With feature search, if the sought item is different from all the distracters in some fundamental way - your friend in a red coat, in a crowd of dark-suited businesspeople - the search is easy and the target of the search immediately "pops out."

Feature Search

Conjunction search involves searching for an item on the basis of two or more features (ie. size and color) that together distinguish the target from distracters that may share some of the same attributes. "Where's Waldo" is a good example before you are searching for a 1. boy 2. specific outfit.

Conjunction Search

Attention, in addition to being used to focus attention on certain stimuli, is used to systematically scan the world, or order to find some specific item in a sea of distracters.

New York University

Johns Hopkins University

- Uses of Attention
- How attention affects brain function
- Brain sites creating and directing attention
- Attention disorders
- Consciousness
- Types of Attention
- Cingulate Cortex
- Posterior parietal lobe
- Arousal
- Observing Attention
- Neuroanatomical Substrates of Attention
- Attention Selects Stimuli for Processing
- Attention is Deployed in Several Different Ways
- A Network of Brain Sites Creates and Directs Attention

Subjects in Attention and Higher Cognition

Breedlove, S. & Watson, N. (2017). Behavioral neuroscience, eighth edition. Oxford University Press.

Behavioral Neuroscience 8th Edition

Using Attention to Search for Objects

Attention affects the functioning of the brain. When many cortical neurons work together to solve a complicated problem, their activity becomes synchronized to some degree. However, there are contributions of multiple simultaneously active networks, regional differences in the timing of activity, and individual variation in the firing of neurons. 

Observing Attention

PET and fMRI studies have confirmed that a general consequence of attention is an enhancement of activity of the brain regions that process key aspects of the target stimuli.

Neuroanatomical Substrates of Attention

- Top-Down Attention
- Bottom-Up Attention
- Overt Attention
- Covert Attention
- Sustained Attention
- Voluntary Attention
- Involuntary Attention

Types of Attention

Arousal is the global level of alertness of the individual. It is distinct from attention in that it is not selective to a certain stimulus or stimuli, it is simply the overall level of alertness.

Arousal

- Superior colliculus
- Pulvinar
- Lateral intraparietal area (LIP)
- Intraparietal sulcus (IPS)
- Frontal Eye Field
- Temporoparietal junction
- Voluntary control of attention
- Reflexive attention

Attention is Deployed in Several Different Ways

- attention
- arousal 
- cocktail party effect
- dichotic presentation 
- shadowing
- inattentional blindness 
- dvided-attention tasks
- attentional spotlight
- attentional bottleneck 
- early-selection model 
- late-selection model 
- perceptual load 

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