Attention and Consciousness

1. Attention and Consciousness

2. Inattentional and Change Blindness • Inattentional blindness • When unattended information in the visual (or auditory) world goes unnoticed • Change Blindness when unattended objects change without the viewer noticing • Let’s see some examples

3. Inattentional and Change Blindness • When attention can’t be focused effectively, information gets omitted from awareness • One way this occurs is by preventing transients from reflexively orienting attention

4. Perception and Cognition • We have elaborate perceptual mechanisms to provide information to our brains to guide current or future behavior

5. Perception and Cognition • We have elaborate perceptual mechanisms to provide information to our brains to guide current or future behavior • Notice there’s no mention of consciousness

6. Perception and Cognition • We have elaborate perceptual mechanisms to provide information to our brains to guide current or future behavior • Notice there’s no mention of consciousness • Lot’s of information gets processed and used by your brain without you noticing

7. Perception and Cognition • We have elaborate perceptual mechanisms to provide information to our brains to guide current or future behavior • Notice there’s no mention of consciousness • Lot’s of information gets processed and used by your brain without you noticing • Consider an example

8. Blindsight • You move about the world without bumping into things • You see where things are and you can reach out and grab them • What if I told you that your brain doesn’t really care if you’re aware that you are doing these things!?

9. Blindsight and the Dorsal Stream • Lesions (usually due to stroke) in primary visual cortex cause a region of blindness called a scotoma • Identified using perimetry X