Attention Flashcards
Attention is…
limited and selective.
How attention is limited
We can only pay attention to certain things at a time
How attention is selective
We pay more attention to some stimuli than others
Attention is not fully under conscious control
TRUE
We can attend to things that don’t enter awareness
- Unconscious processing
- Blindsight
Attention is a key aspect of perception
Attention needed for sensations to become perception
Many perceptual errors and illusions are due to…
limitations of attention
Attention is not fully under conscious control because…
attention may be “grabbed” by certain stimuli whether you want it to or not.
Overt Attention
- Conscious and intentional attending to a scene or stimulus
- Directed attention
Covert attention
- When attention is “grabbed” by something that we weren’t directly paying attention to
- Like noticing something out of the corner of your eye
Pop-out Effect
As you view this image some things pop out more than others, faces are extremely “meaningful” categories to us
- Specialized brain areas for recognizing faces
Attention as a spotlight
- Can focus heavily on one thing
- Weakly on multiple
Most information…
gets filtered out, we are more likely to pay attention to things that fit our expectation
Dichotic Listening
One message in left, another in right
Early studies of dichotic listening found…
- Only difference noticed was sensory attention
- Tonal quality changes
- Voice to music, voice to tones
Early studies conclusion…
People are not able to simultaneously receive two messages at once - No other “meaningful” perceptions are possible beyond the focus of attention
Later research showed some things could “grab” attention during dichotic listening…
participants could hear their own name in the unattended ear.
Cocktail party effect
You can hear your own name in a crowded room
Attended ear - hear ambiguous sentences
- “They were throwing stones at the bank.” - change of perception of what “bank” means based on the words they heard.
Inattentional blindness
- Lack of attention to an obvious stimuli
- Stimulus is clearly visible, but goes unseen
Change blindness
Can be blind to changes between scenes and things in background. If details change while an object is out of view, we may not notice the difference
Saccades
Rapid movements of the eyes from one place to another
Fixations
Eyes briefly pause on points of interest
At any moment of time you are only seeing a small amount of information…
only a small area of the retina has a very clear vision, this area is called the fovea
Dividing attention
Practice makes difficult tasks easier and less demanding of our attention, the difference between being a new driver and an experienced driver
“Multi-tasking” is not as effective…
as focusing on one thing at a time
Unilateral Neglect
- Neurological disorder
- Patients no longer pay attention to one half of their visual field
- Usually caused by damage to one brain hemisphere
- Neglect of left side is most common
Attention to the right-side information is…
processed by both brain hemispheres
Attention to left-side information is…
mostly processed by right hemisphere
Unilateral Neglect will make someone…
will ignore one side of what’s being seen, and will also ignore that side when imaging or recalling from memory
For someone with unilateral neglect, attention may…
still be “grabbed” by something on the neglected side through the covert attention
