Attention 1

Question 1

Describe the 7 basics about attention

Answer 1

-It’s goal directed
-Varies in effort
-Can be shifted
-Selective and acts as a filter
-Limited
-Can be captured
-Can be divided

Question 2

Describe ‘attention is goal directed’

Answer 2

-Used to achieve something such as finding an individual within a group

Question 3

Describe ‘attention varies in effort’

Answer 3

-Using attention can be seen as easy as well as difficult, such as visual searching

Question 4

Describe ‘attention can be shifted’

Answer 4

-Use the spotlight metaphor
-Attention becomes directed to a specific area using visual search

Question 5

Describe ‘attention being selective and acting as a filter’

Answer 5

-Deciding to listen to one conversation and ignoring another
-Attending to one thing means you aren’t attending to other things

Question 6

Describe ‘attention is limited’

Answer 6

-Trying to listen to two people at once won’t be possible
-It is possible to run out of attention

Question 7

Describe ‘attention can be captured’

Answer 7

-You are able to control attention but only to a certain extent
-E.g. you have a friend with blue hair who always sit at the back, but your attention will still be captured by people with blue hair near the front

Question 8

Describe ‘attention can be divided’

Answer 8

-This is possible through listening to someone and also looking at something
-Using both visual and auditory modality

Question 9

What are the 2 classic studies?

Answer 9

-Broadbent (1952)
-Cherry (1953)

Question 10

Describe Broadbent’s (1952) experiment

Answer 10

-Stimuli was a grid with 5 boxes, containing different symbols
-The task was where the ppt would hear things such as “S-1 from G.D.O. Is there a heart on position 1?”
-These were played simultaneously

Question 11

Describe Broadbent’s (1952) dichotic listening task

Answer 11

-Contained example sentences that followed the structure of “‘Call sign’, go to ‘colour’ ‘number’ now”
-‘Call sign’ would always be baron
-Numbers ranged from 1-8
-Colours were either red, green, white or blue
-E.g. Baron, go to white 2 now
-Results found that around 50% of questions were answered correctly

Question 12

Describe Cherry’s (1953) study

Answer 12

-Looked at how we attended multiple signals at the same time
-Only included 1 ppt, shadowing used in both conditions
-Condition 1: hearing both messages in both ears, and they were told to repeat one message ands ignore the other, found that this was difficult but possible after repetition
-Condition 2: two messages simultaneously played to different ears (dichotic listening)
-Found that they could track one stimuli and hear that, and ignore the other

Question 13

Briefly describe Broadbent’s filter theory

Answer 13

-Early selection and supports findings of classic studies
-Contained limited capacity channel, selective filter and short term memory store
-Unattended info won’t pass the filter
-Filtering occurs before the stimuli is identified, recognised and analysed

Question 14

Describe the function of the limited capacity channel

Answer 14

-Serial processor, is only able to process one thing at a time

Question 15

Describe the function of the selective filter

Answer 15

-Identifies information allowing processing to occur
-Uses physical stimuli properties e.g. location and pitch, so only stimuli with a particular pitch would be selected for further processing
-Prevents overloading

Question 16

Describe the function of the short term memory store

Answer 16

-Information from the multiple different sensory inputs enter here (sensory register, echoic and iconic memory)
-Processes physical stimuli simultaneously

Question 17

What is the difference between irrelevant and relevant info?

Answer 17

-Irrelevant info is filtered out based on what the physical stimuli properties are
-Relevant info is selected and chosen to be further analysed

Question 18

What is the two pieces of evidence that goes against early selection theory

Answer 18

-Moray (1959) & Wood and Cowan (1995)
-Treisman (1960)

Question 19

Describe Moray (1959) & Wood and Cowan (1995) studies

Answer 19

-They found that around 1/3 of pots would notice their own name when it was presented to the irrelevant ear
-Said it isn’t possible to recognise words without understanding their meaning
-Suggests that unattended info was analysed which therefore contradicts early selection theory

Question 20

Describe Treisman (1960) study

Answer 20

-Message sent to the shadowed ear was ‘In the picnic basket she has peanut butter book, leaf, root, sample, always’
-Message sent to unshadowed ear was ‘cat, large, day, apple, friend, every, select, sandwiches and chocolate brownies
-Ppts repeated that they had heard ‘In the picnic basket, she had peanut butter, sandwiches and chocolate brownies

Question 21

What are the two alternatives to early selection theory?

Answer 21

-Treisman (1935-2018) developed attenuation theory, the idea that the filter isn’t fully selective and it provides explanation for failure in early selection theories
-Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) developed late selection theory, idea that meaning is analysed before filtering occurs, suggests processing is automatic and capacity isn’t limited