Deck 8: Oculomotor Control and the Control of Attention

Question 1

Which theory links motor control to attentional control?

Answer 1

Premotor theory of attention

Question 2

During what periods of a delayed-saccade task can one observe elevated activity in the frontal eye fields?

A)Only during the cue
B)Only during the delay
C)Only during the response
D)During all three

Answer 2

D

Question 3

What region of the brainstem is critical for bringing together maps of motor and sensory neurons in order to control eye movements?

A)Brainstem oculomotor nuclei
B)Frontal eye fields
C)Superior colliculus

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The ventral attentional system is associated with the _____ control of attention, and the dorsal attentional system with the _____ control.

A)Exogenous; endogenous
B)Endogenous, exogenous

Question 5

In the antisaccade task, which region's saccade-related activity begins earliest?

A)LIP
B)FEF
C)SEF
D)Superior colliculus

Question 6

Microstimulation of which eye-movement-related brain region leads to covert shifts of spatial attention?

Question 7

Describe the difference between the antisaccade and delayed-saccade tasks.

Question 8

What is one consequence of subthreshold stimulation of a neuron in the frontal eye fields?

A)It results in enhanced detection of a target that appears in that neuron's motor field
B)It results in impaired detection of a target that appears in that neuron's motor field
C)It results in enhanced detection of a target that appears in the visual field contralateral to that neuron's motor field
D)It results in impaired detection of a target that appears in the visual field contralateral to that neuron's motor field

Question 9

If you are watching an object that is moving toward you, your eyes will perform a conjugate eye movement.

Question 10

The dorsal attentional system is responsible for endogenous attentional control.

Question 11

Neurons in the frontal eye fields (FEF) primarily code for _____ saccades whereas the supplementary eye fields (SEF) primarily code for _____ saccades.

Question 12

While listening to an orchestra, despite the fact that all the instruments are playing at the same time, one can nonetheless attend to the sound from just one group of instruments (say, the clarinets). What type of attentional control does this demonstrate?

Question 13

Stimulation of a brain region leads to a saccade that is of the same direction and amplitude every time. What type of saccade is this?

A)Goal-oriented saccade
B)Vector saccade

Question 14

What region of the brain houses local circuitry for oculomotor neurons, and is analogous to the motor circuitry of the spinal cord?

A)Brainstem oculomotor nuclei
B)Superior colliculus
C)Frontal eye fields

Question 15

During reading our eyes spend most of the time fixating words and performing what type of eye movements?

A)Smooth pursuit
B)Saccades
C)Vergence shifts

Question 16

Describe the difference between a blocked and an event-related fMRI design. What is the one major advantage of a blocked design over an event-related design?

Question 17

Why is MVPA sometimes called "brain decoding"?

Question 18

What are advantages of multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) relative to univariate methods for the analysis of fMRI data?

Question 19

According to the reentry hypothesis of visual search, what is a source of top-down attentional signals on V4 neurons?

A)visuomovement neurons of the frontal eye fields
B)movement neurons of the frontal eye fields
C)prefrontal cortex neurons
D)V1 neurons

Question 20

Describe the premotor theory of attention. How does it explain covert attentional control?

Question 21

What is the evidence that spatial attention, eye-movement planning, and spatial short-term memory may rely on a common neural mechanism?