4 - attention Flashcards
what is attention
the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations
what is selective attention
attending to one thing while ignoring others
what is distraction
a stimulus interfering with the processing of another stimulus
what is divided attention
paying attention to more than one thing at a time
what is attentional capture
a rapid shifting of attention that is typically caused by a stimulus like a loud noise or haring your name
what is visual scanning
searching a scene with the eyes, in this context it typically follows attentional capture
what is shadowing
the procedure of repeating heard words outlooud, often in the context of a dichotic listening paradigm
what is the cocktail party effect
the ability to focus on one stimulus while ignoring others - occurs in the dichotic listening tasks
explain Broadbent’s filter model of attention
information enters
- sensory memory for a fraction of a second
- passed to the filter, which identifies the attended message based on physical characteristics and only allows this message through to the
- detector, processes the information from the attended message to determine higher level characteristics, like meaning
- short term memory - output of the detector
what do we call broad bents model of attention
an early selection model
explain Moray’s study that led to changes in broad bents model
dichotic listening experiment with shadowing the attended message
- when the listeners name was presented to the unattended ear, about a third of the participants could hear it
- doesn’t work with Broadbent’s model - only phys. characteristics are supposed to determine what makes it thru the filter
explainn Gray and Wdderburn;s study that led to changes in broad bents model
presented Dear 7 Jane.to the right ear, 9 aunt 6 to the left
- most participants reported hearing dear aunt Janne, when they were supposed to attend to the right ear
explain Treisman’s attenuation model of attention
selection occurs in two stages (replaces the filter with an attenuator_
A) attenuator analyzes information in terms of
1. physical characteristics
2. its language - how the sounds are organized into syllables and words
3. its meaning
attenuator is a process, not a brain structure
- analysis of meaning only goes as far as needed to determine the attended message
- instead of a filter (all or nothing) attenuator increases the salience of the attended message, decreases the salience of the unattended message
B) second stage - final output is determined by thhe dictionary unit with the lexicon, has a certain activation threshold that the attended message will reach
- words have different thresholds; our own name is very low (which is why the weird results occur)
what is a term for treismans attenuation model
a leaky filter
explain McKay’s biased ambiguity studies
presented ambiguous sentences to the attended ear, and words that disambiguate to the unattended ear
- interpretation dependent on the context given by the unattended message
- means the word must have been processed semantically in the unattended ear
what did Mckay;s results lead to
introduction of late selection models - most of incoming inoformation is processed to the level of meaning before the message to be processed is selected
are early or late selection models correct?
no one answer, we can demonstrate early or late selection in a variety of different tasks
what is processing capacity
the amount of information ppl can handle - limits the amount of potential incoming information
what is perceptual load
the processing difficulty of a given task - high load vs low load tasks
explain the load theory of attentin
the perceptual load of a task determines how much of our processing capacity we are using, which determines how much unattended information can be processed
- higher load tasks decrease chance of distraction
how does the salience of the task influence how likely it is to distract you
more potent or salient stimuli can overcome higher perceptual loads
what is an example of a powerful task-irrelvant stimulus? explain
the strop effect - colour of a colour ‘word’ interferes with our ability to say the word
why is scanning important when taking in a scene
only get good detail from things were looking directly at (central vision is more detailed than pericpheral vision)
where do objects in central vision Fall on the eye
the fovea
where do objects in peripheral fall on the eye
the retina
what is a fixation
the brief pause on an object in the scene
what is a saccadic eye movement
the rapid jerky movement from that occurs to transition from one fixation to the next
what is overt attention
shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes - can literally see the attentional shift
what are some bottom-up influences on scanning/attentional shifting?
- how does this work?
- stimulus salience, analyzed by creating a salience map determined by the colour intensity, size of objects in a scene
- first few fixations will be the most salient, then begins to be influence by top down cognitive processes
is scene scanning universal
no there are major variations between people
explain Vo and Hendersoons 2009 study on scene schemas
explain Shinoda (2001) study on knowledge and scene scanning (stop signs)
observers were more likely to detect stop signs positioned at intersections than those at the middle of the block
- using our knowledge of stop signs to predict where we ought to look
how does our engagement with the environment shape our scanning practices
we scan in predictable ways depending on how we are planning to interact with the env.
- can track eye movements while people are making a sandwich
- eye movements precede motor action by a fraction of a second; we look just before we need the information out looking will provide
what is covert attention
attentional shifts that go on without eye movement
- shifting attenntioon ‘within the mind’
explain precueing
determines whether presenting a cue indicating where a test stimulus will occur enhances stimulus processing
- it does, facilitation where the indicator was consistent with future location, slower if not
what are the two ways attention enhances capacity to respond to object s
- general enhancement
- when we direct attention to one place on an object we get an enhancing effect that spreads to other places on the object
what is the same object advantage
the fact that we have facilitated processing for stimuli on the same object that the target ro cue was on than on another object even if they are the same distance apart
how does attention influence perception
- attended objects are perceived as larger and faster
2. also appear to be more richly colour and in better contrast
explain Datta and Deyoe’s study on covert attentional maps
keep eyes stationary but shift attention
- fMRI task
- brain activity changed as the focused area changed
- created ;attention maps’ showing how brain activity changes as a function of directing attention
- could then use these maps (for a single person) to predict where they are attending when they were told to attend to someplace secret
Explain Cukur’s attentional maps / warping
- what is the term for the outcomes?
had people activity search for either humans or vehicles in a naturalsitic observation task, third group looked for nothing
- different brain activity depending on what they were looking for - called attentional warping - the map of categories on the brain changes so more space is allotted to the categories being searched for
- voxels actually change what they are responding to depending on what is being looked for
explain Schneider and Shiffrin;s 1977 study on divided attention and training
- had participants carry out two tasks
1. hold information about the target stimuli in memory
2. search the disctractor stimuli to see if the target was in them - bad performance undtil about 600 trials deep (around 55%) when it became almost automatic
- ## indicated that practice caused the participants to be more capable of dividing attenntioonn between the two tasks
what is automatic processing
processing that occurs
a) without intention
b) at a cost of only some cognitive resources
is automatic processing and divided attention always possible?
no, they become less likely to occur when the difficulty of the task increases
why do phones decrease driving performance? is this solved by hands free or voice activated driving tools?
takes away processing capacities from driving itself
- no, they are just as bad - not the medium but the fact that it tales away from the fuckin road
what is experience sampling
designed to answer “what percentage of time during the day are people engaged in a specific behaviour’
- send out stimuli for people to respond to asking what they are doing
- Moreno et al., for example - send out a text at random times asking ‘wyd?’
- 28% of probes arrive when students are on the internet
how is our dependence on phones explained by operant conditioning
intermittent reinforcement - no messages rn but there might be one - when it appears boom reinforcement
what is continuous partial attention
constant switching between one stimulus and another
percentage of Time people are mind wandering during the day found by experience sampling
approx 47%
is mind wandering capable of distracting us from tasks ?
oh yeah
what is mindless reading and what is it an example of
reading without attending to the content - how mind wandering can decrease performance
what is inattention blindness
- example study
an outcome that occurs when people are unaware off clearly visible stimuli if they rant directing their attention to them
- cross study with the bar showing up in the top left corner during the 6th trial - only around 10% will repro they’ve seen the object (Cartwright finch and lava)
what is inattentinal deafness
- example study
same thing as blindness during a visual task but they dont hear a tone
- raven and lavie - visual search task - did your hear tone?
- more difficult to detect the ton when nengaed in a hard visual task, think load theory of attention
what is the change detection protocol
a procedure where one picture is presented after another, with the task being to determine the difference between the two
- typically ave to repeat sequences a lot before we can see shit
- called change blindness when it doesn’t go thru
- very high frequency
what is binding
the process by which features like color, form, motion and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object
what is the binding problem
how an objects features are bound together cognitively
what is feature integration theory
(name the 2 stages)
object processing as stages
- preattentive state - objects features are analyzed separately in distinct brain regions, not yet objective; occurs before we attend to an object
- focused attention stage - attention focused on the object, independent features are combined
explain Treisman and Schmidts experiment on illusory conjunctions and divided attention
- shown four colour shapes and two black numbers for 1/5 of a second
- asked to say the number then talk about the shapes
- divided attention between these two tasks
- participants reported seeing shapes composed of the other ones
can illusory conjunctions happen in day to day experience?
sure, green shirt comes in and grabs a yellow purse, see the shirt as yellow and purse as green
why do illusory conjunctions occur?
Treisman; properties are ‘free floating’ during preattentive stage, can be wrongly integrated
what is Balint;s syndrome (dmg to where?)
- outcome of parietal lobe damage,
- inability to focus attention on individual objects
- consistent with feature integration theory - R.M foinds it difficult to combine features due to a lack of focused attention
- demonstrated illusory conjunctions a bunch of this guys tasks
is feature integration a top down or bottom up theory/
mostly bottom up, but other shit comes into play
- Treisman and Schmitt; did illusory conjunction with some shapes that look like objects (carrot = orange triangle)
- when they told them what they were seeing (a carrot), illusory conjunctions stopped happening as much
- explained as the knowledge off the usual colours of the objects influencing their ability to combine properties
what is a conjunction search
type of feature search - just look to find a feature in an image
- specifically, with a feature that matches two conditions (hence a conjunction)
- used to test perceptual theories bc it involves scanning displays to focus attention at a specific location
explain Robertson’s conjunction search experiment on Balint’s patients
tested the Balint’s patient - cannot find targets in conjunction searchers
- but he can find them when its just a single feature search
- attention is not required to find a feature, its only nenededt o conjoin them
what are the two main attentional networks
- ventral attention
2. dorsal attention
what is the ventral attention network
controls attention based on salience
what is the dorsal attention network
controls attention based on top down processing
what is effective connectivity
how easily activity can travel along a particular pathway
how is attention a dynamic process in the brain
- flow in attention systems changes as a function of whether attention is controlled by salience or top down processing g
- effective connectivity changes
explain synchronization in the context of effective connectivity
recorded local field potentials from monkeys cortex during visual pectin
- recorded at a place A and B inn the brain
- when not attending to the stimulus, A and not B - not synchroniizatn
when attending, A then B - synchronized
synchronization results in more effective communication between areas
what is the executive attention network
- responsible for executive functions; dealing with conflict in cognition - cognitive control, inhibitory control or willpower
