LECTURE 7: ATTENTION POSNER’S (1980) SPATIAL CUEING TASK

THE CONCEPT OF ATTENTION

William James (1842 – 1910)

- Attention is taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of

one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains
of thought.
- Focalisation, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence
- It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with
others

KEY ASPECTS OF ATTENTION

Capacity limitation
- Central resources for processing stimulus inputs are limited
- Resources are allocated automatically to all stimuli until capacity is
exhausted
Selectivity
- Have to have capacity limitation, thus we can be selective
- Stimulus inputs can be prioritised based upon their locations or
elementary features (e.g., colour, motion)
“If there is no task, what things get your attention? Things that are bright, large
tend to lend attention first” + any change, spatial spotlight when looking
something, prioritised or make salience of colour red”
- MEASURE: whether someone is prioritising attention at one region
space than another
- Valid trials “cue correctly of the target location” vs invalid cue “cue
incorrectly the target location”
- Fixation = have to keep eyes fix straight ahead, not allow to make eye
movement, have to do the task covertly
o REASON: make sure that there is no bias in processing visual
information based on different in receptors on fovea
- RESULT: Faster response for valid cue than invalid cue, neutral cue is
somewhere in between
- Even if you keep the visual display fixed, people’s attentional
expectation big impact of how quickly they can respond
VISUAL SEARCH TASK Spatial configuration

- Hard to find the target

- Steeper slope reaction = have to combine more features to find the
target
- Require selective attention

ANATOMICAL PATHWAYS IN PRIMATE VISUAL SYSTEM

- Cost involved
- TARGET: “Vertical red bar”

Feature based search

- It doesn’t matter how many distractors you had, time taken to find the - Information comes in through RETINA “receptor”
target is relatively flat - Goes through one stage of processing in THALAMUS (mid brain)
- And goes through CORTEX
Conjunction search
- V1: primary visual cortex – the first place that visual information arrives
- Not a single based feature when it comes to visual system
- More distractors = people’s reaction is slower o Then, goes to whole stack of stages
o Have to move attention form region to region to bind together - ONE STREAM: it goes down into temporal cortex – neurons in temporal
the two key features the colour and orientation cortex are really tune to quite complex properties of visual stimuli (e.g.,
o Require selective attention faces, hand or object)
 o Damage of temporal cortex = visual object agnosia (can’t
recognise familiar object anymore)
- SECOND STREAM: goes to parietal lobe and to prefrontal cortex –
specialise to tell us where the objects are in the space & how to
prioritise and coordinate movement towards them
- Each of these regions have neurons that try to extract their own unique
properties of visual world

NEURONAL RESPONSE IN VISUAL SYSTEM

Primate visual system ATTENTIONAL MODULATION OF PARIETAL NEURONS

- Modular – tune to different properties of world, have their own unique Study done in monkey to do very simple visual task
properties
- Microelectrode = measure the firing action potential while the monkey
- Hierarchical – simple to more complex, lots of feedback information
done the task
Neuronal receptive fields – region of space within which the neurons were best o Put in parietal lobe area = “LIP”
respond to a give stimulus o Neurons in this area seems to be very sensitive of attentional
demand of sensory task
- Variable size
- Different ‘preferred’ stimuli GOLDBERG ET AL (1990) – SENSORY TASK IN MONKEY

V1: neurons have very small receptive field – they mapped just a tiny region of
space

- Looking for boundary of light patch and dark path

TE: neurons have enormous receptive field – response to quite complex features
 - The monkeys were trained to do covert attention – without eye - More accurate representation of how brain working, present a fix
movement, rewarded them with fruit juice stimulus over and over again (100 trials) and averaging the EEG signals
- FP (fixation point) - Average together = ERP with smooth pattern of peak – get rid of the
- RF (receptive field) – if you presented stimulus, neurons in LIP fire more noise, as the noise get smaller when averaging
of action potential - Use ERP to look at the influence that attention has on the processing of
- HISTOGRAM: Onset of stimulus (vertical line), increase in the rate of sensory information
firing of action potential
- What happen when we manipulate monkey’s attention? – Right MAGNUN ET AL (1993) – ERP STUDIES OF VISUAL ATTENTION
histogram
o Present the exact stimulus: reward the monkey with fruit juice
ONLY when the monkey detected brief period when stimulus
appeared and it dim and bright again (target)
o RESULT: put attention on dimming target location, much
stronger neuronal response when monkey attending to
attention

EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS (ERP s)

- (Similar to Posner’s studies) Flash of visual stimulus on computer
display, randomly to the left or right side of central fixation cross
- Eyes fix straight ahead, and target flash on the right or left
- Target appears = measure ERP through EEG (electrode at the back of
head = visual areas)
- Attention manipulation:
o Subject are told that whole desk(?) of attention to the left side
of display and meanwhile targets are flashing randomly to left
or right
o Subject are told to move attention to right side of display, and
target randomly presented to left and right
- Different wave forms that are measured when visual stimulus appeared
EEG: put electrode cap on subject’s head, and measuring timing changes in in the location that are attended compared to location that are currently
electrode potential at the scalp – but a bit noisy unattended
 - Attended case: when attend to left and target forms on left = strong & BLOOD OXYGEN LEVEL CHANGES
large wave forms
- When subject attend covertly to right and target forms on left =
magnitude of wave form in smaller

FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING ( fMRI)

- Oxyhaemoglobin – diamagnetic
- Deoxyhaemoglobin – paramagnetic
- Ratio oxy:deoxy = blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) effect
- If patch of brain that very involves in doing task at a particular moment
in time = require more oxygen and glucose, so blood and oxygen be
shunted to that area
- Increased neural activity
o Initial dip, peak, delay
- Over-supply of oxygenated blood to active area

fMRI = sensitive to BOLD changes

- Follows neural activity

- 4-5s delay – before signal gets peak up

LIU ET AL (2005): fMRI STUDY OF AUTOMATIC SPATIAL ATTENTION

- Similar to Posner’s paradigm = spatial cueing task
- When subject in the scanner, they look at display through mirror, and
- Sluggish response of blood oxygen level = plumping see tiny little stripe circle
- They were told:
o Sometimes they will be off-centred (rotated a bit)
o Most time they would be straight up-and-down (vertical)
- They have to say whether it is rotated clockwise or anticlockwise
- An attentional cue will be appeared “white block” at any side of display
 - TEST: would the processing change whether the attention is being cued
to valid trial (cued) or invalid trial (un-cued)
- Result: back of the brain = BOLD response as the function of different
cue conditions
o V4 = high level area, validly cued trials
o Invalidly cued trials = BOLD responses sit down and kind of
noise
o Validly cued trials = higher BOLD response sit up V3A, V3, V2,
and V1
- AMI (attention modulation index) = how much attention boost the visual
response
o Bigger number = bigger area of cortex boosts the response
TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION (TMS)
MARTINEZ ET AL (1999): fMRI STUDY OF ‘VOLUNTARY’ SPATIAL
ATTENTION
- Put subject in fMRI scanner = covert attention
- After a while you will hear “beep” sound, to get ready that visual
stimulus is about to be presented
o 50% trials, “donut” will be presented
o 50% trials, no target will be presented
- BOLD activity measured: is there difference?
o V1: increase activity in anticipation whether the target appear
or not
- Increase in activity in V1: for trials with target actually appeared
compared with trials where subject is cued “beep” to get ready
- Tiny different = amplitude of size of brain response = mere anticipation
- BOLD activity vs Performance = correlation, people with biggest BOLD
response did the best in performance (but not causation)
 - Can stimulate and interrupt in one region of cortex
- Stimulate region in visual cortex and interrupt visual field

PRINCIPLES OF TMS
- Shifting spatial attention
- Stimulate two different part of parietal cortex for “LIP recording”
o RED = angular gyrus (back part of parietal lobe)
o YELLOW = supermarginal gyrus (front part of parietal lobe)

TMS STUDY OF ‘AUTONOMIC’ SPATIAL ATTENTION

- Exploits the principle of electromagnetic induction

- Stimulating coil generates a magnetic field that passes unimpeded
through the skull to induce a secondary electric current in underlying
cortex
- TMS depolarises neurons
- TMS can suppress/enhance perception, elicit phosphenes, alter cortical
excitability; useful tool for studying localisation of brain function and
neural connectivity

CHAMBERS ET AL (2004): LOCALISATION OF PARIETAL SITES

- Subject looking at fixation point (not moving their eyes)

 - Task: discriminate pair of targets “stripe thingy” – appear on right or left
side of display at random
- Say whether the upper one or lower one contains the highest spatial
frequency = finer stripes
- Cue = black dot appears on right or left (valid or invalid)
- Deliver pulse at TMS = try to disrupt the area of cortex that we are
stimulating just a moment as the subject try to shift their attention
CHAMBERS ET AL (2004): TMS OF ANGULAR GYRUS
UNILATERAL SPATIAL NEGLECT
- No effect of stimulation of frontal part of parietal lobe
- Effect be seen on angular gyrus “red dot” & when stimulating the right
side of brain
- Invalid trial = below than valid, but no effect in TMS
o When stimulating on right side = impaired performance
TIME-COURSE OF AUTOMATIC ATTENTION SHIFTS
- Two independent visual pathways into ventral parietal region (right AG):
o Fast retinotectal pathway via SC and pulvinar – crude signal to
‘disengage’
o Slow geniculostriate pathway via LGN, V1, etc – more complex
discrimination
- If stimulate just by the neuron arrive at the pathways = can impair the
performances
- Occurs after damage to one side of the brain (usually the right
hemisphere) – parietal lobe
- People with this disorder act as if sensory information coming from
opposite side of brain = sensory information doesn’t exist – they fail to
attend to that side
- Patients behave as if the affected side of space (the contralesional side)
has ceased to exist:
o Ignore food on one side of their plate
o Fail to shave or make-up one side of their face
o Bump into objects on one side
o Fail to read text from one side of the page
 - Most common and severe after damage to the parietal lobe (but can - When there are two stimuli at the same moment = unaware of one on
arise from cortical damage elsewhere) the left

MORT ET AL (2003): CRITICAL LESION CAUSING NEGLECT CLINICAL TESTS FOR SPATIAL NEGLECT

- Right angular gyrus (damage) = disrupt the ability of shifting attention

PATIENT WITH SPATIAL NEGLECT

- Stroke at the right parietal lobe = doesn’t orient to left side until the
doctor start talking

SPATIAL EXTINCTION
Left side are missing!
- Frequent component of neglect syndrome’ may dissociate
- Can occur within each sense modality; and between competing stimuli POSNER ET AL (1984)
in separate modalities (e.g., visual-tactile)

TESTING FOR EXTINCTION

 - Spatial cuing task on patient who has parietal lobe lesion & extinction - Which limb of the large cross is longer (vertical or horizontal)?
- Problem when there is competition between two sides
o Reaction time measured Trial types:
- Detect by pushing the button every time they saw the black disk (appear
- Inattentional trials
left or right of fixation)
- Divided attention trials
o Valid trials = cue: brightening of box on one side could appear
- Full attention trials
on one side of display
- RESULT: Result:
o If the attention cued first to the left side before the target
appeared = respond quite accurate - IB in ~ 25% of cases = didn’t see anything else
o Attention being grab to the right side = much slower
o Similar to extinction

NEISSER (1979): ROLE OF ATTENTION IN MODULATION OF CONSCIOUS

PERCEPTION
- Count the passes – black team vs white team
- Additional thing happened = women with umbrella
- Don’t see unexpected event because the attention is distracted

HAINES (1989) INATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS IN THE REAL WORLD

- Simulator pilot’s forward visual scene at an altitude of 72 feet and 131
knots with runway obstruction clearly visible
- Pilot doesn’t have to look away & monitoring speed etc
- Put another aircraft go onto the runway
- RESULT: majority of pilot just land on top of the plane
o They didn’t see the other plane REES ET AL (1999): FMRI STUDY OF INATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

MACK & ROCK (1998) INATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS IN THE LABORATORY

17000 px, look at visual on display.

Task:

- Normal healthy subject in scanner to induce the target of induced
blindness
RON RENSINK & DAN SIMONS: CHANGE BLINDNESS
- Look at the letter string & indicate if there is repetition of letter
o CLOCK vs random word “NSFHT”
o Measure brain activity in language area of left hemisphere =
much more left hemisphere language area when real word
displayed compared to random word
- Same task = ignore string of letters & attend to picture if there is
repetition
BECK AT AL (2001): fMRI STUDY OF CHANGE BLINDNESS
They found that:
- Two areas in left hemisphere = respond to word stimuli
o Left frontal area & left temporal cortex area (BOLD response)
o Responses in task when subject pay attention to letters =
 Meaningful word = strong BOLD response
 Nonsense word = smaller BOLD response
o Subject attending to picture, ignoring the letters
 Difference between words and letters been presented
in display has gone completely
 Brain representation for inattentional blindness
- Similar to responses in temporal lobe area
- Can we detect change in a natural scene between successive glimpses?
- Local transients normally draw attention to the location of the change,
which is readily detected?
- The mask provides a visual transient signal across the whole of the
scene; this override local transients associated with the change
- Photograph are going to change “detect the changes in photographs”
- Flickering between two photographs = mask
- Guy with map & change = people didn’t notice the changes
- Compared neural activity for detected vs undetected changes (fMRI)
- Items are faces or places + flickering = is it change?
- Attention task was to detect an X in either letter string = detect an “X” in
the letters
- Change/no change (missed)?
RESULT: when subject consciously detected change compared to change when
they missed = strong activation in parietal cortex in right hemisphere and part of
parietal cortex in left hemisphere

- When change blindness = there is no activity in this area AT ALL