A Design of Global Workspace Model with Attention: Simulations of Attentional Blink and Lag-1 Sparing

There are many developed theories and implemented artificial systems in the area of machine consciousness, while none has achieved that. For a possible approach, we are interested in implementing a system by integrating different theories. Along this way, this paper proposes a model based on the global workspace theory and attention mechanism, and providing a fundamental framework for our future work. To examine this model, two experiments are conducted. The first one demonstrates the agent’s ability to shift attention over multiple stimuli, which accounts for the dynamics of conscious content. Another experiment of simulations of attentional blink and lag-1 sparing, which are two well-studied effects in psychology and neuroscience of attention and consciousness, aims to justify the agent’s compatibility with human brains. In summary, the main contributions of this paper are (1) Adaptation of the global workspace framework by separated workspace nodes, reducing unnecessary computation but retaining the potential of global availability; (2) Embedding attention mechanism into the global workspace framework as the competition mechanism for the consciousness access; (3) Proposing a synchronization mechanism in the global workspace for supporting lag-1 sparing effect, retaining the attentional blink effect.

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Lag-1 sparing in the attentional blink: Benefits and costs of integrating two events into a single episode

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A ◽

10.1080/02724980443000647 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 58 (8) ◽

pp. 1415-1433 ◽

Cited By ~ 84

Author(s):

Bernhard Hommel ◽

Elkan G. Akyürek

Keyword(s):

Attentional Blink ◽

Temporal Order ◽

Time Window ◽

Visual Stream ◽

Single Episode ◽

Attentional Resources ◽

Sparing Effect ◽

Benefits And Costs ◽

Effect Experiment ◽

Lag 1 Sparing

When people monitor a visual stream of rapidly presented stimuli for two targets (T1 and T2), they often miss T2 if it falls into a time window of about half a second after T1 onset—the attentional blink. However, if T2 immediately follows T1, performance is often reported being as good as that at long lags—the so-called Lag-1 sparing effect. Two experiments investigated the mechanisms underlying this effect. Experiment 1 showed that, at Lag 1, requiring subjects to correctly report both identity and temporal order of targets produces relatively good performance on T2 but relatively bad performance on T1. Experiment 2 confirmed that subjects often confuse target order at short lags, especially if the two targets are equally easy to discriminate. Results suggest that, if two targets appear in close succession, they compete for attentional resources. If the two competitors are of unequal strength the stronger one is more likely to win and be reported at the expense of the other. If the two are equally strong, however, they will often be integrated into the same attentional episode and thus get both access to attentional resources. But this comes with a cost, as it eliminates information about the targets’ temporal order.

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Parameterizing the attentional blink effect.

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale ◽

10.1037/cjep2006017 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 60 (3) ◽

pp. 175-189 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Denis Cousineau ◽

Dominic Charbonneau ◽

Pierre Jolicoeur

Keyword(s):

Attentional Blink ◽

Attentional Blink Effect

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Switching Between Goals Mediates the Attentional Blink Effect

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169.54.2.89 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 89-98 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Fabio Ferlazzo ◽

Sabrina Lucido ◽

Francesco Di Nocera ◽

Sabrina Fagioli ◽

Stefano Sdoia

Keyword(s):

Attentional Blink ◽

Impaired Ability ◽

Processing Information ◽

Attentional Blink Effect

Abstract. Humans are fundamentally limited in processing information from the outside world. This is particularly evident in the attentional blink (AB), the impaired ability to identify the second of two targets presented in close succession. We report findings from three experiments showing that the AB is significantly reduced when observers are set to achieve one single goal (reporting combinations of the two targets) instead of separate goals (reporting the two targets). This finding raises questions about the nature of AB, and suggests that processes involved in goal-switching must be taken into account by theories of the AB phenomenon.

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Modality-specific auditory and visual temporal processing deficits

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A ◽

10.1080/02724980143000136 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 55 (1) ◽

pp. 23-40 ◽

Cited By ~ 81

Author(s):

Salvador Soto-Faraco ◽

Charles Spence

Keyword(s):

Attentional Blink ◽

Temporal Processing ◽

Spatial Location ◽

Visual Presentation ◽

Attentional Selection ◽

The Other ◽

Repetition Blindness ◽

Presentation Procedure ◽

Selection Stage ◽

Lag 1 Sparing

We studied the attentional blink (AB) and the repetition blindness (RB) effects using an audio-visual presentation procedure designed to overcome several potential methodological confounds in previous cross-modal research. In Experiment 1, two target digits were embedded amongst letter distractors in two concurrent streams (one visual and the other auditory) presented from the same spatial location. Targets appeared in either modality unpredictably at different temporal lags, and the participants’ task was to recall the digits at the end of the trial. We evaluated both AB and RB for pairs of targets presented in either the same or different modalities. Under these conditions both AB and RB were observed in vision, AB but not RB was observed in audition, and there was no evidence of AB or RB cross-modally from audition to vision or vice versa. In Experiment 2, we further investigated the AB by including Lag 1 items and observed Lag 1 sparing, thus ruling out the possibility that the observed effects were due to perceptual and/or conceptual masking. Our results support a distinction between a modality-specific interference at the attentional selection stage and a modality-independent interference at later processing stages. They also provide a new dissociation between the AB and RB.

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A Novel Hybrid Model for Cantonese Rumor Detection on Twitter

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app10207093 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (20) ◽

pp. 7093

Author(s):

Xinyu Chen ◽

Liang Ke ◽

Zhipeng Lu ◽

Hanjian Su ◽

Haizhou Wang

Keyword(s):

Hybrid Model ◽

Online Social Networks ◽

Social Order ◽

Attention Mechanism ◽

Mobile Internet ◽

Semantic Features ◽

Proposed Model ◽

Internal Structures ◽

Rumor Detection ◽

Future Work

The development of information technology and mobile Internet has spawned the prosperity of online social networks. As the world’s largest microblogging platform, Twitter is popular among people all over the world. However, as the number of users on Twitter increases, rumors have become a serious problem. Therefore, rumor detection is necessary since it can prevent unverified information from causing public panic and disrupting social order. Cantonese is a widely used language in China. However, to the best of our knowledge, little research has been done on Cantonese rumor detection. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid model XGA (namely XLNet-based Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BiGRU) network with Attention mechanism) for Cantonese rumor detection on Twitter. Specifically, we take advantage of both semantic and sentiment features for detection. First of all, XLNet is employed to produce text-based and sentiment-based embeddings at the character level. Then we perform joint learning of character and word embeddings to obtain the words’ external contexts and internal structures. In addition, we leverage BiGRU and the attention mechanism to obtain important semantic features and use the Cantonese rumor dataset we constructed to train our proposed model. The experimental results show that the XGA model outperforms the other popular models in Cantonese rumor detection. The research in this paper provides methods and ideas for future work in Cantonese rumor detection on other social networking platforms.

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Recent Approaches for Solid Dose Vaccine Delivery

Scientia Pharmaceutica ◽

10.3390/scipharm87040027 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 87 (4) ◽

pp. 27 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jahan ◽

Archie ◽

Shoyaib ◽

Kabir ◽

Cheung

Keyword(s):

Vaccine Delivery ◽

Cold Chain ◽

Needle Stick Injury ◽

Liquid Form ◽

Routes Of Administration ◽

Solid Dosage ◽

Solid Dose ◽

Sparing Effect ◽

The Many ◽

Future Work

Recent studies on vaccine delivery systems are exploring the possibility of replacing liquid vaccines with solid dose vaccines due to the many advantages that solid dose vaccines can offer. These include the prospect of a needle-free vaccine delivery system leading to better patient compliance, cold chain storage, less-trained vaccinators and fewer chances for needle stick injury hazards. Some studies also indicate that vaccines in a solid dosage form can result in a higher level of immunogenicity compared to the liquid form, thus providing a dose-sparing effect. This review outlines the different approaches in solid vaccine delivery using various routes of administration including, oral, pulmonary, intranasal, buccal, sublingual, and transdermal routes. The various techniques and their current advancements will provide a knowledge base for future work to be carried out in this arena.

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