7. What determines what we pay attention to?

Question 1

Biased Competition Theory (Desimone & Duncan, 1995) Says there are top-down ____ ____ mechanisms and Bottom-up ____-____ mechanisms sensitive to stimulus ____

Answer 1

Top-down attentional control mechanisms
Bottom-up sensory-driven mechanisms sensitive to stimulus salience

Question 2

What is the Biased Competition Theory?

Answer 2

This idea that our attention is influenced by both top-down and bottom up underlies many of the current theories of selective attention

Question 3

What are three kinds of stimuli that can “capture” our attention?

Answer 3

1. Stimuli of high salience
2. Movement/’abrupt onset’
3. Things relevant to us/relate to our values

Question 4

____ is irrelevant to shape-based search task

Answer 4

Colour

Question 5

Colour “singleton” increases search…

Answer 5

reaction times

Question 6

What is Theeuwes’ interpretation?

Answer 6

Complete top-down selectivity not possible

Question 7

Stimulus-driven selection says ____ processing happens before ____ processing

Answer 7

Bottom-up BEFORE top-down
(bottom-up input, top-down modulation)

Question 8

In the first stage of stimulus-driven selection, there’s an initial ____ across ____ ____, entirely ____-____. Calculation of ____ ____

Answer 8

sweep
visual field
bottom-up
local salience

Question 9

What occurs in the second stage of stimulus-driven selection?

Answer 9

Is selected item target? If not, location inhibited
Attention then shifts to item that is next in line with respect to salience

Question 10

Stimulus-driven selection only takes place within ____ ____

Answer 10

Attentional window
Spatial cues can vary size of attentional window

Question 11

Singletons outside ____ location do not capture ____

Answer 11

Cued, attention

Question 12

Contingent capture (Folk & Remington, 1992) states attentional capture is not ____-____.
Attention can only be captured by stimuli relevant to our ____

Answer 12

stimulus-driven
goals

Question 13

Contingent capture research found:
1. Colour cues capture attention when target was defined on ____
2. Onset cues capture attention when target was defined on ____
3. Suggests attentional capture is ____ on task ____

Answer 13

1. Colour
2. Onset
3. Contingent, goals

Question 14

Define abrupt onset

Answer 14

Something which suddenly appears

Question 15

What does abrupt onset theory state?

Answer 15

Only abrupt onsets can produce stimulus driven capture

Question 16

Abrupt onsets research found singleton was ____ ____ of target location, and could be either ____ singleton, or ____
Onsets produced attentional ____, but colour singletons didn’t

Answer 16

Not predictive
colour, onset
capture

Question 17

Moving or ____ stimuli also capture attention, but ____ stimuli don’t

Answer 17

looming, receding

Question 18

Attention tasks usually begin with some kind of ____ to display. This may induce general “____-____” settings for dynamic changes, including ____.

Answer 18

change
display-wide
onsets

Question 19

Sometimes things seem to attract attention because of their ____, or ____ ____

Answer 19

Meaning, personal relevance

Question 20

More recent theories highlight role of “selection ____” or ____ associations

Answer 20

History, reward

Question 21

Stimuli associated with ____ capture attention

Answer 21

value

Question 22

Define local salience

Answer 22

How much does this differ from surrounding image attributes along some dimension such as colour, shape, luminance, size etc?

Question 23

In research into abrupt onset, singleton was not predictive of what?

Answer 23

Target location