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SEM 1 Intro to Cognition > Attention 1 > Flashcards

Attention 1 Flashcards

1
Q

What is Attention?

A

The ability to actively process information in the environment by filtering/tuning out irrelevant details

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2
Q

What are the 2 types of attention?

A

1) Active attention
2) Passive attention

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3
Q

Define Active attention

A
  • Top Down
  • Attention driven by knowledge, experience and expectations
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4
Q

Define Passive attention

A
  • Bottom Up
  • Attention driven by environmental stimuli
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5
Q

Who said Attention is the “withdrawal from some things to deal effectively with other things”?

A

William James

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6
Q

What is Selective Auditory Attention?

A

The act of intentionally attending/focusing on a specific source of sound or spoken words

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7
Q

How can Selective Auditory Attention be observed?

A

Dichotic Listening task

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8
Q

Who proposed the Dichotic Listening task?

A

Colin Cherry

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9
Q

Explain the Dichotic Listening task

A
  • Participants listen to 2 messages, 1 in each ear
  • Their task is to shadow/repeat one of the messages out loud
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10
Q

What is shadowing and what does it tell experimenters in the Dichotic Listening task?

A
  • Shadowing = Repeating
  • Shadowing allows experimenters to see whether participants were paying attention to one of the audios and not getting distracted by the other
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11
Q

How has Attention been explained? List 5 theories

A

1) Broadbent’s Filter Theory
2) Attentional Paradox and Cherry’s Cocktail Party effect
3) Triesman’s Attentional Theory
4) Deutsch and Deutsch’s Late Selection Theory
5) Lavies Perceptual Load Theory

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12
Q

Explain Broadbent’s Filter Theory

A
  • Broadbent proposed that a filter (sitting between the short-term store and limited-capacity channel) prevents overloading a limited capacity beyond the filter
  • Filter allows information to enter one at a time
  • Other less relevant inputs remain in buffer for later processing
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13
Q

Explain Cherry’s Cocktail Party effect

A
  • Cherry noticed that when talking to a friend at a party, whilst actively attending to the friend, you would still be able to hear someone call your name from a distance
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14
Q

List the 2 examples of experiments performed to investigate the effects of unattended information on behaviour

A
  • Von Wright
  • Mackay
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15
Q

Explain the Von Wright experiment

A
  • Paired words with electric shock (CS+)
  • Performed Dichotic Listening task with the CS+ words
  • Participants had increased Galvanic Skin Response (emotional arousal)
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16
Q

Explain the MacKay experiment

A
  • Performed Dichotic Listening task
  • The attended ear played a sentence and the unattended ear played a word
  • Participants were unable to recall word played in the unattended ear but also failed to shadow the exact attended ear message
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17
Q

What did the Dichotic Listening task discover/conclude?

A
  • In the non-attended ear, participants noticed basic characteristics of the audio (E.G. Female vs Male voice or Silence vs Audio)
  • Participants did not notice the content of the audio
  • Participants did not notice the language or order changes of the audio
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18
Q

Explain Triesman’s Attenuation Theory

A
  • Believes humans process information based on physical cues
  • Unattended input is not completely rejected but filter reduces analysis of unattended signal
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19
Q

What is the term used to describe the act of shadowing certain parts of an unattended message?

A

Breakthrough

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20
Q

Who thought of the Filter theory?

A

Broadbent

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21
Q

Who thought of the Cocktail Party effect theory?

A

Cherry

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22
Q

Who thought of the Attenuation theory

A

Triesman

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23
Q

Who thought of the Late Selection theory?

A

Deutsch and Deutsch

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24
Q

Who thought of the Perceptual Load theory?

A

Lavie

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25
Q

Why does breakthrough sometimes happen?

A
  • Because some stimuli are consistent with our experiences/knowledge, thus the processing threshold is lowered
  • When threshold is low, some unattended stimuli exceeds the threshold
  • Some stimuli are also commonly used or heard (e.g. our name)
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26
Q

Explain Deutsch and Deutsch’s Late Selection theory

A
  • Suggests filtering occurs late, only after all stimuli are fully analysed
  • Most relevant stimuli determined response
  • Agrees with Triesman that unattended stimuli are also processed
27
Q

Explain an experiment which supports that selection may not occur late

A
  • Triesman and Riley
  • Experiment involves Dichotic shadowing but participants must stop shadowing and tap whenever they hear the target word in either message
  • There were more target words detected in the attended ear
28
Q

Explain Lavie’s Perceptual Load theory

A
  • Suggests everyone has a limited attentional capacity and total available capacity is always allocated
  • Spare capacity not needed for the primary task is automatically allocated to irrelevant stimuli
29
Q

How is attention allocated, according to the Perceptual Load theory?

A
  • Allocation of Attention depends on perceptual load/ task difficulty
  • High Load = Less interference from distractors
  • Low Load = More interference from distractors
30
Q

What is Perceptual Load?

A
  • Task difficulty or quantity
31
Q

What load is selected earlier according to the Perceptual Load theory?

A

High load

32
Q

What load is selected later according to the Perceptual Load theory?

A

Low load

33
Q

What load had more interference with distractors according to the Perceptual Load theory?

A

Low load

34
Q

What load had less interference with distractors according to the Perceptual Load theory?

A

High load

35
Q

List 1 strength of Broadbent’s Filter theory

A
  • Dichotic Listening performance improved the detection and ERP amplitudes for attended vs unattended
36
Q

List 1 limitation of Broadbent’s Filter theory

A
  • Breakthrough effects in some processing of information in the unattended message (e.g. Cocktail party effect)
37
Q

List 1 strength of Triesman’s Attenuation theory

A
  • Breakthrough effects in some processing of information in the unattended message (e.g. Cocktail party effect)
38
Q

List 1 limitation of Triesman’s Attenuation theory

A

The theory does not account for Lavie’s effects of Perceptual Load

39
Q

List 1 strength of Deutsch and Deutsch’s Late Selection theory

A
  • Breakthrough effects in some processing of information in the unattended message (e.g. Cocktail party effect)
40
Q

List 1 limitation of Deutsch and Deutsch’s Late Selection theory

A
  • Dichotic Listening performance improved the detection and ERP amplitudes for attended vs unattended
41
Q

List 1 strength of Lavie’s Perceptual Load theory

A
  • Accounts for early findings and correctly predicts that a more difficult task will lead to less interference with distractors
42
Q

What is selective visual attention?

A

Process of attending/focusing on one particular stimuli or information

43
Q

What can we visually selectively attend to?

A

1) Area or Location
2) Given object(s)
3) Either Area/Location or Given object(s)

44
Q

What is Inattentional Blindness?

A
  • Failure to notice a readily/obvious visible yet unexpected stimuli
45
Q

Who proposed the Inattentional Blindness definition?

A

Simons and Chabris

46
Q

What is Change Blindness?

A
  • Failure to notice visual stimuli changes in the environment
47
Q

What is Inattentional Blindness dependent on?

A
  • Perceptual load
  • Similarity to attended event
48
Q

Name the 3 ways of attending to visual stimuli

A

1) Spotlight
2) Zoom lens
3) Multiple spotlights

49
Q

Explain spotlight attention

A
  • Posner
  • Location based
  • Attentional spotlight shifts to different locations without eye-movements (Covert attention)
50
Q

Who proposed the spotlight attention theory?

A

Posner

51
Q

How is the attentional spotlight controlled?

A
  • Posner and Peterson
    1) Disengagement (Detach attention from stimulus)
    2) Shifting (Move attention from one stimulus to another)
    3) Engaging (Maintain attention on new stimulus)
52
Q

Who proposed the 3 steps in which the attentional spotlight can be controlled?

A

Posner and Peterson

53
Q

Explain zoom lens attention

A
  • Eriksen and St James
  • Attention can be increased or decreased based on task demands
54
Q

Who proposed the zoom lens attention theory?

A

Eriksen and St James

55
Q

Explain the multiple spotlights theory

A
  • Awh and Pashler
  • There is more than one attentional spotlight which attends to different locations
56
Q

What are the 2 types of cueing in attention?

A

1) Exogenous cueing
2) Endogenous cueing

57
Q

Which cue is Top-Down?

A

Endogenous cueing

58
Q

Which cue is Bottom-Up?

A

Exogenous cueing

59
Q

Explain Exogenous cueing

A
  • Bottom-up
  • Driven by stimuli in the environment
  • Automatic, passive
  • When uninformative peripheral cues are given
  • Stimuli that differ from others are more likely to be attended to
60
Q

Explain Endogenous cueing

A
  • Top-down
  • Goal-driven
  • Voluntary by expectations and intentions
  • When brief but straightforward cues are given
61
Q

Who is famous for writing “Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession by the mind, in clear and divide form…”

A

William James

62
Q

What evidence goes against predictions made by Broadbent’s filter theory of attention?

A

Participants report a word that was presented in the unattended message in a dichotic listening task (Breakthrough)

63
Q

The endogenous system is

1) Controlled by the individual’s expectations
2) Controlled by the individuals’ intentions
3) Used when peripheral cues are presented

A

1) Controlled by the individual’s expectations
2) Controlled by the individuals’ intentions

SEM 1 Intro to Cognition (10 decks)

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