Attention Flashcards
attention
process of focusing on specific features of the environment or on certain thoughts or activities
selective
excluding other features of the environment
limited
in capacity and timing
overt
willing to pay attention
covert
grabs your attention without your control ex. siren
two types of attention
selective
divided - multitasking
selective attention
ability to focus on one message and ignore all others
case in point
we do not attend to a large fraction of the information in the environment
research on selective attention focuses on
filtering out some information and promoting other information for further processing
dichotic learning
One message is presented the left ear and another to the right ear. Participant repeats one message
dichotic learning results
Participants could not report content of unattended ear (knew there was message and speaker’s gender)
Unattended ear is being processed (noticed change in tone and gender)
Cocktail party effect - everyone is talking but you will hear if your name is mentioned
Broadbent’s Filter Model
information comes in then goes to sensory memory/short term memory but with high capacity everything goes through then gets filtered. The filter will have you choose a message to focus on and only send that one through. Filter happens before establish meaning which is for the detector. Finally to memory where you remember or not
early selection model (Broadbent)
filters messages before incoming information is analyzed
sensory memory
hold all incoming information for a fraction of a second
filter
identifies attended message based on physical characteristics, only attended messages are passed on
detector
processes all information to determine higher level characteristics of the message
short term memory
receives output of detector
hold information for 10-15 seconds and may transfer to long term
broadbents model could not explain
cocktail affect
can shadow meaningful messages that switch from one ear to the other
can be trained to detect unattended ear
evidence of late selection
selection of stimuli for final processing may not occur after information has been analyzed for meaning
Mckay - late selection
in attending ear participants heard ambiguous sentences
in unattended ear, participants heard biasing words
attenuator (replaces filter)
analyzes incoming messages in term of physical characteristics, language, and meaning
attended messages is let through the
attenuator at full strength
unattended message is let through
attenuator at a much weaker strength than
dictionary unit
contains words each of which have thresholds for being activated