Attention Models
This early-selection model posits a "bottleneck" that filters info based on simple physical properties like pitch or loudness.
Broadbent's Filter Model
This subcortical system, including the Locus Coeruleus (NA) and Tegmental Nuclei (ACh), is critical for arousal and vigilance.
Reticular activating system (RAS)
This is the general ability to maintain and regulate cognitive processes to support goal-directed behavior.
Cognitive Control
This region of the lateral PFC is critical for inhibitory control, as shown in Stop-Signal and Think/No-Think tasks.
Ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC) or inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)
This clinical syndrome, often from a right MCA stroke, involves ignoring the left side of space and is considered an attentional, not sensory, deficit.
Hemispatial neglect
This model suggests features like color and orientation are processed pre-attentively, and an "attention spotlight" binds them (i.e., "late" selection).
Treisman's Feature Integration Theory
This "task-positive" network, including the Superior parietal lobule and FEF, is responsible for top-down, goal-directed orienting.
Dorsal attention network (DAN)
According to Miyake et al.'s latent process model, three core, separable psychological dimensions of executive function are
shifting, updating, and inhibition
This region of the lateral PFC is critical for the manipulation (not just maintenance) of information in working memory
This famous patient's skull showed massive damage to the medial PFC, not the lateral PFC, linking this region to motivation and personality.
Phineas gage (or could also answer EVR)
This model explains hemispatial neglect as a failure of the two hemispheres to balance attentional resources, often after right parietal damage.
Biased Competition Model.
This network, including the TPJ and ventrolateral PFC, is responsible for "bottom-up" orienting to salient or behaviorally relevant stimuli.
Ventral Attention Network (VAN)
The case of this frontal tumor patient, who aced neuropsych tests but whose life fell apart, highlighted a dissociation between "intention" and "action".
EVR
This most rostral part of the PFC supports abstract, higher-order goals, such as resolving the "explore-exploit" dilemma.
Frontopolar cortex
This theory posits that the dACC monitors for "conflict" (e.g., in the Stroop task) and signals the lateral PFC to increase regulation.
Conflict theory
Evidence suggests that whether attention filtering is "early" or "late" is flexible and depends on this factor.
Task difficulty or "cognitive load"
Active "at rest" and anticorrelated with attention networks, it's involved in "internal" attention like episodic memory and theory of mind.
Default mode network (DMN)
This syndrome involves patients with frontal damage automatically using objects in their environment, like putting on glasses they see.
Environmental dependency
Damage to this medial PFC region is linked to apathy and deficits in computing the value of exerting effort.
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)
Braver's Dual Mechanisms of Control theory contrasts this effortful, sustained, goal-maintenance strategy with a "reactive" control strategy.
Proactive cognitive control
The "Toaster model" of cognition, where plugging in a toaster dims the lights, is an analogy for this core concept of attention.
Limited Processing Capacity / Resources
The "Task Positive" networks (DAN, VAN, Frontoparietal) are typically in this relationship with the "Task Negative" DMN.
Anticorrelation
This neurotransmitter, released by the basal forebrain, is key for vigilance (sustaining attention), as shown in monkey CPT tasks
Acetylcholine
A "caudal-rostral" gradient in the lateral PFC is thought to represent this, with rostral areas handling more abstract rules or goals.
Hierarchy of Abstraction in Control
This theory from Shenhav suggests the dACC computes the optimal, cost-benefit value of exerting cognitive control in any situation.
Expected value of control (EVC) theory
The enhancement of this early ERP component (about 100ms) in binaural listening tasks provides evidence for early attentional filtering.
The Superior Colliculus is responsible for automatic visual orienting, while this structure handles automatic auditory orienting.
Inferior colliculus
This neurotransmitter from the locus coeruleus modulates "gain" in the cortex to boost excitatory or inhibitory inputs, supporting vigilance and executive function.
What is Noradrenaline (NA) / Norepinephrine (NE)?
This region is thought to be central to computing the expected value of exerting proactive cognitive control in the EVC model.
dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC)
A "biased competition model" for neglect is supported by TMS treatment that down-regulates (inhibits) this brain region.
ipsilesional (intact) left hemisphere
A visual search for a single "Red X" among distractors including both red O's and green X's is an example of ____ search in feature integration theory?
Conjunction search
The DMN is thought to have functional subdivisions, including a "core" subsystem for this type of thought.
Self-referential thought.
The "Think/No-Think" paradigm is a classic test of this specific type of cognitive control, designed to actively suppress a memory.
Inhibitory control (or memory suppression)
In the Think/No-Think task, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) exhibited increased activation during the inhibition of unwanted memories, while this subcortical region demonstrated DECREASED activation.
The hippocampus
The "______ Problem" in cognitive control asks how and why we decide to exert cognitive control, which theories like Conflict Theory & EVC try to solve.
Homunculus
This later ERP component, a negative deflection occurring 200-350ms after a stimulus, is considered to provide evidence for later attentional selection.
N2pc component
The Intraparietal Sulcus (IPS) is theorized to integrate top-down and bottom-up attentional signals to compute this.
Conjunctive salience map
The "Apples Task," where grip force is measured against rewards, is used to study this aspect of motivation and control.
Effort-based discounting
According to Shadlen & Kiani, neurons in the IPS (part of the DAN) encode this, which builds up over time, rather than just "salience".
"Perceptual Evidence" (or information accumulation relevant to making the right choice)
Apathy is more common after dorsal or ventral medial PFC damage?
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)