We don’t always see things if we’re not paying attention to them. Even if they’re right in front of us! This is known as ‘inattention blindness’ There’s so much information in the world around us it’s impossible to take everything in. Sit quietly and use your senses to perceive everything that’s going on around you. What didn’t you notice before?

Can you find the odd one out? Put your hand up when you’ve found it

That one was easy! Sometimes our attention automatically gets drawn to things that stand out. Can you think of any real-life examples of when things automatically catch our attention? Internet adverts Emergency vehicles Things that move suddenly Your name

Now try and find the odd one out again Put your hand up when you’ve found it

When the items are more similar we need to use attention to search to find the odd one out Psychologists use these kind of displays to study our attention system and how it works If we know what we’re looking for we can use this to guide our attention Try and find the horizontal yellow bar in this display (put your hand up when you’ve found it)

That one was quicker because we could use attention to help us narrow the search Can you think of some real life examples of when attention can help us? Looking for something Concentrating on what someone’s saying in a noisy room Team sports

But how does attention work in the brain?

Different neurons in the visual cortex respond to different things, e.g. Some prefer horizontal lines, some vertical lines When we see something there is a competition between neurons in the brain to decide what it is It is the neurons that are the most active that determine what we see

Prefrontal cortex Visual cortex Attention boosts the information we receive from our senses so that we can identify what we see more quickly This is where we hold what we need to know in memory (working memory) This part of the brain processes information from our eyes

We’re going to model how attention works We need: –A prefrontal cortex (1 person) –A responder standing with back to display and blindfolded (1 person) –12 visual cortex neurons (12 people) representing a different coloured shape. Start holding card at waist height. The height of the card represents how much the neuron is firing You are going to see some displays like the ones you’ve just seen Before each display is presented the prefrontal cortex will be told what the target is. They will signal to the visual cortex neuron with that shape to raise it by one level The display is presented and the visual cortex neurons have to raise their card according to how much they match the display (i.e. if same shape/colour increase 1 level, if matches both, increase 2 levels –Level 1 = chest height –Level 2 = in front of face –Level 3 = above head The responder’s blindfold is removed and they have to say what the target is

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Can anyone have a go at explaining what was happening? –What were the visual cortex neurons doing? –What was the prefrontal cortex doing?

There is too much information in the world around us to take everything in Attention helps us to focus on what’s important This means that we sometimes don’t see things that we’re not paying attention to Attention works by enhancing how reactive our senses are to certain things