2239 Flashcards
Study of cognition aim
understand the workings of the human mind by
studying human behaviour
Attention has 2 parts
― Selectivity: Focused auditory attention
+ How effectively can we select one input and avoid being distracted by others?
― Control: Divided attention: Dual task performance and automaticity
+ How do we perform dual (multiple) tasks at the same time?
+ Practice makes a task automatic
selective attention
Focus on one stimulus input and ignore others
Dichotic listening task (cocktail party problem)
Participant asked to shadow (repeat back) message played to one ear and ignore (not be distracted by) the other, were later asked about the content of the unattended message
Cherry’s (1953) findings
― Subjects could report if the speaker was male/female,
soft/loud, high/low voice
― But did not notice when it changed to foreign speech or reversed (backwards) speech
- Only the physical characteristics, and not the meaning, are processed in the unattended message
Moray’s (1959) findings
subjects did not notice repetition of the same word 35 times
=> Meaning not processed in the unattended message
* Only about 1/3 of participants detected their own name in the unattended message
=> Meaning is processed in the unattended message
Bottleneck models
They all assume the multistore model of memory architecture
― assume transfer of information from sensory register to short term memory store
― Sensory register has a large capacity; STM store is limited in capacity: -> a bottleneck
They differ in where they regard the bottleneck is, and the nature of the bottleneck
Broadbent’s filter model
- Stimuli gain access in parallel to a sensory register
- Selective filter (all or none) blocks processing of unattended information to prevent overloading of limited-capacity STM store
― bottleneck as an all-or-none filter - Input remaining in STM not blocked by the filter (i.e., attended) undergoes semantic processing -> if unattended, only the physical characteristics of the stimuli are processed (same as cherry’s findings)
Treisman’s attenuation model:
- an attenuator turns down the amount of processing of unattended information, bottleneck is not all-or-none
- The thresholds of context-appropriate stimuli are lower, top-down processing can lower the threshold of conscious awareness, leading to “breakthrough of the filter”
- Own name has a low threshold due to high salience (personal significance) -> noticed in unattended channel (Moray’s finding)
- Meaningful context lowers the threshold
Deutsch & Deutsch’s late selection model: Assumptions
Argued that attenuator is redundant; only the idea of different thresholds is necessary
* Information is analysed fully (physical, semantic), even
for unattended message
* Bottleneck is late: at selection for action
Early vs. late selection (Treisman & Riley’s (1969) experiment)
Pps were presented with two messages to two ears
―Shadowed one message
―At the same time, made a tapping response to a target word in either message
Prediction and result:
- Attenuation model
* Attenuated processing of unattended (nonshadowed) message
->Target detection should be worse in the nonshadowed message
Late selection model
* Full processing of attended and unattended message
-> Target detection should be equal in the two messages
=> Target detection 87% in shadowed message; 8% in non-shadowed message (early selection)
* But the shadowed message was more important because it required two responses (shadowing + tapping) -> late selection
Johnston & Heinz (1978) flexible bottleneck view
Ss were presented with a list of words dichotically
― Instructed to detect a target = member of a semantic
category (e.g., musical instrument) in either ear
― “Non-target” = word presented coincidentally with target
Critical targets = ambiguous meaning (e.g., ORGAN)
* Meaning interpretation biased by non-target
― Appropriate: church-ORGAN (musical instrument)
― Neutral: paper-ORGAN
― Inappropriate: kidney- ORGAN
* If unattended message is processed to the level of
semantics, meaning of non-target should influence detection of ambiguous target word
* Focused attention condition: pps told which ear targets would arrive =>non-targets were NOT processed to the level of meaning
* Divided attention condition: pps did not know which ear targets would arrive =>Meaning (of non-target) was
processed (late selection) when attention was divided over two ears but not when attention was focused on the other ear (early gating)
- The more stages of processing (physical -> semantic),
the greater the demands on attentional capacity
* Selection occurs as early in processing stages as
possible to minimise attentional demands
Dual task performance
The degree of similarity of the two tasks: similar tasks
interfere result in how well to duel tasks
- Similar stimulus modality e.g., reading text message (visual) interferes with driving (visual) more than listening to phone message (auditory)
- Similar response modality e.g., sending text (tapping = manual) interferes with driving (manual) more than talking on the phone (vocal)
automaticity
- are fast
― require little attentional capacity
― inflexible (once learned, difficult to modify) = habits
― unavoidable (occur without intention)
― unavailable to consciousness
Inflexible (difficult to modify) - Unavoidable
Shiffrin & Schneider’s memory search experiment
- pps memorize 1, 2, 3 or 4 targets (memory set)
- pps are shown a display containing 1,2,3 or 4 items (display set)
- Respond as quickly as possible whether the display contained a target from memory set
- Consistent mapping (CM) condition: Target set and distractor set do not overlap from trial to trial
- Varied mapping (VM) condition: Target on one trial may be a distractor in the next trial
=>CM training led to automatic processes
Criticisms of the original multistore model
-It over-emphasized the structural aspects of memory
- STM store and LTM store are not unitary: each store does not operate in a single, uniform fashion, but has
subcomponents -> STM replaced by working memory; LTM replaced by episodic memory and semantic memory
- STM is not the gateway to LTM
1.The memory systems are interconnected:
– Short-term memory tasks make use of knowledge in long term memory
2. Rehearsal may not be as crucial to learning
– Maintenance (rote) rehearsal does not result in durable memory
* Impairment of STM does not necessarily lead to impairment of LTM
Memory: Architecture and Processes
- Architecture (structure): The way in which the memory system is organised
- Processes: The activities occurring within the memory system
Stroop interference effect
- Word reading interferes with colour naming
― Demonstrates the automaticity of word reading:
Unavoidable/obligatory
Logan’s instance theory
- “Automaticity is memory retrieval”
― Instance representation: Each encounter with a stimulus is encoded, stored and retrieved separately as a memory episode
― With practice, performance becomes automatic when it is based on a single-step direct-access retrieval of solution from a memory episode, rather than application of rules or algorithm which is time consuming ie multiplication
Phonological Loop System: (verbal/speech-based) memory
Passive phonological store
* Holds verbal information (capacity limited by articulatory duration ~ 1.5-2 sec)
* Auditory presentation of words has direct access, bypassing articulatory rehearsal
process
* Visual presentation only has indirect access
Articulatory control process
* Like subvocal speech
* Maintains (“refreshes”) phonological information by
rehearsal
* Provides access to the phonological store for visual input
-> Used in temporary storage and manipulation of
phonological (speech-based) information
-> Involved in learning new word forms (e.g., learning of
foreign vocabulary; new words)
Baddeley & Hitch’s (1974) working memory model
The central executive resembles attention – a control
system which co-ordinates the peripheral storage
systems
* Episodic buffer holds and integrate diverse info
* All components of the system are thought to be
limited in capacity and relatively independent of
each other
― If two tasks use the same component, they can’t be
performed successfully together
― If two tasks use different components, they should be able to be performed similarly together or separately
Phonological similarity effect
- Immediate serial recall (= memory span) of verbal material is reduced for lists of items that sound similar
Conrad (1964)
― tested immediate serial recall of visually presented
letters, recall errors were mainly acoustic confusions
resembling letter names heard against noisy
background e.g., T (recalled as) -> “D”, S -> “F”, B ->
“P”
=> short-term memory uses a phonological code, even
for visually presented stimuli
Baddeley (1966)
― Immediate serial recall is worse with a phonologically
similar list, compared to a dissimilar list, even when
words are presented visually
=> Suggests that we use speech-based rehearsal processes within the phonological loop
Word length effect
Memory span is reduced for lists of longer words
- Memory span (immediate serial recall) is worse for words taking a long time to say
-capacity of phonological loop is determined by articulatory duration (not phonological complexity/number of syllables)
Articulatory suppression (concurrent articulation)
- Stops the silent repetition of the material that needs to be remembered.
- Silent repetition helps keep the memory trace from fading away.
-eliminates/reduces the phonological similarity effect for visually presented lists
― Auditory presentation allows direct access to the
phonological store e.g., “tee, vee, ..”
― Visually presented stimuli are re-coded into phonological form by means of subvocalization
Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad
Used in the temporary storage and manipulation
of spatial and visual information
* Logie (1995) proposed that it consists of two
components:
― Visual cache
. Stores information about visual form and colour
― Inner scribe
. Processes spatial and movement information
. Involved in rehearsal of information in visual cache
. Transfers information from the cache to the central executive
Episodic Buffer Baddeley (2000)
― The components in the original model were too separate in their functioning
― Provides temporary storage for integrated information
coming from visuo-spatial sketchpad and phonological loop
― A process of active binding: An example is visuo-spatial
bootstrapping of verbal memory
Verbal memory can be bootstrapped (supported) by visuo-spatial memory
* Immediate serial recall of a sequence of random digits (e.g., 3-2-4-5-1) is better when they were presented on a keypad display than as a single item
―>Visual/spatial information (supported by long-term knowledge of keypad display) bound with verbal information
Central executive
- Initially conceived of as a limited capacity pool of
general processing resources related to control of
working memory and its slave systems
Norman and Shallice’s view of attentional control
Contention scheduling
― co-ordinates (prioritizes) several action schemas on the basis of strength of schema
― Practice strengthens the schema (e.g., word reading is more practiced than colour naming)
– routine habits prevail
Supervisory attentional system (SAS)
― Fully conscious control
― Flexibly controls selection of action schemas according to goal of the task
― Involved in novel situations where routine control is insufficient (e.g., name the colour, not the word)
-If damaged Utilization behaviour, Dysexecutive syndrome, difficulty with novel situations
