Brain Activity & AI: Attention and Visual Scanning

### Brain Activity & AI

• AI models learn to recognize patterns of brain activity associated with specific perceptual inputs
• These models can be trained by showing them examples of the same object multiple times.
• Similar to how a baby learns to distinguish between apples and oranges
• By looking at the pattern of activity in voxels (brain tissue units), rather than single voxel activity, orientations in the brain can be decoded.

Attention

• Attention is the process of focusing on specific objects while ignoring others
• Our perceptual system has limited capacity for processing information, so we select certain stimuli in the environment to enhance processing.
• It is a top-down process that affects how we perceive things.

Visual Scanning

• One mechanism for selecting stimuli for enhanced processing is visual scanning, moving from one place to another.
• This is necessary because only one place on the retina produces good detail vision.
• Fixation: briefly pausing on an object, providing us the opportunity to focus on it.
• Saccadic eye movement: rapid, jerky movement from one fixation to another. These eye movements allow us to shift attention to new objects and people.

Overt vs Covert Attention

• Overt attention involves looking directly at the attended object and can be studied by tracking eye movements.
• Covert attention involves focusing on an object without directly looking at it.

### Perception With/Without Attention

• Scene type can be identified after viewing a picture for less than a quarter of a second, suggesting some perception occurs without attention.
• In a dual-task procedure, participants were good at identifying scenes presented for a short period even while completing a demanding central task.
• Performance was worse on identifying colored disks, indicating a reliance on attention for some perceptual tasks.
• However, studies suggest that perception of natural scenes requires attention.

Task-Irrelevant Stimuli

• These are stimuli that don't provide information relevant to the task at hand and can decrease performance.
• E.g., pop-up notifications on a computer.

Attention Types

• Involuntary processes (exogenous attention) are triggered by stimuli that capture our attention automatically, without a conscious goal.
• Voluntary processes (endogenous attention) are guided by goals and intentions.

Visual Salience

• Things in the world draw our attention because they stand out against their backgrounds.
• Scene regions that are markedly different in color, contrast, movement, or orientation are said to have visual salience.
• Attentional capture occurs when properties of a stimulus grab attention against a person's will. This is a key mechanism for directing attention to potentially dangerous stimuli, like sudden movement.
• A salience map reveals regions that are visually different from the rest of a scene.

Scene Schemas

• Scene schemas, an observer's knowledge about typical scenes, influence attention.
• Observers look longer at objects that are less likely to be found in a particular scene, demonstrating how scene schemas affect attention.

Observer Interests & Goals

• Attention is affected by a person's goals.
• Eye movements during a task are affected by the task given to the participant.

This quiz explores the interplay between brain activity, artificial intelligence, attention, and the mechanisms of visual scanning. It covers how AI learns from brain patterns and how our perceptual system prioritizes stimuli for processing. Test your understanding of these concepts and their relevance to cognitive science.