4: Attention

Question 1

What is attention?

Answer 1

The process enabling us to focus on a particular stimulus

Question 2

What is change blindness?

Answer 2

When something in our environment changes after a small pause such as looking down at our phones, we’re less able to tell what’s changed

Question 3

What is the link between attention and misdirection?

Answer 3

Someone playing close attention is more easily misdirected than someone who is not

Question 4

What is the dichotic listening paradigm?

Answer 4

People are exposed to different sounds in different ears and they’re given a task such as repeating what was said in the left ear

Question 5

What is Ponser’s spatial cueing task?

Answer 5

Participants were asked to press the button when the star appeared in the left box.

Before the star appeared, there was a cue (An arrow pointing to either the left or right box)

When the cue was valid (Pointed to where the star would be) reaction times were faster

It shows us that attention can be directed without needing eye movement

Question 6

What are some attention models?

Answer 6

Cocktail party phenomenon (Cherry)

Filter model (Broadbent)

Attenuator model (Treisman)

Subliminal priming paradigm

Perceptual load model

Question 7

What attention model did Cherry come up with?

Answer 7

Cocktail party phenomenon

Question 8

Who came up with the cocktail party phenomenon?

Answer 8

Cherry

Question 9

What is the cocktail party phenomenon?

Answer 9

Investigated how much of a message we process if we aren’t playing attention to

People didn’t notice if the unattended voice switched from English to German

More likely to notice a change of tone

Question 10

Who came up with the filter model?

Answer 10

Broadbent

Question 11

What model of attention did Broadbent come up with?

Answer 11

Filter model

Question 12

What is the filter model of attention?

Answer 12

We filter out information we don’t need in acheiving our goals

Question 13

What is one critisism of the filter model of attention?

Answer 13

Doesn’t explain real life situations such as why we randomally pick up on other people’s conversations or how we immediately direct attention when someone calls our name

Question 14

What model of attention did Treisman come up with?

Answer 14

Attenuator model

Question 15

Who came up with the attenuator model?

Answer 15

Treisman

Question 16

What is the attenuator model?

Answer 16

This is the idea that information can be processed to different degrees instead of ‘all or nothing’

It’s influenced by previous experiances

Question 17

What are the early selection models of attention?

Answer 17

Cocktail party phenomenon

Filter model

Attenuator model

Question 18

What are the late selection models?

Answer 18

Subliminal priming paradigm

Perceptual load model

Question 19

What is the subliminal priming paradigm?

Answer 19

This assumes that selection happens from memory

Some stimuli never reach our awareness but are still processed

Question 20

What is the perceptual load model?

Answer 20

When given a difficult task, it takes up more of our mental recources. An easier task has a lower load so we’re more able to multi-task

Question 21

What is the stroop effect?

Answer 21

When we say the word, the meaning automatically comes to our minds.

With colour and the stroop test, it’s so familiar that the process is automated.

Question 22

What is the visual search paradigm?

Answer 22

Participants were asked to remember a memory set and then shown a new set

They were asked what figures appeared in both

Question 23

What is the Norman and Shallice model?

Answer 23

How we inhibit automated behaviour