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Human Learning And Cognition > 4 - Attention > Flashcards

4 - Attention Flashcards

1
Q

Define attention

A

Cognitive mechanisms that combine to help us select, modulate, and sustain focus on information that might be most relevant for behavior

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2
Q

Attention is capacity limited - what does this mean?

A

Don’t have unlimited attention, some realistic limit/multiple limits at different stages

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3
Q

In what 2 ways can attention be directed?

A

Externally: ex. Person sticking out in crown
Internally: ex. Focusing on internal thoughts

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4
Q

What phenomenon do we observe in the dichotic listening task?

A

People can’t recall the semantic content of the ignored channel/ear but are aware of changes in physical features like pitch, volume, emotions, language (most info doesn’t get processed beyond physical features)

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5
Q

What exception do we see in the dichotic listening task?

A

Cocktail party effect (ex saying your name) or other meaningful words

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6
Q

Theories of attention need to be able to explain how we..

A
  • inhibit new or unexpected distractors
  • promote the processing of desired stimuli
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7
Q

How do we explain general insensitivity to the unattended channel and also information that leaks through?

A
  • block unattended inputs with a filter
  • inhibit distractors (everything in the right ear is distraction, the brain is actively suppressing info that comes into it so proper processing can happen in the attended ear)
  • attended inputs are not filtered out (enhancement of processing of attended ear rather than benefiting from inhibition)
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8
Q

Define inattentional blindness

A

The failure to see a prominent stimulus, even if one is staring right at it

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9
Q

What experiment was done to study inattentional blindness?

A

Staring at the fixation point, told to tell the researchers if the cross changed at any point
-fixation point changed and most people didn’t notice
- no warning of the fixation point changing = basically no one noticing
- some warning= increased chance of noticing

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10
Q

What’s a real world example of inattentional blindness

A

Not being able to find an object in the fridge despite staring at it

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11
Q

Define change blindness

A

The inability to detect changes in a scene despite looking at it directly

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12
Q

Inattentional blindness could result from what 2 things?

A

A failure to perceive the stimulus
- early selection hypothesis
A failure to remember the stimulus
- late selection hypothesis

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13
Q

Describe the early selection hypothesis

A
  • only the attended input is analyzed and perceived
  • unattended information receives little or no analysis (never perceived)
    ** In the entire visual scene, only the thing you’re looking at is being analyzed/perceived
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14
Q

Describe late selection hypothesis

A
  • all inputs are analyzed
  • selection occurs after analysis
  • selection may occur before consciousness or later (unattended info might be perceived, but is then forgotten)
    **Attentional mechanisms select what to focus on once we identify everything in visual scene
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15
Q

What is the evidence for early selection?

A

Electrical brain activity for attended inputs differs from activity for unattended inputs within 80 ms

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16
Q

What happens in the brain during early selection?

A

Increased brain activity with any input, stronger neural activity in attended cortex

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17
Q

What’s the evidence for late selection?

A

Stimuli that are not attended to can nevertheless affect perception

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18
Q

What was used to discover late selection?

A
  • muller-lyer illusion was placed on a grid of dots
  • participants were not aware of the arrangement of black dots
  • weren’t perceiving the arrowheads
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19
Q

Selective attention _ in favor of one stimulus over the others

A

Biases the competition
* Gives boost so specific stimuli are given higher priority, implied that everything in visual/auditory scene is competing for real estate in consciousness

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20
Q

Biased competition can occur due to _

A

Bottom-up selection and/or top down selection

Top down: goal in mind/looking for something makes biased processing detect something faster
Bottom up: find something that stands out

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21
Q

How can selection via priming occur?

A

Expectations or if experience can prime the appropriate detectors (eg. Specific stimulus, input channel, etc.)

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22
Q

What are the 2 types of priming we use for selection?

A

Repetition priming and expectation-driven priming

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23
Q

Define repetition priming

A

Priming produced by a prior encounter with the stimulus (seeing it more helps detect it)

24
Q

Define expectation-driven priming

A

Detectors for inputs you think are upcoming are deliberately primed
(Helps stimulus stand out)

25
Q

Define spatial attention

A

Your ability to focus attention on a specific location in dpace

26
Q

What task is used to study spatial attention?

A

Posner cueing task
- has endogenous/exogenous/valid/invalid cues

27
Q

Describe the Posner cueing task

A
  • participant looks at middle of screen
  • have to press a button as soon as the stimulus appears on the right/left
28
Q

Describe the difference between exogenous and endogenous cues given in the Posner cueing task

A

Endogenous: symbol shows up and shows you where you should look
Exogenous: red box shows up in the area you should be paying attention to (grabs attention)

29
Q

Describe changes in response time with no cue/invalid cues/valid cues

A

No cue = fairly fast response time
Valid cue = much faster when you move attention to target (in area you expected)
Invalid cue = increases response time, attention has to move 2x distance across the screen when stimulus is on wrong side

30
Q

What is unilateral neglect syndrome?

A

Unable to attend the entire half of the visual world (trauma, etc)

31
Q

What does unilateral neglect syndrome tell us about spatial attention?

A

Shows how space-based attention can become object-based

** If you rotate stimulus while they perceive it, patient can easily see both sides (before could only see 1)
**Break free from spatial attention and track object anywhere in space
- phenomenon disappears if there is a discontinuity, has to be perfectly continuous

32
Q

What are the costs of selection?

A

Repetition priming : no cost
- effortless, built into nervous system
- already highly active cause of experience

Expectation-based priming : unexpected things suffer, requires mental resources
- have to readjust if you get something you weren’t expecting
- “spotlight metaphor”

33
Q

The cost of expectations reveal the presence of a _

A

Limited capacity system

34
Q

How can attention function as a spotlight?

A
  • can be moved anywhere in visual field
  • scope can be widened/focused (affects what is enhanced/supressed)
  • attention can move independent of eyes (effects are faster than eye movements, overt vs covert attention)
35
Q

Define covert attention

A

Attention to something you’re not looking at

36
Q

Define overt attention

A

Attention that aligns with eye movement

37
Q

The example of showing a picture and asking questions about it proved that what we attend depends on _

A

The goal
- eye movement shown by lines
- movement corresponds to question/goal

38
Q

The spotlight metaphor is too simplistic for what we do… There are different mechanisms involved in paying attention, what are they?

A

Orienting system, alerting system, executive system

39
Q

Describe the function of the orienting system

A
  • disengage attention from one target
  • shift attention to new target
  • engage attention on the new target
40
Q

Describe the function of the alerting system

A

Maintain alert state in the brain

41
Q

Describe the function of the executive system

A

Controls voluntary actions
- engaging in behavior

42
Q

How does attention solve the binding problem?

A

Attention allows us to bind the right features together
(If you pay attention to the entire field, you’d have a bunch of features coming in and would be likely to incorrectly bind some features - “conjunction error”)

43
Q

What are the 2 parts of the feature integration theory?

A

1) pre-attentive stage
2) focused attention stage

44
Q

Describe the pre-attentive stage of the feature integration theory

A
  • parallel processing of the stimulus
  • efficient (fast scan of visual scene)
  • May not always need attention to detect something
45
Q

Describe the focused attention stage of the feature integration theory

A
  • expectation-based priming creates processing advantages for the stimulus
  • “systematically scanning for something”/where’s waldo
46
Q

Define divided attention

A

The skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously
*More like rapidly switching between them

47
Q

Our success in dividing attention is limited by _

A

availability and overlap of the mental resources

48
Q

Give an example of limited divided attention

A
  • Repeating list of words you hear = lots of errors cause speaking and hearing use the same resources
  • Reading words out loud and being shown words = less overlap and remember more
  • Replacing visual word with picture makes no requirement to engage language processing system in the perception of pictures, so you make even fewer errors
49
Q

What effect does cell phone use have on reaction time, red light missed and highway navigation?

A

Lower rxn time, increased red lights missed, decreased success in highway navigation (overlap of mental resources)

50
Q

Regardless of overlap in divided attention, there is only 1 executive control. Define executive control

A

The mental resources and processes that are used to set goals, choose task priorities, and avoid conflict among competing habits or responses
*Has to keep switching between tasks

51
Q

Tasks will interfere with each other if their combined demand for a resource is

A

Greater than the amount of the resource that is available

52
Q

Between-task interference increases as _

A

Task similarity increases

53
Q

Interference is also evident when _

A

Concurrent tasks are quite different

54
Q

Describe the effect of practice on use of resources

A

Practiced skills require fewer resources / less frequent use of resources (brain gets more efficient, uses fewer neurons)
- leads to a decrease in interference between tasks
- reduces the need for executive control
- well practiced tasks lead to automaticity

55
Q

What happens to the stroop task with practice?

A
  • stroop interference can be reduced with practice
  • get better at it

(Name the colour of the word)

Human Learning And Cognition (11 decks)

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