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Learned Irrelevance Revisited: Pathology-Based Individual Differences, Normal Variation and Neural Correlates

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Handbook of Individual Differences in Cognition

Part of the book series: The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality ((SSHE))

Abstract

The function of the human executive system can broadly be described as the seeking out and processing of those signals and memories that are of the greatest relevance when guiding deliberate and adaptive behaviours. This task is not easy, however, since it requires almost constant shifting of attention in response to irregular alterations in the contingencies relating stimuli, responses, and environmental feedback. An individual’s current belief regarding these contingencies guides response within a given context, and the representation of this belief and its consequent behaviour is often referred to as an “attentional set”. Consequently, attentional set-shifting is an important executive function responsible for altering a behavioural response in reaction to the changing contingencies (Cools, Barker, Sahakian, & Robbins, 2001; Gotham, Brown, & Marsden, 1986). Such flexibility underlies a wide range of behaviours: the better the set-shifting capacity, the more flexible the person is at adapting to change. At the other end of this continuum are many psychiatric groups, neurodegenerative groups and even healthy elderly and young subjects that have been shown repeatedly to be impaired in attentional set-shifting performance. One specific form of these impairments lies in an inability to attend to, or to learn about, information which has previously been shown to be irrelevant. This phenomenon called learned irrelevance (LI) (Mackintosh, 1973) is very mysterious, because unlike other aspects of attentional set-shifting, it appears to be neither dependent on the frontal lobe (e.g. Owen et al., 1993) nor affected by dopamine (Owen et al., 1993; Słabosz et al., 2006), and, therefore, may not be coded for in the parts of the brain that are typically considered “executive” at all.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Al. Mickiewicza 3, 31-120, Cracow, Poland

    Aleksandra Gruszka

  2. MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK

    Adam Hampshire & Adrian M. Owen

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  1. Aleksandra Gruszka
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  2. Adam Hampshire
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Correspondence to Aleksandra Gruszka .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Al. Mickiewicza 3, Cracow, 31-120, Poland

    Aleksandra Gruszka

  2. Dept. Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Dyer Hall 217, Cincinnati, 45221, USA

    Gerald Matthews

  3. Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Al. Mickiewicza 3, Cracow, 31-120, Poland

    Blazej Szymura

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Gruszka, A., Hampshire, A., Owen, A.M. (2010). Learned Irrelevance Revisited: Pathology-Based Individual Differences, Normal Variation and Neural Correlates. In: Gruszka, A., Matthews, G., Szymura, B. (eds) Handbook of Individual Differences in Cognition. The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1210-7_8

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