Foundations of Attention, Memory, and Learning

📋 Course Outline

1. Attentional Processes
2. Arousal and Alertness
3. Reticular Activating System
4. Executive Attention System
5. Memory Stages
6. Memory Types
7. Memory Consolidation and Recall
8. Learning Mechanisms
9. Classical and Operant Conditioning
10. Non-Associative Learning

📖 1. Attentional Processes

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Attentional Processes: Brain functions that select relevant stimuli from the environment or internal thoughts to focus on, involving perceptual and executive components.
• Perceptual Process: Unconscious filtering mechanism guided by salience, responsible for initial selection of stimuli based on relevance, without requiring mental effort.
• Executive Process: Voluntary, conscious control mechanism that manages attention based on goals, expectations, and intentions; involves effort and planning.
• Arousal: State of alertness or wakefulness, influencing attentional capacity; includes tonic (constant) and phasic (reactive) components.
• Reticular Activating System (RAS): Brain network regulating arousal and wakefulness, primarily through noradrenaline.
• Orienting System: Neural network that directs attention toward specific stimuli, involving parietal and frontal cortices, colliculi, and thalamus, mediated by acetylcholine.
• Executive Control System: Brain system maintaining focus, inhibiting distractions, and managing task switching, involving cingulate cortex, frontal lobes, and dopamine.