Applied Cognitive Psychology Attention and Distraction Flashcards
What is attention?
“[Attention] is the taking possession by
the mind, in clear and vivid form, of
one out of what seem several
simultaneously possible objects or
trains of thought”
William James, 1890
Selective attention
The process of directing our awareness to
relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant
stimuli in the environment
Top-down processing
Goal driven
(endogenous cues)
Bottom-up processing
Stimulus driven
(exogenous cues)
Attention is attracted to items that differ from
their surroundings
Attributes that guide attention:
- Colour
- Motion
- Orientation
- Size
Guidance by stimulus salience
Guidance by stimulus salience refers to how noticeable features of stimuli in our environment attract attention and influence behavior. Salient stimuli, such as bright colors or sudden movements, automatically capture our attention. This affects various aspects of cognition, including visual search, decision-making, and memory. Understanding stimulus salience helps explain how we prioritize and respond to information in our surroundings.
Real-world examples
- Pop-up adds
- Notifications
Fundamental rules of visual salience
Salience of a target increases with:
- Target-distractor heterogeneity
- Distractor-distractor Homogeneity
- Target-distractor heterogeneity
Target-distractor heterogeneity:
Example 1: Imagine you’re looking for your keys on a cluttered desk. If your keys are bright red while the surrounding objects are mostly black or gray, the red keys will stand out due to their color heterogeneity, making them more salient.
Example 2: In a forest filled with green trees, if there’s a single tree with bright yellow leaves, that tree will be more salient due to its color heterogeneity compared to the surrounding green trees.
- Distractor-distractor Homogeneity
Example 1: Consider a field of yellow flowers where most of the flowers have identical shapes and sizes. Among these, there’s one flower with a completely different shape. This unique flower will be more salient due to the homogeneity of the other flowers.
Example 2: In a classroom full of students wearing the same school uniform, if one student wears a brightly colored shirt that contrasts with the uniform, that student will be more salient due to the uniformity of the other students’ clothing.
Salience maps
Attention is influenced by the salience of the stimuli in the visual field
Salience maps zijn visuele representaties die laten zien welke delen van een afbeelding of scène als meer opvallend worden beschouwd volgens een bepaald salience model of algoritme.
Deze maps worden gegenereerd door salience tools en geven vaak aan hoe salient verschillende delen van de afbeelding zijn door middel van kleurcodering of helderheid.
Salience maps kunnen worden gebruikt voor verschillende doeleinden, zoals het visualiseren van de aandachtsplekken in een afbeelding of het verbeteren van beeldverwerkingstoepassingen door de aandachtspunten te benadrukken.
Saliency Toolbox
De Saliency Toolbox is een set van tools en algoritmen die worden gebruikt voor het analyseren en modelleren van visuele salientie. Het helpt onderzoekers om te begrijpen waar mensen naar kijken in afbeeldingen of scènes, en om modellen te ontwikkelen die voorspellen waar de visuele aandacht naartoe zal gaan.
The Van Gogh Museum Eye-Tracking Project
Do children and adults show different viewing patterns when looking at
paintings in the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam?
Children tend to focus more on details, while adults take in the entire composition. This suggests age-related differences in how people perceive and engage with art.
examples salience maps
View of Auvers Daubigny’s
Garden
Farmhouse
Landscape at Twilight
Tree Roots
phase 1
phase 2
Bottom-up W van gogh
children
Top-down W van gogh
adults
Some items attract attention more than
others…
- Items relevant to our survival (e.g., Berdica et al., 2018)
- Faces (e.g., Theeuwes & van der Stigchel, 2006)
- Babies (e.g., Brosch et al., 2007)
Biases
- Center bias
- Photographer bias
- Viewing strategy
Possible solution: use baselines
Divided attention
Often referred to as multitasking
Our brain’s ability to attend to two
different stimuli at the same time
Negatively affects memory and
learning
Tasks compete for limited attentional
resources
Capacity theories of attention
Cognitive resources are limited. You can divide attention as long as you
do not exceed available cognitive resources.
- Central capacity theory (Kahneman, 1973)
- Multiple resource theory (Wickens, 1984)
Central capacity theory (Kahneman, 1973)
Deze theorie, voorgesteld door Daniel Kahneman in 1973, stelt dat er een centrale verwerkingscapaciteit is die wordt gedeeld tussen verschillende mentale processen. Deze centrale capaciteit wordt soms ook wel ‘aandacht’ genoemd.
Volgens CCT is er slechts een beperkte hoeveelheid aandacht beschikbaar, en wanneer mensen meerdere taken tegelijkertijd uitvoeren, moeten ze deze beperkte aandachtsbron verdelen tussen de taken.
Kahneman en zijn collega’s onderzochten reactietijdexperimenten om te laten zien hoe de prestaties op verschillende taken verslechteren naarmate de aandacht wordt verdeeld. Dit fenomeen staat bekend als ‘dual-task interference’.
Multiple resource theory (Wickens, 1984)
De Multiple Resource Theory, ontwikkeld door Wickens in 1984, suggereert dat er verschillende mentale ‘resources’ zijn, elk gerelateerd aan specifieke soorten taken of informatieverwerking.
Volgens MRT zijn er verschillende ‘kanalen’ of ‘resources’ beschikbaar voor het uitvoeren van verschillende taken. Bijvoorbeeld, er kunnen aparte resources zijn voor visuele verwerking, verbale verwerking, motorische taken, enzovoort.
Deze theorie stelt dat het uitvoeren van taken die gebruikmaken van verschillende resources minder interferentie veroorzaakt dan taken die dezelfde resources delen. Met andere woorden, taken die elk een ander ‘kanaal’ gebruiken, kunnen beter tegelijkertijd worden uitgevoerd dan taken die dezelfde resources vereisen
Critiques to capacity theories
- Too simple
- Resources are not observable. Performance is
Predictions of Capacity Theories
1) we can attend to more than one thing as long as our resources are
not exceeded.
2) Performance will decline if the resource pool is depleted.
3) The system is flexible: we can shift our attention based on what our
current needs are.
Automaticity
Automaticity is key! Well practiced tasks require fewer resources.
Experiment Spelke et al. (1976)
1) Read short stories
2) Write down dictated words
3) Read short stories + write down dictated words
Reading speed while performing
the dual task increases
throughout the weeks.
What affects divided attention?
- Attentional tasks interfere with each other if they involve similar
activities. - Tasks that share one sensory modality are particularly difficult (e.g.,
listening to two people at the same time). - Other factors affecting divided attention: anxiety, arousal, task
difficulty, skills.
Applications of divided attention
- Driving and cell phone use
- Distracted walking
- Distracted learning
Driving and cell phone use
- Using a cell phone while driving
diminishes performance - This is true even if you are using a
hand free device - Driver distraction is estimated to be
one of the leading causes of motor
vehicle accidents
Distracted walking
- Slower motor performance and reaction time when you engage in
a secondary task while walking - People looking at their phone fail to notice a clown riding on a
unicycle (Hyman et al., 2010)
Inattentional blindness
The failure to notice a fully-visible, but unexpected object because
attention was engaged on another task, event, or object
Distracted learning
Rapidly switching between tasks
comes with a switching cost
Negative effects distracted learning:
- Mental fatigue
- Negative performance
- Learning tasks take longer to
complete
Improving learning
- Increase cognitive control abilities
- Learn to better manage the distractions around and within you
- Strengthen your goals
Increase cognitive control abilities
- Physical exercise
- Meditation
Learn to better manage the distractions
around and within you
- Increase metacognition
- Decrease accessibility
- Decrease boredom
Strengthen your goals
- Set clear (and achievable) goals
- Implementation intention: a plan we make beforehand about
WHAT we are going to do and WHEN we are going to do it
Sustained attention
Often referred to as vigilance or alertness
“Vigilance refers to the ability of organisms to maintain their
focus of attention and to remain alert to stimuli over prolonged
periods of time
Sustained attention finds applications in many domains:
- Air traffic control
- Military radar operations
- Airport screening
- Automated driving
The study of vigilance already gained great
importance during WWII
Why do radar and sonar operators miss enemy
submarines on their display?
Radar and sonar operators can miss enemy submarines on their displays due to factors like signal clutter, fatigue, boredom, sensory adaptation, human error, limited attention, and display limitations.
Main factors affecting attention and vigilance
- Time on task
- Rest to activity ratio
- Sleep loss
- Motivation
Time on task
Limited ability to maintain vigilance over extended periods of time.
This can be easily seen through the Clock Vigilance Task (Mackworth,
1950).
The vigilance decrement first half hour
Accuracy of detection declines about
10% after the first half-hour
The vigilance decrement
- The decrement occurs often within 15 minutes
- With high task demands even within 5 minutes
- Both with experienced and naïve observers
- Not just an artificial lab phenomenon
Results Greenly et al. (2018)
Greenly et al., 2018
Vigilance decrement:
The percentage of correct
detections decreased through
time
Reaction time:
Mean reaction time increased
through time
How much rest people get when performing a task can strongly impact
vigilance
- Sleep loss induces lapses (Dinges et al.,
1997) - The negative effects of sleep loss
can often be seen very shortly after
a task has been started (Gillberg &
Akerstedt, 1998) - 1 out of 5 car crashes are caused by
drivers falling asleep (The Washington Post,
2014)
Noise and sleep loss least to most errors
normal sleep- silence
normal sleep- noice
sleeplose- noice
sleep lose- silence
most errors^
Motivation
- Intrinsic: internal factors
(feedback) - Extrinsic: external factors
(reward/punishment)
You have a highly reliable automated system.
How do you think the pilot/driver/train driver will
react if an emergency occurs?