Attention and Consciousness

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

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

Perception and Cognition

• We have elaborate perceptual mechanisms to provide information to our brains to guide current or future behavior

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

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

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

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!?

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

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