Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Top-Down Attention In Statistical Learning Of Speech, Stacey Reyes

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Statistical learning (SL) refers to the ability to extract regularities in the environment and has been well-documented to play a key role in speech segmentation and language acquisition. Whether SL is automatic or requires top-down attention is an unresolved question, with conflicting results in the literature. The current proposal tests whether SL can occur outside the focus of attention. Participants either focused towards, or diverted their attention away from an auditory speech stream made of repeating nonsense trisyllabic words. Divided-attention participants either performed a concurrent visual task or a language-related task during exposure to the nonsense speech stream, while control …

Examining The Role Of Diverted Attention On Musical Motion Aftereffects, Hannah D. Cormier

Undergraduate Honours Theses

Previous studies have observed visual motion aftereffects (MAE) following prolonged exposure to both auditory and visual stimuli. As the importance of attention for MAE perception has been debated, the present study manipulated the level of attention directed to an auditory stimulus depicting motion and assessed how attention influenced MAE strength. It was hypothesized that MAE strength would be dependent on attention to the motion stimuli. 100 participants were recruited and randomly divided into either a Diverted-Attention Condition or Control Condition. Each participant completed preliminary assessments to ensure adequate auditory calibration and familiarity with the random dot kinematogram (RDK) visual motion …

Pupil Size Is Modulated By The Size Of Equal-Luminance Gratings, Jie Gao, Athena Ko, Yoshiko Yabe, Melvyn A. Goodale, Juan Chen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Pupil size changes with light. For this reason, researchers studying the effect of attention, contextual processing, and arousal on the pupillary response have matched the mean luminance of their stimuli across conditions to eliminate the contribution of differences in light levels. Here, we argue that the match of mean luminance is not enough. In Experiment 1, we presented a circular sinewave grating on a gray background for 2 seconds. The area of the grating could be 3°, 6°, or 9°. The mean luminance of each grating was equal to the luminance of the gray background, such …

Exploring Cognitive Maps Through Sketching, Melissa M. Nantais

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Abstract

Periodic testing has been found to improve the accuracy of participants’ cognitive maps when an onscreen map is provided, however, it is unclear whether the same results would occur without the onscreen map. The current study investigated whether drawing a map periodically while exploring the virtual environment Silcton would improve cognitive map accuracy. Participants explored Silcton and were stopped every 4 minutes to either sketch a map of Silcton, identify items seen in Silcton, or colour an unrelated picture, and a baseline group was not stopped. All groups drew a final sketch map and completed a direction estimation task. …

Using Meditation To Improve Measures Of Attention In Older Adults, Sabrina Ford

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Age-related cognitive decline greatly impacts quality of life for older adults. Previous research has indicated that meditation may act as a neuroprotective factor to prevent age-related cognitive decline. This thesis sought to replicate previous findings and investigate if a four-week meditation intervention would improve sustained attention. Participants 60 years and older (n=27, 17 female) were recruited and assigned to a focused-attention (FA) meditation or relaxation group which met for four weeks, three times a week. Resting-state EEG was used to collect individual alpha peak frequency (iAPF) and frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA). The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) was also …

Impaired Object-Location Learning And Recognition Memory But Enhanced Sustained Attention In M2 Muscarinic Receptor-Deficient Mice, Carola Romberg, Susan Bartko, Jürgen Wess, Lisa M. Saksida, Timothy J. Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2018, The Author(s). Rationale: Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors are known to play key roles in mediating cognitive processes, and impaired muscarinic cholinergic neurotransmission is associated with normal ageing processes and Alzheimer’s disease. However, the specific contributions of the individual muscarinic receptor subtypes (M1–M5) to cognition are presently not well understood. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of M2-type muscarinic receptor signalling to sustained attention, executive control and learning and memory. Methods: M2 receptor-deficient (M2−/−) mice were tested on a touchscreen-operated task battery testing visual discrimination, behavioural flexibility, object-location associative learning, attention and response control. Spontaneous …

Seeing The Forest And The Trees: Default Local Processing In Individuals With High Autistic Traits Does Not Come At The Expense Of Global Attention., Ryan A Stevenson, Sol Z Sun, Naomi Hazlett, Jonathan S Cant, Morgan D Barense, Susanne Ferber

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Atypical sensory perception is one of the most ubiquitous symptoms of autism, including a tendency towards a local-processing bias. We investigated whether local-processing biases were associated with global-processing impairments on a global/local attentional-scope paradigm in conjunction with a composite-face task. Behavioural results were related to individuals' levels of autistic traits, specifically the Attention to Detail subscale of the Autism Quotient, and the Sensory Profile Questionnaire. Individuals showing high rates of Attention to Detail were more susceptible to global attentional-scope manipulations, suggesting that local-processing biases associated with Attention to Detail do not come at the cost of a global-processing deficit, but …

A Simulated Walk In Nature: Testing Predictions From The Attention Restoration Theory, Corey Crossan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Attention Restoration Theory (ART) predicts that top-down processing during everyday activities can cause attentional fatigue and that bottom-up processing that occurs when people experience nature will be restorative (Kaplan, 1995). The present study examined this prediction by exposing participants to three different conditions using a repeated measures design: a control condition during which participants walked on a typical treadmill, a nature/restorative condition during which participants walked on the same treadmill, experiencing a simulated nature walk, and a perturbation condition that included the same simulated nature scene but also required top-down processing during the walk. The findings supported ART predictions. As …

Is Allocation Of Attention Impaired In Fallers Compared To Non-Fallers? An Event-Related Potential Study, Phil Parrot-Migas

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Approximately 30% of older adults experience one or more falls annually. The ability to properly allocate attention may be a risk factor falls. Our study examined whether older adults (aged 58-79) with a history of falls, allocated attention differently to auditory distractor stimuli compared to those without a history of falls, and whether such differences subsequently altered cognitive processing of visual target stimuli. We examined allocation of attention using event-related potentials (ERPs) as participants responded to visual targets while ignoring task-irrelevant auditory distractors. A posterior to anterior shift in electrical brain activity was exaggerated in the faller group compared to …

Social Media And Cognition, Ana C. Ruiz Pardo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social media is an inescapable platform for sharing media and connecting with others. This thesis investigated how social media impacts cognition; specifically, attention. Study 1 investigated typical social media usage patterns and helped gauge which SM platform was most popular. Study 1 revealed three main platforms people used most often: Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Facebook was reported as the most popular social media platform. Study 2 investigated how a social media post impacts cognition. It was hypothesized that participants who posted, with the intention of provoking a reaction from their followers, on their social media prior to performing a cognitive …

The Effects Of Alcohol On Visual Attention, Amber M. Robinson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Alcohol has been shown to have a variety of effects on cognitive performance in humans; the present study tested the effects of alcohol on visual selective attention using three different paradigms. The effects of alcohol intoxication over a broad range of blood alcohol concentrations (average between 0.01 and 0.08) were evaluated for change blindness, inattentional blindness, and multiple object tracking. Alcohol was found to impair inattentional blindness performance, negatively affecting participants’ ability to notice the unexpected changes presented. This result is interpreted as support for the alcohol myopia theory. No significant effects of alcohol were found for change blindness or …

Individual Differences In The Allocation Of Visual Attention During Navigation, Mikayla Keller

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There are large individual differences in the ability to create an accurate mental representation (i.e., a cognitive map) of a novel environment, yet the factors underlying cognitive map accuracy remain unclear. Given the roles that landmarks and cognitive map accuracy play in successful navigation, the current study examined whether differences in the landmarks that individuals look at while navigating are related to differences in cognitive map accuracy. Participants completed a battery of spatial tests: some that assessed spatial skills prior to a navigation task, and others that tested memory for the environment following exploration of a virtual world. Results indicated …

Attention To Melodic Versus Phonetic Cues In 8-Month-Old Infants, Alexandra M. Ryken

Undergraduate Honours Theses

Infant listeners have very sophisticated auditory processing skills. In the music domain, infants as young as 6-months of age can recognize familiar and novel melodies (e.g., Trainor, Wu, & Tsang, 2004), and in the speech domain 8-month-old infants can use the statistical frequency of syllables to recognize familiar and novel nonsense words (e.g., Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996). Though infants can process music and speech information when presented separately, there has been little research to date on whether infants can process information from both streams simultaneously. Auditory streams such as lullabies often contain both a melody and lyrics, but can …

Transient Pupil Dilation After Subsaccadic Microstimulation Of Primate Frontal Eye Fields., Sebastian J Lehmann, Brian D Corneil

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

UNLABELLED: Pupillometry provides a simple and noninvasive index for a variety of cognitive processes, including perception, attention, task consolidation, learning, and memory. The neural substrates by which such cognitive processes influence pupil diameter remain somewhat unclear, although cortical inputs to the locus coeruleus mediating arousal are likely involved. Changes in pupil diameter also accompany covert orienting; hence the oculomotor system may provide an alternative substrate for cognitive influences on pupil diameter. Here, we show that low-level electrical microstimulation of the primate frontal eye fields (FEFs), a cortical component of the oculomotor system strongly connected to the intermediate layers of the …

Attentional Filtering Of Visual Information By Neuronal Ensembles In The Primate Lateral Prefrontal Cortex., Sébastien Tremblay, Florian Pieper, Adam Sachs, Julio Martinez-Trujillo

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The activity of neurons in the primate lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) is strongly modulated by visual attention. Such a modulation has mostly been documented by averaging the activity of independently recorded neurons over repeated experimental trials. However, in realistic settings, ensembles of simultaneously active LPFC neurons must generate attentional signals on a single-trial basis, despite the individual and correlated variability of neuronal responses. Whether, under these circumstances, the LPFC can reliably generate attentional signals is unclear. Here, we show that the simultaneous activity of neuronal ensembles in the primate LPFC can be reliably decoded to predict the allocation of attention …

Sharp Emergence Of Feature-Selective Sustained Activity Along The Dorsal Visual Pathway., Diego Mendoza-Halliday, Santiago Torres, Julio C Martinez-Trujillo

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Sustained activity encoding visual working memory representations has been observed in several cortical areas of primates. Where along the visual pathways this activity emerges remains unknown. Here we show in macaques that sustained spiking activity encoding memorized visual motion directions is absent in direction-selective neurons in early visual area middle temporal (MT). However, it is robustly present immediately downstream, in multimodal association area medial superior temporal (MST), as well as and in the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). This sharp emergence of sustained activity along the dorsal visual pathway suggests a functional boundary between early visual areas, which encode sensory inputs, …

Attachment And Attention: An Investigation Of Biases In Attention As They Relate To Attachment Security In Infancy And Adulthood, Paul J. Meinz

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

At the advent of attachment theory, John Bowlby hypothesized that cognition and emotion are shaped by early experiences with primary caregivers (Bowlby, 1980). This idea – that aspects of cognition may be organized within early relationships – still plays a prominent role in contemporary attachment theory. The studies described within this dissertation provide support for the idea that attachment security in infancy and adulthood are associated with differences in cognition – particularly with differences in the way that people attend to certain forms of stimuli. Mothers and children in the studies described here were first assessed for individual differences in …

The Effects Of Musical Mood And Musical Arousal On Visual Attention, Angela B. Marti Marca, Tram Nguyen, Jessica Grahn

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The presence of music is a visceral part of the human experience and its influence on cognitive function is a growing area of research in psychology. In particular, perceptual properties of music (mood and arousal) have been shown to significantly affect performance. There has been minimal research in the field on the interaction of mood and arousal and their influence on attention, thus the purpose of this study. Fifty undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of Western Ontario were recruited for this study. Given that music is a highly subjective experience, participants rated an assortment of music clips on …

The Effects Of Musical Mood And Musical Arousal On Visual Attention, Angela B. Marti Marca, Tram Nguyen, Jessica Grahn Dr.

Undergraduate Honors Posters

The presence of music is a visceral part of the human experience and its influence on cognitive function has become a growing area of research in psychology. In particular, perceptual properties of music (mood and arousal) have been shown to significantly affect performance. There has been minimal research in the field on the interaction of these perceptual properties and their influence on attentional processes. This research study focused on the effects of musical mood and musical arousal on visual attention. Given that music is a highly subjective experience, participants were asked to rate different music clips on independent dimensions of …

A Dedicated Binding Mechanism For The Visual Control Of Movement., Alexandra Reichenbach, David W Franklin, Peter Zatka-Haas, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The human motor system is remarkably proficient in the online control of visually guided movements, adjusting to changes in the visual scene within 100 ms [1-3]. This is achieved through a set of highly automatic processes [4] translating visual information into representations suitable for motor control [5, 6]. For this to be accomplished, visual information pertaining to target and hand need to be identified and linked to the appropriate internal representations during the movement. Meanwhile, other visual information must be filtered out, which is especially demanding in visually cluttered natural environments. If selection of relevant sensory information for online control …

Individual Differences In Temperament And Cognitive Biases In Middle Childhood: Vulnerability To Internalizing Psychopathology, Patricia L. Jordan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A multi-trait multi-method study was conducted exploring associations between individual differences in child temperament and cognitive vulnerability for depression and anxiety. Two-hundred and five 7-year-old children and their parents participated. Low positive emotionality and high negative emotionality predicted a depressogenic attributional style as well as attentional biases for positive and sad stimuli. Individual differences in child fearfulness were also associated with attentional biases to threat-related information. Associations between child cognitive vulnerability and parental history of depression and anxiety were also explored, as well as associations between child internalizing symptoms and (1) child temperament and (2) cognitive vulnerability. Paternal, but not …

Specific Contributions Of Ventromedial, Anterior Cingulate, And Lateral Prefrontal Cortex For Attentional Selection And Stimulus Valuation., Daniel Kaping, Martin Vinck, R Matthew Hutchison, Stefan Everling, Thilo Womelsdorf

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Attentional control ensures that neuronal processes prioritize the most relevant stimulus in a given environment. Controlling which stimulus is attended thus originates from neurons encoding the relevance of stimuli, i.e. their expected value, in hand with neurons encoding contextual information about stimulus locations, features, and rules that guide the conditional allocation of attention. Here, we examined how these distinct processes are encoded and integrated in macaque prefrontal cortex (PFC) by mapping their functional topographies at the time of attentional stimulus selection. We find confined clusters of neurons in ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) that predominantly convey stimulus valuation information during attention shifts. …

Deficits In Attention To Emotional Stimuli Distinguish Youth With Severe Mood Dysregulation From Youth With Bipolar Disorder., Brendan A Rich, Melissa A Brotman, Daniel P Dickstein, Derek G V Mitchell, R James R Blair, Ellen Leibenluft

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Studying attention in the context of emotional stimuli may aid in differentiating pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) from severe mood dysregulation (SMD). SMD is characterized by chronic irritability, arousal, and hyper-reactivity; SMD youth frequently receive a BD diagnosis although they do not meet DSM-IV criteria for BD because they lack manic episodes. We compared 57 BD (14.4 +/- 2.9 years old, 56% male), 41 SMD (12.6 +/- 2.6 years old, 66% male), and 33 control subjects (13.7 +/- 2.5 years old, 52% male) using the Emotional Interrupt task, which examines how attention is impacted by positive, negative, or neutral distracters. We …

Motor Output Evoked By Subsaccadic Stimulation Of Primate Frontal Eye Fields., Brian D Corneil, James K Elsley, Benjamin Nagy, Sharon L Cushing

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

In addition to its role in shifting the line of sight, the oculomotor system is also involved in the covert orienting of visuospatial attention. Causal evidence supporting this premotor theory of attention, or oculomotor readiness hypothesis, comes from the effect of subsaccadic threshold stimulation of the oculomotor system on behavior and neural activity in the absence of evoked saccades, which parallels the effects of covert attention. Here, by recording neck-muscle activity from monkeys and systematically titrating the level of stimulation current delivered to the frontal eye fields (FEF), we show that such subsaccadic stimulation is not divorced from immediate motor …

Cognitive Vulnerability To Anxiety: A Review And An Integrative Model., Allison J Ouimet, Bertram Gawronski, David J A Dozois

Psychology Publications

Consistent research evidence supports the existence of threat-relevant cognitive bias in anxiety, but there remains controversy about which stages of information processing are most important in the conferral of cognitive vulnerability to anxiety. To account for both theoretical and empirical discrepancies in the literature, an integrative multi-process model is proposed wherein core assumptions of dual-systems theories from social and cognitive psychology are adapted to explain attentional and interpretive biases in the anxiety disorders. According to the model, individual differences in associative and rule-based processing jointly influence orientation, engagement, disengagement, and avoidance of threat-relevant stimuli, as well as negatively-biased interpretation of …

Selective Attention To Threat Versus Reward: Meta-Analysis And Neural-Network Modeling Of The Dot-Probe Task., Paul A Frewen, David J A Dozois, Marc F Joanisse, Richard W J Neufeld

Psychology Publications

Two decades of research conducted to date has examined selective visual attention to threat and reward stimuli as a function of individual differences in anxiety using the dot-probe task. The present study tests a connectionist neural-network model of meta-analytic and key individual-study results derived from this literature. Attentional bias for threatening and reward-related stimuli is accounted for by connectionist model implementation of the following clinical psychology and affective neuroscience principles: 1) affective learning and temperament, 2) state and trait anxiety, 3) intensity appraisal, 4) affective chronometry, 5) attentional control, and 6) selective attention training. Theoretical implications for the study of …

A Contralateral Preference In The Lateral Occipital Area: Sensory And Attentional Mechanisms., Matthias Niemeier, Herbert C Goltz, Anil Kuchinad, Douglas B Tweed, Tutis Vilis

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Here we examined the level of the lateral occipital (LO) area within the processing stream of the ventral visual cortex. An important determinant of an area's level of processing is whether it codes visual elements on both sides of the visual field, as do higher visual areas, or prefers those in the contralateral visual field, as do early visual areas. The former would suggest that LO, on one side, combines bilateral visual elements into a whole, while the latter suggests that it codes only the parts of forms. We showed that LO has a relative preference for visual objects in …

Attentional Biases In Eating Disorders: A Meta-Analytic Review Of Stroop Performance., Keith S Dobson, David J A Dozois

Psychology Publications

The Stroop task has been adapted from cognitive psychology to be able to examine attentional biases in various forms of psychopathology, including the eating disorders. This paper reviews the research on the Stroop task in the eating disorders research area in both descriptive and meta-analytic fashions. Twenty-eight empirical studies are identified, which predominantly examine food and body/weight stimuli in bulimic, anorexic, or dieting/food-restricted samples. It is concluded that there is evidence of an attentional bias in bulimia for a range of stimuli but that the effect seems to be limited to body/weight stimuli in anorexia. The evidence to date is …

Triple Dissociation Of Anterior Cingulate, Posterior Cingulate, And Medial Frontal Cortices On Visual Discrimination Tasks Using A Touchscreen Testing Procedure For The Rat., T J Bussey, J L Muir, B J Everitt, T W Robbins

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Four experiments examined effects of quinolinic acid-induced lesions of the anterior cingulate, posterior cingulate, and medial frontal cortices on tests of visual discrimination learning, using a new "touchscreen" testing method for rats. Anterior cingulate cortex lesions impaired acquisition of an 8-pair concurrent discrimination task, whereas posterior cingulate cortex lesions facilitated learning but selectively impaired the late stages of acquisition of a visuospatial conditional discrimination. Medial frontal cortex lesions selectively impaired reversal learning when stimuli were difficult to discriminate; lesions of anterior and posterior cingulate cortex had no effect. These results suggest roles for the anterior cingulate, posterior cingulate, and medial …