Attention 1 (Lecture 4) Flashcards
What is inattentional blindness?
When we fail to notice a change in the environment, though it is in plain sight, due to lack of attention, often as our attention is focused on a different feature of our environment.
What is Broadbent’s model of attention processing? .
He believed that attention is limited by the amount of information we can focus on at one particular time. he split his model into a flow-chart-like model that had three sections
What was the first section of Broadbent’s model of attention?
the Sensory Buffer Store, a store with unlimited capacity that identifies physical characteristics
What was the second section of Broadbent’s model of attention?
The bottleneck, where information is processed by a selective filter, which selects one input for further processing
What was the third section of Broadbent’s model of attention?
Higher Level Processing , where meaning is extracted from the input.
What was Treisman’s model of attention?
It is similar to Broadbent’s model, in that it also believes in a sensory buffer store with an unlimited capacity. However, though Broadbent’s model suggests that the information that does not “pass through” is is discarded, Treisman suggests that it does pass through, but only weakly. She then believed in a dictionary unit, where inputs are given a threshold value, with low threshold value being more likely to be attended to. This information is then processed into working memory
What is the cocktail part effect?
Suggests that some information can make it through our perceptual filter even if we are not attending to them. This can be related to the fact that we as humans value the creation of meaning- if something has meaning, or will provide meaning, we are more likely to focus on it.
What is attention spotlight?
Our attentional spotlight relates to visual and spatial perception. Attentional spotlight tends to be quite narrow and at a central location of our field of vision. However, environmental cues can shift our attention spotlight.
What are the two types of environmental cues that can shift our attention spotlight?
Endogenous and Exogenous cues.
What is an endogenous cue?
something that we see in our central field of vision that points us to/directs us to a more peripheral area of our visual field, with us voluntarily following the cue
They are more slow and driven by internal goals
What is an exogenous cue?
A cue that automatically captures our attention, forcing us to focus on wherever the target appears. They are more rapid and involuntary, driven by external environmental events.
What is the difference between global and local attention?
Local Attention: focusing on small fine details, with a narrow attentional spotlight
Global Attention:
large scale, big picture, involves broadening your attentional spotlight
What is feature integration theory?
What test can be used to show this?
it is based on the premise that separated features of our environment are identified by physical characteristics and then our attention system combines these to create our target.
This is shown by the stroop task.
What is pop-out effect?
It is faster to detect an object if it has features that are different from the rest of the scene
Which neural correlate plays and important role in relaying between global and local attention?
The right posterior parietal cortex
