4: Selective Attention

Question 1

What is attention?

Answer 1

“Acts as a means of focusing limited mental resources on the information.”

Question 2

Metaphors of attention

Answer 2

As a mental process- Concentrating on a stimulus (internal); actively process information.
As a mental resource- mental energy/fuel that powers cognition; can get used up (limited resource).

Question 3

Why do we need attention?

Answer 3

Surrounded by information:

• Audition (numerous sounds).
• Vision.
• Own thoughts.

Everything competes for your attention.
Effective selection of information critical for functioning; attention is limited.
Multi-tasking- divided attention.

Question 4

Selective attention

Answer 4

Auditory information- constantly subjected to different sounds.
Shadowing task- hear recording of speech and must repeat back while listening to it; second message in other ear must be ignored (dichotic listening).

Findings: outcome usually good.
Cherry (1953)- could report physical characteristics of voice in unattended channel; semantic content is not processed.
Moray (1959)- heard very little of unattended channel; 1/3 heard own voice; some input leaked through maybe due to relevance (cocktail party effect).

Question 5

Visual selective attention

Answer 5

Posner (1980)- information that falls under the torch beam is processed with priority; information outside receives little attention.

Lab based studies:
Resink, O’Regan & Clarke (1997)- pairs of pictures separated by a blank.
Identical photos it’s hard to identify what’s changed; if changing object in centre it will be noticed earlier than if in peripheral view.
Implications of “change blindness”- we see less of a visual scene then we think we do.

In absence of attention, contents of visual memory are replaced.

Question 6

Is attention necessary for perception?

Answer 6

Mack & Rock (19980- “without attention there is no perception”.

Moore & Egeth (1997)- Muller-Lyer test; 95% of participants said fins-out was longer.