4 attention Flashcards
How do we define attention?
William James (1890) - Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking the possession of the mind, in clear vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalisation, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. […] It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.ˮ
What is the psychological definition of attention?
not defined, not unitary
umbrella term for psychological phenomena
intensity: alertness, vigilance, sustained attention
selectivity: selective attention, divided attention
trigger: exogenous attention, endogenous attention
What is Broadbent´s filter model?
Broadbent, 1958
attention is so selective that there is nothing much to distract us
cognitive system is seen as a series of information processing channels
operate in parallel and feed their information into the buffer store
selective filter
limited capacity channel - focus of attention
What is the early selection model?
Gray and Wedderburn 1960
split-span task
found that if the sentence had a meaning, participants showed a preference to report that one (dear aunt jane)
What is Treisman´s attentuation model?
intermediate selection
all channels entering the sensory buffer are analysed somewhat
meaningful analysis only some
=> attenuated rather than filtered out entirely
What is Deutsch & Deutsch´s late selection model?
all incoming stimuli are analysed in full, and it is the most important or relevant stimuli that determine the response
What is subliminal perception?
- Definition: Subliminal perception occurs when stimuli are presented below the threshold of conscious awareness, yet still influence thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
- How It Works: The stimulus is detected by the sensory system but is not consciously processed or recognized by the individual.
- Examples: A brief flash of an image or word that is too quick to be consciously noticed, yet can influence subsequent choices or emotions.
- Applications: Often discussed in contexts like advertising, where subliminal messages are believed to subtly influence consumer behavior without conscious awareness.
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Controversy: While some studies suggest that subliminal stimuli can have minor effects, the extent and significance of these effects are still debated in psychological research.
-> effectiveness is kind of disproven
What is Lavie´s load theory?
ability we have to control the focus of our attention
influenced by the complexity of task, tiredness
higher cognitive load -> poorer control -> process distractors
=> attentional capacity saturated more or less early
-> depending on load in a situation it is early or late selection
What is the stroop effect?
In the classic Stroop task, individuals are asked to name the color of the ink used to print a word. However, if the word itself is the name of a different color (e.g., the word “RED” printed in blue ink), people typically take longer and are more prone to errors.
automaticity of reading process
What is the posner matching task?
Examines automatic
processing by measuring response times to letter pairs under different
conditions: same (priming letter appears in the decision pair), different (priming letter does not appear), and neutral (a “+” appears before the pair). Results showed that priming can facilitate or inhibit responses depending on the validity of the cue, suggesting different mechanisms of
attention.
What is the dual process theory?
Derived from Posner and Snyder’s findings, this theory posits that stimuli automatically activate their representations, leading to facilitation, but that expectancies based on task cues can lead to
inhibition if not met
What is Neely´s Lexical Decision Task (1977)?
Extended the dual process
theory by analyzing the effects of priming with word categories and varying stimulus onset asynchrony SOA. Found that automatic activation of related words leads to facilitation at short SOAs, but conscious expectancies can
lead to inhibition at longer SOAs
What is Norman and Schallice´s Model of attention?
individuals responses can be controlled in two ways
automatic control
triggered by environmental cues
driving
contention scheduling = relative importance of different actions is assessed
and routine behaviour is adjusted accordingly
willed actions
Supervisory Activating System SAS
becomes active whenever routine selection of operations is inappropriate
-> inhibits non-salient stimuli orientation, less distraction, more mental fluency
