PSYC 741 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Attentional Blink, Block Design, Middle Frontal Gyrus
Document Summary
Attention is the cognitive process that directs neural resources to environmental cues that are most likely to be important on a moment to moment basis. Endogenous system: voluntarily directs attention based on goals, expectations, and/or knowledge (paying attention to professor, test, etc. : top-down attention (higher-order cognitive processes controlling lower-order cognitive processes) Top-down is initiated by individual: goal-driven attention, dorsal attention system. Frontal eye fields and intraparietal sulcus/superior parietal lobe: brain regions utilized in this are found near top of brain. Exogenous system: involuntarily shifts of attention to environmental stimuli (fire alarm: reflexive, stimulus-driven, bottom-up, ventral attention system. Temporal-parietal junction = inferior parietal lobe and superior temporal gyrus. Ventral frontal cortex = inferior frontal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus. Covert attention: paying attention to something without looking at it. Overt attention: staring at something while paying attention to it. Invalid cue: cue says to look to one side but shows item on other side.
