7 Attention and

Scene
Perception
7 Attention: Overview

• Selective attention: a set of cognitive brain

mechanisms that enable one to process relevant
inputs, thoughts, or actions while ignoring others that
are less important, irrelevant or distracting. 处理相关输
入的同时忽略其他不相关的

• Arousal: a global state of the brain reflecting an

overall level of responsiveness. 兴奋度
7 Attention: Overview

Why we need attention.

• Bottlenecks: It is impossible to process

everything at once.
• Sensory – cognitive – motor
7 Attention: Overview

Why can attention help us?

- It increases our chances of survival, even though we
could still die
- Attention is that mechanism that helps us put things
in order
7 Attention: Overview

Where does attention play a role?

• Attention to vision
• Attention to audition / touch /
smell
• Attention across modalities
• Attention to thoughts
• Attention to motor tasks
7 Attention: Overview

Today: What effects does attention have?

• How can we study attention?  Paradigms, IVs & DVs,
…
– Cues influence/bias attention
– Visual search
– Attention in time
• The physiological correlates of attention
• Scene perception

Next week: attentional control and models of

attention
7 Studying attention

How can we measure attention?

• Reaction times: a measure of the time from the
onset of a stimulus to a response.
• Perception:
• perceptual thresholds
• perceptual biases
• Motor precision/accuracy
• Eye movements: overt shifts of attention but not
covert shifts of attention. Perception:
• Overt: shift of attention with eye movements
• Covert: shift of attention without eye movement
• Brain activity
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

• How can we study attention?

– Cues influence/bias attention (~1 shift of attention)
• Posner’s attentional cueing paradigm
• Natural biases
• Feature-based cueing
– Visual search (multiple shifts of attention)
– Attention in time
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

• Simple probe detection experiment measures RT

(or perceptual thresholds)

Response key
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

• Posner: adding a cue

• Cue: A stimulus that might indicate where (or what) a
subsequent stimulus will be: valid vs. invalid vs. neutral
=> cueing effect (Valid RT > invalid RT)
• Cueing effect: the difference (in RT, brain activity, etc.)
between the effect of a valid and an invalid cue.

valid invalid
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

• Behaviour can be stimulus-driven or voluntary.

7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

• Stimulus-driven cues:
info conveyed through
previous events at the
same location. Stimulus-
(involuntary, reflexive, driven
peripheral, exogenous)
Voluntary
• Voluntary cues: (spatial)
info conveyed through
cognitions & memory, often
based on language or other
symbols. (symbolic, central,
endogenous)
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

What’s the difference between stimulus-

driven/peripheral and voluntary/symbolic?
• Partially independent neural structures.
• Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA): the time between the onset of
one stimulus and the onset of another. Cue 和 target 时间差
– Different time courses of SOAs; slower effects for
voluntary cues.
– Inhibition of return (IOR)
cueing effect

IOR
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA ）

- Voluntary & stimulus-driven cur required different time
courses of SOAs, slower effects for voluntary cues
- Inhibition of return (IOR): caused by involuntary cue, not
voluntary cue. The relative difficulty in getting attention (or
the eyes) to move back to a recently attended (or fixed)
location. When SOA 无限延长 , so cue & target is separated
for too long, cueing effect fake away, and could reach
negative.
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

• … and something in between stimulus-driven and

voluntary
7 Cueing as a tool for examining attention

• Overt shifts of attention: A shift of attention

accompanied by corresponding movements of the eyes.
• Covert shifts of attention: A shift of attention in the
absence of corresponding movements of the eyes
7 Natural biases

• Perceptual biases: Asymmetries in perception

between the left and right side of a stimulus. 对同一个
刺激物左边和右边的感知不对称，有些左边偏重，有些右边偏重
• More attention to the left visual field: when
judging the gender, age, emotion/expression of
ppl (the right part of the person’s face)
• More attention to the right visual field: ppl
speaking (left hemisphere is more active,
engaged in language processes)
7 Natural biases

• Perceptual biases:
– Vary with tasks, (e.g. listening to
speech)

• Line bisection task

• Bisection neglect (disease)
 set far to the right
 wrong equivalent
judgment
• Pseudo neglect (normal)
 pre-bisected  pay more
attention to one side
7 Natural biases

• Gratingscales:
– Which bar has more of the thinner/thicker
stripes?
7 Natural biases

• Gratingscales: fMRI study: greater activation of attention

networks in the right hemisphere  leftward bias

Left hemisphere Right

hemisphere
7
• Real-world biases …
7 Non-spatial cueing

• Space-based cueing of attention

• Feature-based cueing of attention: attention is
guided based on non-spatial information about
features.
– Cued feature becomes more “visible” throughout
the visual field = outside the focus of attention.
7 Non-spatial cueing

• Feature-based
attention can
be a
disadvantage.
7 Visual Search

• How can we study attention?

– Visual search
• Task and terms
• Feature searches
• Inefficient searches
• (Feature-)conjunction
searches
• Models of visual
search

Bunch of bars.
Is there one
that is unique?
7 Visual Search
7 Visual Search
7 Visual Search
7 Visual Search
7 Visual Search
7 Visual Search
7 Visual Search

• Visual search: searching for a target in a display

containing distracting elements
• Target (efficient): the goal of visual search
• Distractor: any stimulus other than the target
• Set Size: the # of items in a visual display –
Has no influence on search time for “efficient
searches”
– Impacts search time for “inefficient
searches”
- As set size increases  reaction time increase

• How much time does it take to perform a visual

search task, i.e. to tell whether a target is present or
absent? – It depends (of course…).
7 Visual Search

Target present
searches are
faster than target
absent searches
b/c only half the
items need to be
checked

Efficient Inefficient More inefficient

7 Feature Searches Are Efficient

• Basic features: colour, size, orientation, motion

• Less ‘basic’ (it seems) yet efficiently searched:
lighting direction

• Feature search (non-spatial cue): search for a

target defined by a single attribute, e.g. salient
colour, orientation.
• Attention is guided based on non-spatial
information about features
• Efficient search
7 Feature Searches Are Efficient

• Salience: the vividness of a

stimulus relative to its neighbours
(feature contrast “clearly” above
JND threshold)
• Determine  efficient/inefficient
• Parallel: the processing of multiple
stimuli at the same time
• “Pop-out”
Is there serial search?
7 Conjunction Search is inefficient

• Conjunction search  inefficient

• No single feature defines the target
• Defined by the co-occurrence of 2 or more
features
• Fairly inefficient
• Real-world conjunction search
7 Many Searches Are Inefficient

Is conjunction search serial?

• YES
– Serial self-terminating search: items are
examined one after another until target is found or
until all items are checked
– Similar to eye movements scanning a scene but
faster.
• NO
–Limited capacity parallel
process: “adjustable spray nozzle”
model  many

• COMBO?
– Neurophysiological evidence that both
7 Modeling Visual Search

• Feature Integration Theory

(Treisman and Gelade):
Consider the binding
1. Preattentive Stage: parallel problem
processing of basic features
across entire visual field before
selective attention is deployed
- parallel  many at a time
1. Attentive Stage: spatial attention
binds together features for one item
at a time, serial search
- serial  one at a time
7 Modeling Visual Search

• Guided search theory (Wolfe): Attention can be

restricted to a subset of possible items on the basis
of information about the target’s basic features.
• 2-stage model of visual processing in which initial
parallel search mechanism direct subsequent
serial search mechanisms
7 The Binding Problem

• Binding problem: tying different attributes of visual

stimuli (e.g. color, orientation, motion) which are
handed by different brain circuits, to the
appropriate object so that we perceive a unified
object (e.g. red, vertical, moving right)
• Illusory conjunctions: an erroneous combination of
2 features in a visual scene 把两个各自存在的 feature 组
合起来记成了一个错的记忆
7 The Attentional Blink: (In-)attention in Time

• How can we study attention?

– Attention in time
• What is an RSVP?
• When does attention
blink?
7 The Attentional Blink: (In-)attention in Time

• RSVP: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation is a method

of displaying information at one location in which each
piece of information is displayed briefly in sequential
order 一个一个快速展示  寻找目标
– Normal understanding with 250 words per minute.
– 650 wpm: 20% reduction.
– Special case: Visual search in time for a target.
– AVYWLNF4RUXFHVX
– 8-10 items per second
– 2 targets, T1 & T2
7 The Attentional Blink: (In-)attention in Time

• Attentional blink: difficulty in perceiving the second of

two targets within a rapid stream of distractors; depends
on whether the observer responded to the first target
presented 200-500 ms before.
– Reduced attentional blink for smaller/larger time
differences between T1 & T2
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vyDtoJL2Gc
7 The Attentional Blink: (In-)attention in Time

• Marvin Chun’s fishing metaphor.

– Imagine you are fishing with a net in a less-than-pristine ( 不
清楚 ) stream, with boots and tires ( 干扰物 ) and the
occasional fish floating or swimming by. You can monitor the
streams and identify each item as it passes - boot, tire,
boot, fish, boot, and so on
– Once you fish in the net, it takes some time before you can
get the net back into the water to catch fish #2. Result: you
might miss fish 2 if it swims by too soon after you've caught
#1
7 The Physiological Basis of Attention

• The physiological basis of attention (attention

could enhance neural activity)
– Enhanced processing in striate and extrastriate
areas
– Early stages of cortical processing: influenced
by attention in a retinotopic manner 视网膜里位置
和脑子里的位置是一样的

– Enhanced processing in higher visual areas

– Increasingly stronger effects from V1 to V2, V4,
LOC etc.

– Attention and single cells

7 Examples of Physiological Areas Involved in
Attentional Processing

• Early stages of
cortical
processing:
influenced by
attention in a
retinotopic manner
• Increasingly
stronger effects
from V1 to V2, V4,
LOC etc.

Brefczynski & DeYoe (1999)

7 Examples of Physiological Areas Involved in
Attentional Processing

• Spatial attention amplifies ERP responses.

• Gain modulation (no change in map) of P1 and N1
- paying attention  P1 & N1 increase
• Endogenous & exogenous
- both increase
• IOR: reduced P1 and N1
- because after a while,
attention is moved to else
where
7 Examples of Physiological Areas Involved in
Attentional Processing

• Fusiform face area

• Parahippocampal place area
• Functional fMRI studies: different pieces of
the cortex are activated by faces vs. places
• O’Craven & Kanwisher, 1999: PPA or
FFA light up depending on which layer is
attended
7 Attention and Single Cells

• Three ways responses of a

cell could be changed by
attention
1. Response enhancement
整体提高反应度 (Treue &
Martinez Trujillo, 1999)
2. Sharper tuning 对注
意力集中的刺激物提高反应度
(Lu & Dosher, 1998:
noise exclusion)
3. Altered tuning 根据注意力，
整体转移反应度 in space
(Moran & Desimone, 1985)
7 Attention and Single Cells (cont’d)

• Moran & Desimone, 1985: V4: receptive fields zoom

in/shrink

Receptive field
w/o attention
One stimulus
attentionally
selected

Receptive field
with attention
7 Attention: How do we perceive whole scenes?

• Scene perception
– We have excellent memory for scenes
– We have horrible memory for scenes
– Huh?
– Local vs. global approaches to scene recognition
7 Perceiving and Understanding Scenes

• What does it mean to see more than one object?

• How do we perceive entire visual scenes?
7 Picture Memory and Change Blindness

• We can very quickly understand scenes…

7 Picture Memory and Change Blindness (cont’d)

• We can correctly
remember very large
numbers of photos
scenes.
• Potter (1975, 1976) fast
RSVP for scenes.
7 Picture Memory and Change Blindness (cont’d)

• Change Blindness: failure to notice a change

between two scenes; perception depends on
the meaning of change
• Suggests our scene perception is very poor.
• How does that fit together?
7 Local and Global Approaches to Scene Recognition

• Spatial layout of a scene: description of the

structure of a scene
• Global vs. local scene analyses

• Global: Oliva & Torralba (2001): scene classification

based on a few easy-to-process scene dimensions:
– Spatial frequency
– Openness
– Naturalness
– Roughness
7 Local and Global Approaches to Scene Recognition (cont’d)

• Scenes
organized
according to 2
dimensions.
• Scenes with
similar
meanings
tend to group
together.
• Fast scene
understanding
might result
from spatial
frequency
analyses etc.
7 What Do You Actually See?

• Change blindness might result from an inability to

“see” more than one item at a time.
• The impression of a rich percept of the word around
us is an illusion.
• Demo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo&fe
ature=related

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkrrVozZR2c
7 What Do You Actually See? (cont’d)

• Attention is so powerful that the gorilla is blocked

from entering conscious awareness!
7 Misdirecting attention: magic tricks:
• Runny nose:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC1FBmbYgMk&feature=
channel
7 Misdirecting attention: pickpocketing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc0gQcP20pg
7 Misdirecting attention: pickpocketing
7 Misdirecting attention: pickpocketing