attention 1 Flashcards
what does it mean if attention is goal directed?
used to achieve something
what does it mean for attention to vary in effort?
deploying attention can be more/less difficult
what does it mean if attention can be shifted?
spotlight metaphor- attend to information in the spotlight
what does it mean if attention can be zoomed?
zoom lens metaphor- closer inspection of certain area
what does it mean if attention is selective?
can decide to focus on one thing, whilst ignoring another
what does it mean if attention is limited?
can only pay a certain amount of attention
what does it mean if attention can be captured?
can control your attention to an extent
what does it mean if attention can be divided?
can pay attention between different modalities
when did modern research begin to focus on attention?
in the 1950s
paradigm shift from behaviourism to cognitivism
what happened in Broadbent’s attention research?
wanted to understand if people could understand simultanous messages eg) pilots
asked two questions at the same time, and were told to answer one but ignore the other
no spatial separation of speakers
what was the result of Broadbent’s attention research?
only around 50% of questions answered correctly
difficult- even with limited number of possible alternatives
what happened in Cherry’s research into attention?
cocktail party problem- How do we recognise what one person says whilst another speaks at the same time?
Condition 1= two messages by the same speaker played to both ears (hear both messages in both ears)
Condition 2= two messages by the same speaker played to different ears (dichotic listening)
what were the results of Cherry’s cocktail party problem?
Condition 1= very difficult, but possible after many repetitions
Condition 2= much easier to attend to (for the irrelevant message no content was reported, only basic physical stimulus characteristics processed)
What are the stages of Broadbent’s filter theory?
senses
short term store
selective filter
limited capacity channel (P system)
store of conditional probabilities of past events/system for varying output until input is secured>effectors
what happens in the short term store?
parallel processing of simple physical stimulus properties
what does the filter do?
selects information for further processing
selects based on physical stimulus properties in the short term store
what does the limited capacity channel do?
serial processer
one thing processed at a time
current term is the focus of attention in working memory
how is Broadbent’s filter theory an early selection theory?
unattended information doesn’t pass the filter
selection occurs before stimuli are identified/recognised/fully analysed/meaning analysed
which pieces of research provide evidence against early selection?
own name effect
message switching
conditioning with electric shocks
what happened in the own name effect? (Moray)
message presented to right ear was relevant, message presented to left ear was irrelevant
around 1/3 of participants noticed own name presented to irrelevant ear
so some unattended information was analysed for meaning
what happened in message switching? (Treisman)
participants reported information from the irrelevant ear when the meaning of the message switched to this ear
suggests unattended information was analysed
what happened in conditioning with electric shocks?
Phase 1= words paired with electric shocks
Phase 2= words presented to irrelevant ear
result= words affected the skin conductance responses
what theories are alternatives to early selection?
attenuation theory
late selection
what is attenuation theory? (Treisman)
filter is not completely selective
some concepts in our ‘mental dictionary’ are more readily)
what is late selection theory? (Deutsch and Deutsch)
meaning analysed before the filter
processing of perceptual input is automatic and not capacity limited
