biology

Visual selective attention in dementia

Visual selective attention in dementia is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Visual selective attention in dementia rather than just read about it. In short: Visual selective attention is a brain function that controls the processing of retinal input based on whether it is relevant or important. It selects particular representations to enter perceptual awareness and therefore guide behaviour.

Key takeaways

Visual selective attention in dementia belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Visual selective attention in dementia to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Visual selective attention in dementia from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Visual selective attention is a brain function that controls the processing of retinal input based on whether it is relevant or important. It selects particular representations to enter perceptual awareness and therefore guide behaviour. Through this process, less relevant information is suppressed. Visual selective attention is an essential factor in producing efficient, goal directed behaviour. Our processing resources as humans are limited, and it is therefore crucial to be able to distinguish important information in an environment which produces vast amounts of sensory input every second. In order to guide behaviour, only a small amount of that sensory input can be allowed to reach perceptual awareness. Therefore, to operate efficiently, this goal directed behaviour is mediated by visual selective attention. This allows us to selectively focus on and attend to specific information that is important or relevant to the situation or context we are in. This information then gains access to further processing, where it aids goal directed behaviour through enhancing the representation of salient and relevant stimuli, and suppressing distracting stimuli which are less relevant. The processing of distracting stimuli may interfere with the implementation of the intended behaviour. Visual selective attention is the processes that is involved in detecting one source of sensory information over another, therefore ignoring or disregarding other sources available in the present environment. It requires many underlying cognitive processes, including detection of important sensory/perceptual information, the ability to inhibit information that is irrelevant to the task, and the ability to shift attention from one feature or location to another. In neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and Parkinson's disease, areas such as the basal ganglia, cerebral cortex, locus coeruleus, temporal, parietal and frontal lobes, and the limbic system, especially the hippocampus and amygdala, are impaired. These areas are involved in executive functions, including memory and attention, especially visual selective attention, and therefore deficits in these abilities arise. This can result in an individual's inability to efficiently ignore distractor information when attending to specific stimuli.

Visual selective attention and normal aging Loss in the ability to efficiently ignore distractor information increases with age. This is due to age-related deficits in selective attention and working memory, particularly with regard to a reduced ability to inhibit distracting sensory information. In a study by Kotary and Hoyer, adult age differences were examined in terms of the effects of distractor interference on visual search. Distractors were either related or unrelated to the target stimuli, which was a letter Q. Young and older adults completed a target-counting task which required a search of a visual display. The number of distractor items remained constant throughout the displays, but the distractor type (i.e. whether it was categorically related to the target, numerically related, or not related at all) was varied in order to observe possible differences performance to do with age. Researchers found that older adults were slower at counting targets than younger adults, regardless of distractor presence in the display. Counting performance slowed for both young and older adults when distractors appeared in the display, and when distractors were incongruent with regards to the required response, interference was highest for both young and older adults. With regards to selective attention performance, no evidence suggested that there was an age difference in the effects of the type of distractor. The lack of interaction between age and condition suggests an age-related deficit in inhibitory processes, and this can be seen in the increased response times in the experimental conditions in which targets were presented without distractors, compared to targets presented with distractors. This increase in response time is greater for older adults than for younger adults, suggesting that attention allocation over trials is sensitive to age-related decline, and therefore it is possible that there is an age-related decline in ability to switch between a situation that requires the use of inhibitory processes and situations that do not require selective attention.

Mild cognitive impairment Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered the transitional stage between normal aging and Alzheimer's disease, though it is noted that not all individuals diagnosed with MCI progress to dementia. It is possible that there would be some small changes in visual selective attention at this stage, as even in early stages of Alzheimer's disease, such deficits are observed. Deficits in MCI are consistent with the neurological changes seen in brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex, parietal lobes, cholinergic system, and the decreased connectivity in the frontoparietal network in the early stages of AD. These changes, which have been shown to result in inefficient processing speed and difficulties in shifting focus, suggest that patients with MCI have more difficulty attending to the target stimuli when distractors are present, compared to healthy controls. Individuals with MCI who progressed to dementia within 2.5 years showed significantly more inefficient visual search performance compared to those with MCI who did not progress to dementia in the same time period. It has also been suggested that deficits in visual selective attention in MCI patients appears to be dependent on task characteristics, requirements, and the type and availability of the cue. These findings are also consistent with neuropathological changes seen in early AD patients in areas such as the cholinergic system, and prefrontal and parietal regions. When the given task requires working memory, deficits in visual selective attention and performance are observed in MCI patients, however, it is noted that controlled processing are generally unaffected. Auditory cues to aid visual selective attention in tasks were shown to improve performance, due to reduction in demand, and it is therefore apparently that MCI patients rely on exogenous information to aid in attention allocation.

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Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Visual selective attention in dementia

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Visual selective attention in dementia claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Visual selective attention in dementia before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Visual selective attention in dementia ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Visual selective attention in dementia

In research: Visual selective attention in dementia appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Visual selective attention in dementia in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Visual selective attention in dementia is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cognitive neuroscience, Dementia, Physiological psychology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Visual selective attention in dementia outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Visual selective attention in dementia in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Visual selective attention in dementia means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Visual selective attention in dementia in simple terms?

Why does Visual selective attention in dementia matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Visual selective attention in dementia?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Visual selective attention in dementia.