation Point of Monkey

Moran & Desimone (1985)

Cell in Inferior Temporal Cortex tuned to green bar

Cell fires

Fixation Point of Monkey

Moran & Desimone (1985)

Cell in Inferior Temporal Cortex tuned to green bar

Monkey trained to attend to object on right

Cell fires

Fixation Point of Monkey

Moran & Desimone (1985)

Cell in Inferior Temporal Cortex tuned to green bar

Monkey trained to attend to object on left

Cell does not fire

Fixation Point of Monkey

Another way of thinking about attention:

Large receptive fields impose capacity limits

Exogenously Driven Selection:

Perceptual salience determines which stimulus is

represented at higher levels (b/c motion,
brightness)

Endogenously Driven Selection:

Goals have top down influence on which stimulus

is represented

Object Based
Attention

What is the relation between

attention and object perception?

First Attention,
Then Object Perception

But attention also depends on objects

Invalid Spatial Cueing less disruptive when
cue and target location are on same object
(Egly, Driver & Rafal, 1994; Moore, Yantis, and Vaughan, 1998)

C = cued location
S = same object target location
D = different object target loc.

Response time for S << D

Red
Spatial Neglect:
Attention initially
deployed to
spatial location
(right visual field)
But sticks to
objects even if
they move

Red

Some wrinkles

Does this mean that the face

processing system is not a
Some argue that face specific
module?
effects result from expertise
Dog show experts
show
Does
this mean that it didnt
inversion effect for
recognizing
evolve
to identify faces?
individuals of same breed
(Diamond & Carey, 1986)

Bird experts show greater

activation in FFA for birds than
cats (+ vice versa) (Gauthier, 2000)
Experience with subtlely
different artificial objects
activation in FFA (Gauthier, 2000)

Greebles
(designed by Scott Yu for
Gauthier et al.)

 How might a module for face processing

become involved in processing other stimuli?
If domain specific input is defined coarsely
If innate template for input can be altered by
experience
If domain specificity is a matter of degree (weaker
processing of less preferred input)

What does it mean to say a system evolved for

face processing?
That selection pressure was b/c it improved face
perception
But actual mechanism that causes that could be
much coarser
Ex: Bird feeding anything in its nest