Brain Physiology, Cognition and Consciousness group: topic
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Attention and consciousness
Hans Ricke
Friday, 16 May 2008 05:57 UTC
Christof Koch and Naotsugu Tsuchiya are trying to establish a major statement about attention and consciousness which can be followed up on Scholarpedia which seems to be a great website anyway.
Christof has pointed these things out in Tucson and will also eloborate on it in Taipeh.
I have reluctance against the statement that there can be attention without consciousness, which is an extraordinary claim in my opinion. The evidence they give here can be read in more depth in an article by Jiang et al. . This article by Buschman and Miller may by interesting as well for a discussion.
As this is a huge topic with some history one can also browse David Chalmers collection
Christof Koch and Naotsugu Tsuchiya have published their view and obviously there are important statements from Bernard Baars, Stanislas Dehaene and Victor Lamme to name a few.
The claim that there may be attention without consciousness is possibly stretching the understanding of terms too much in a “lab-direction” which ultimately loses connection with a common and sensible understanding of the terms. I doubt that it is meaningful to say someone attends to an objects when in reality there is only an unsuccessful attempt to attend by looking in the direction of that object. We also have to acknowledge natural limitations: visual attention is obviously not naturally to be performed the way binocular rivalry tests suggest. What naturally happens is a kind of competition between different contents of consciousness and attention. This process of competition has voluntary and involuntary aspects. Research should support an understanding that enables people to be aware and attend to the contents that are relevant and important in their lives and the conditions they are in. Obviouslly both attention and awareness can be distracted, which may be not only unwanted but even dangerous.
Updated 16 May 2008 06:15 UTC
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Dear Graeme,
the “classical” distinction concerning attention is between top-down and bottom-up attention. This indicates that volition plays a part, but not always the decisive part.
Is it that you see both orientation and concentration as volitional?
The main difference I would make is between a “normal” mode of conscious experience and an attentive mode. This distinction may get (almost) lost when people live in such a way that they either constantly concentrate on input or inner goings on or seek a surrounding that provides very strong inputs: drugs, sensational movies, sports, discussions, whatever.
People who predominantly live that way may be the majority in a western country, especially in big cities.Yours friendly
Hans -
Ah… Good posting
In my model, which it has been pointed out, is a physical model, I.E. based on physical evidence not abstraction, There must be a distinction or two made between different modes in Top-Down Attention.
Part of the problem is that in the abstraction that most people have about top-down attention Volition gets wrapped up too soon, in directing attention. It can be shown that there can be different levels of selection, and that these levels can have different levels of sophistication.
My model suggests three levels of sophistication:
Random Impulse
Intention
VolitionHowever there might be more, we won’t really know until we understand the PFC better.
Since I only accept that the top level Volition, is actually volitional
I suspect that the Unconscious life is like an iceberg, it is bigger below the surface than we can see from the surface.So Orientation, no not volitional, it happens before volition is possible
Concentration… on the other hand, is another kettle of fish. I don’t really have a model of concentration yet, the model that I did develop years ago, was flawed, and hasn’t been replaced yet.I am not sure that concentration is volitional at all, I have spent long hours concentrating on books etc. and have noticed that at the end of the period, I had lost track of time. This is an indication that we can concentrate during intention, as well as during consciousness, but we might need consciousness to start the process, or it might be like hypnotism where we go into a trance-like state without conscious choice.
I like to separate concentration from Attention being as I have said a proponent of weak attention. Concentration is more a style of deliberation than a way of directing memory from one area of the mind to another.
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“I am not sure that concentration is volitional at all, I have spent long hours concentrating on books etc. and have noticed that at the end of the period, I had lost track of time. This is an indication that we can concentrate during intention, as well as during consciousness, but we might need consciousness to start the process, or it might be like hypnotism where we go into a trance-like state without conscious choice.”
Focus of attention increases energy expenditure (increase in sample rate, frequency changes as bonds are broken/made as part of high level of distinctions are made). The additional information that comes with the increase elicits a subjective time distortion that can also be associated with the reciprocal relationship of energy/time.
The focus on habituation to sameness and over-sensitivity to difference brings out the overall dynamic of difference/sameness management and the creation of instincts/habits with consciousness acting as an agent of mediation (once the habit is developed enough to stand on its own the response time delay associated with the presence of awareness during learning disappears – as covered in such as Libet’s work)
Focusing of attention introduces experience of a ‘whole’ that is not the same as the whole we experience unconsciously – see refs covered here
Chris.
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Chris Lofting states:" Focus of attention increases energy expenditure"
I have to caution you, that if Libetts work is correct, and if Intention is seen as effortless, then we have the iceberg problem again, in that the amount of energy expended during intention is probably higher than that expended during consciousness because we spend so much more time in an intentive mode.
Thus it is not the energy demand that makes conscious study energy intensive, it is something else. One possible interpretation is that it is perceived as hard to change direction midstream, Possibly because there is a limited supply of some chemical needed to give us the flexibility to do so. The body provides feedback in order to keep us from overspending out budget on that chemical.
One interesting theory is that it is the amount of Dopamine that is needed that sets the level of fatigue. Anyone who has gone the limit studying and then gone out into public might find themselves acting in an impulsive manner. After long hours studying their supply of Dopamnine would be similar to that of an ADD sufferer normally. In my model Dopamine is used to suppress everything but the necessary elements we focus on. This means that it might take a significant amount of dopamine to make quick changes in attention. It would make sense that if the cell can only produce so much dopamine in a certain set period, that the more changes there are in the attention system the more the brain would want to warn you against making more quick changes, and thus the more fatigued you would feel.
It would be interesting to find out what the Basket cells use as their neurotransmitter chemical. One possible model, I have come up with is that the basket cells act as a shunt, essentially short circuiting the pyramid cells that feed the ACC. If they were controlled by the ACC they could suppress cerebral cortex output. This would have the effect of focusing the attention at at least 4 different levels in my model.
If this model of suppression is accurate, then any shift of the focus, would result in new neurons having to be suppressed, which would cost more neurotransmitter than sustaining existing suppression.
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