Attention Mechanisms and Salience

Attention

• Covert attention is directing your focus without moving your eyes or head. It is internal and can't be seen by others.
• Overt attention is when you physically move your eyes and head to focus on something.
• Saccades are quick eye movements that shift your gaze from one point to another. They are overt because they involve physical movement.
• Fixations are pauses in eye movement where your gaze is held steady on a specific point. They are covert because the eyes remain fixed on the object.
• Posner’s cueing paradigm shows that participants respond faster to a target in a cued location, even when instructed not to move their eyes, suggesting they can shift attention without eye movements.

Salience

• Refers to how much something stands out or attracts attention.
• High Salience: Something that is very noticeable or important compared to its surroundings.
• Low Salience: Something that blends in with the environment and is not as noticeable.

Episodic & Semantic Memory

• Episodic Memory: Memories of personal experiences and events (like a mental diary).
• Semantic Memory: General knowledge about the world, facts, concepts, and language (like a mental encyclopedia).
• Double dissociation: The case of K.C. who lost the ability to form new episodic memories but retained semantic memory, and the Italian woman who lost semantic memory but retained episodic memories, shows that these two types of memory are distinct and involve different brain regions.

Short & Long-Term Memory

• Short-term Memory (STM): Temporary storage for a short period (around 20 seconds).
• Long-term Memory (LTM): More permanent storage, can hold vast amounts of information for long periods.
• Penfield's electrical stimulation: Showed that memories can be triggered by electrical stimulation and different brain regions are associated with specific types of memories.
• Semanticization of memory: The process of an episodic memory becoming more general and losing specific details, like a semantic memory.
• Remember/Know Experiments: Assess how memories have been semantically transformed. Participants indicate whether they "Remember" an item (recalling context) or "Know" it is familiar (general sense of knowing). More "Know" responses indicate more semantic transformation.

Explicit vs Implicit Memory

• Explicit Memory (Declarative): Memories we are consciously aware of ("Knowing that you know").
  • Episodic: Memories of personal events.
  • Semantic: Knowledge about the world.
• Implicit Memory: Memories we are not consciously aware of but still influence our behavior ("Knowing how to do something").
  • Procedural: Memories for skills and procedures.
  • Priming: When exposure to a stimulus influences our response to a later stimulus.
  • Context: Remembering information is better in the same context or environment where you learned it.
  • Practice: Repeatedly retrieving information strengthens the pathways in your brain, making it easier to recall.

Testing Effect & Cued Recall

• Testing Effect (Retrieval practice): Retrieving information from memory improves long-term retention.
• Cued Recall: A method of testing memory using hints or prompts to help retrieve information.

Encoding Specificity & State-Dependent Learning

• Encoding specificity: Retrieval is best when the conditions at retrieval match the conditions at encoding.
• State-dependent learning: Our ability to recall information is influenced by our internal state at the time of encoding and retrieval.

Distributed vs. Massed Practice

• Massed practice: Cramming all studying into one long session.
• Distributed practice: Breaking up studying into shorter sessions spread out over a longer period.
• The effect: Distributed practice leads to better long-term retention, allowing the brain to consolidate information more effectively.

Matching the Cognitive Task

• The way you learn information should be aligned with how you will be tested.
• Recall: Practice recalling information.
• Apply: Practice applying information.

Synaptic & Systems Level Consolidation

• Synaptic consolidation: Strengthening connections between neurons at the individual synapse level within hours after learning.
• Systems level consolidation: Transferring memories from the hippocampus to other brain areas over weeks or months, making memories more stable.
• Differences in time scale: Synaptic (hours) vs. Systems (weeks to months).

Hebbian Learning

• "Neurons that fire together, wire together": A simplified explanation of Hebbian learning, stating that repeated co-activation of neurons strengthens connections.
• Strengthening Connections: Creates more efficient and stable connections between neurons.

Standard Model of Consolidation

• Step 1: Encoding and initial consolidation in the hippocampus.
• Step 2: Transfer of memories from the hippocampus to other cortical areas over time.
• Hippocampus: Involved in encoding and initial consolidation.

This quiz explores key concepts of attention, including covert and overt attention, saccades, and fixations. Additionally, it discusses salience and its impact on how we perceive our environment. Test your understanding of these foundational psychological concepts.