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Cognitive Psychology > 4 - attention > Flashcards

4 - attention Flashcards

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1
Q

what is attention

A

the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations

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2
Q

what is selective attention

A

attending to one thing while ignoring others

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3
Q

what is distraction

A

a stimulus interfering with the processing of another stimulus

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4
Q

what is divided attention

A

paying attention to more than one thing at a time

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5
Q

what is attentional capture

A

a rapid shifting of attention that is typically caused by a stimulus like a loud noise or haring your name

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6
Q

what is visual scanning

A

searching a scene with the eyes, in this context it typically follows attentional capture

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7
Q

what is shadowing

A

the procedure of repeating heard words outlooud, often in the context of a dichotic listening paradigm

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8
Q

what is the cocktail party effect

A

the ability to focus on one stimulus while ignoring others - occurs in the dichotic listening tasks

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9
Q

explain Broadbent’s filter model of attention

A

information enters

  1. sensory memory for a fraction of a second
  2. passed to the filter, which identifies the attended message based on physical characteristics and only allows this message through to the
  3. detector, processes the information from the attended message to determine higher level characteristics, like meaning
  4. short term memory - output of the detector
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10
Q

what do we call broad bents model of attention

A

an early selection model

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11
Q

explain Moray’s study that led to changes in broad bents model

A

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
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12
Q

explainn Gray and Wdderburn;s study that led to changes in broad bents model

A

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

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13
Q

explain Treisman’s attenuation model of attention

A

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)

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14
Q

what is a term for treismans attenuation model

A

a leaky filter

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15
Q

explain McKay’s biased ambiguity studies

A

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
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16
Q

what did Mckay;s results lead to

A

introduction of late selection models - most of incoming inoformation is processed to the level of meaning before the message to be processed is selected

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17
Q

are early or late selection models correct?

A

no one answer, we can demonstrate early or late selection in a variety of different tasks

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18
Q

what is processing capacity

A

the amount of information ppl can handle - limits the amount of potential incoming information

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19
Q

what is perceptual load

A

the processing difficulty of a given task - high load vs low load tasks

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20
Q

explain the load theory of attentin

A

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

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21
Q

how does the salience of the task influence how likely it is to distract you

A

more potent or salient stimuli can overcome higher perceptual loads

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22
Q

what is an example of a powerful task-irrelvant stimulus? explain

A

the strop effect - colour of a colour ‘word’ interferes with our ability to say the word

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23
Q

why is scanning important when taking in a scene

A

only get good detail from things were looking directly at (central vision is more detailed than pericpheral vision)

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24
Q

where do objects in central vision Fall on the eye

A

the fovea

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25
Q

where do objects in peripheral fall on the eye

A

the retina

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26
Q

what is a fixation

A

the brief pause on an object in the scene

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27
Q

what is a saccadic eye movement

A

the rapid jerky movement from that occurs to transition from one fixation to the next

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28
Q

what is overt attention

A

shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes - can literally see the attentional shift

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29
Q

what are some bottom-up influences on scanning/attentional shifting?
- how does this work?

A
  1. 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
30
Q

is scene scanning universal

A

no there are major variations between people

31
Q

explain Vo and Hendersoons 2009 study on scene schemas

A
32
Q

explain Shinoda (2001) study on knowledge and scene scanning (stop signs)

A

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

33
Q

how does our engagement with the environment shape our scanning practices

A

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
34
Q

what is covert attention

A

attentional shifts that go on without eye movement

- shifting attenntioon ‘within the mind’

35
Q

explain precueing

A

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

36
Q

what are the two ways attention enhances capacity to respond to object s

A
  1. general enhancement
  2. when we direct attention to one place on an object we get an enhancing effect that spreads to other places on the object
37
Q

what is the same object advantage

A

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

38
Q

how does attention influence perception

A
  1. attended objects are perceived as larger and faster

2. also appear to be more richly colour and in better contrast

39
Q

explain Datta and Deyoe’s study on covert attentional maps

A

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
40
Q

Explain Cukur’s attentional maps / warping

- what is the term for the outcomes?

A

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
41
Q

explain Schneider and Shiffrin;s 1977 study on divided attention and training

A
  • 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
42
Q

what is automatic processing

A

processing that occurs

a) without intention
b) at a cost of only some cognitive resources

43
Q

is automatic processing and divided attention always possible?

A

no, they become less likely to occur when the difficulty of the task increases

44
Q

why do phones decrease driving performance? is this solved by hands free or voice activated driving tools?

A

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

45
Q

what is experience sampling

A

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
46
Q

how is our dependence on phones explained by operant conditioning

A

intermittent reinforcement - no messages rn but there might be one - when it appears boom reinforcement

47
Q

what is continuous partial attention

A

constant switching between one stimulus and another

48
Q

percentage of Time people are mind wandering during the day found by experience sampling

A

approx 47%

49
Q

is mind wandering capable of distracting us from tasks ?

A

oh yeah

50
Q

what is mindless reading and what is it an example of

A

reading without attending to the content - how mind wandering can decrease performance

51
Q

what is inattention blindness

- example study

A

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)

52
Q

what is inattentinal deafness

- example study

A

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
53
Q

what is the change detection protocol

A

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
54
Q

what is binding

A

the process by which features like color, form, motion and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object

55
Q

what is the binding problem

A

how an objects features are bound together cognitively

56
Q

what is feature integration theory

(name the 2 stages)

A

object processing as stages

  1. preattentive state - objects features are analyzed separately in distinct brain regions, not yet objective; occurs before we attend to an object
  2. focused attention stage - attention focused on the object, independent features are combined
57
Q

explain Treisman and Schmidts experiment on illusory conjunctions and divided attention

A
  • 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
58
Q

can illusory conjunctions happen in day to day experience?

A

sure, green shirt comes in and grabs a yellow purse, see the shirt as yellow and purse as green

59
Q

why do illusory conjunctions occur?

A

Treisman; properties are ‘free floating’ during preattentive stage, can be wrongly integrated

60
Q

what is Balint;s syndrome (dmg to where?)

A
  • 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
61
Q

is feature integration a top down or bottom up theory/

A

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
62
Q

what is a conjunction search

A

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
63
Q

explain Robertson’s conjunction search experiment on Balint’s patients

A

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
64
Q

what are the two main attentional networks

A
  1. ventral attention

2. dorsal attention

65
Q

what is the ventral attention network

A

controls attention based on salience

66
Q

what is the dorsal attention network

A

controls attention based on top down processing

67
Q

what is effective connectivity

A

how easily activity can travel along a particular pathway

68
Q

how is attention a dynamic process in the brain

A
  1. flow in attention systems changes as a function of whether attention is controlled by salience or top down processing g
  2. effective connectivity changes
69
Q

explain synchronization in the context of effective connectivity

A

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

70
Q

what is the executive attention network

A
  • responsible for executive functions; dealing with conflict in cognition - cognitive control, inhibitory control or willpower

Cognitive Psychology (12 decks)

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