Attention

Question 1

what is attention and selective attention and what is the problem that can be led by sustained attention

Answer 1

attention:
> the brain’s ability to self-regulate input from the environment

sustained attention can lead to the problem of vigilance
> performance drop after a long period of time

selective attention
> limited, as our attention capacity is limited (all stimuli is not treated equally)

Question 2

explain the cocktail party problem and the dichotic listening and shadowing experiment

Answer 2

cocktail party problem
> using the analogy of being at a cocktail party, illustrating the problem of how do people pay attention to one conversation, and neglecting the rest

dichotic listening and shadowing experiment
> having participants listening to two content, asking one of them to attend to one (shadowing: verbally producing the content), and ignore the second channel

Question 3

what are the results and conclusion of the dichotic shadowing experiment

Answer 3

results:
unattended:
> no memory
> change of language (unnoticed)
> change of gender (noticed)
> change of tone (noticed)
> reverse order (something queer)

conclusions:
> superficial (physical) attributes = perceived
these attributes are processed pre-attentively
> semantic attributes (meaning) = not sensitive
these attributes require focal processes

Question 4

how do people select what content to attend to? and what are the criticisms that cherry face?

Answer 4

binaural presentation: both ears listening to same voice, only differ in content
very difficult
concluded that source localisation is vital for attending to different sound

criticisms
set off to look for perception, ends up looking at memory
no memory does not mean it is not perceived
confound memory and perception

Question 5

What is the structure of the filter theory and what are the usages of the components

Answer 5

senses

short-term store
> where acoustic information is stored temporarily, which decays quickly

selective filters
> where attention plays a role
> preventing the limited capacity channel being overwhelmed
> storing stimuli from left and right ear

limited capacity channel
> where meaning is extracted

Question 6

What is the experiment that supports the existence of the sts, and what are the results

Answer 6

split-span experiments
results:
temporal sequence = terrible performance (3-4)
ear-by-ear recall = much better (6 items)

Question 7

What are the implications of the results

Answer 7

the presence of the sts and the selective filter
propose that the filters are located in both hemisphere
if temporal order, the filters have to switch left and right + stimuli in the sts decay rapidly > therefore performance was terrible
however, if allowed to recall ear-by-ear > the do not have to switch the filters rapidly > more information goes into the limited capacity channel for production

Question 8

What are the criticisms of the filter theory (Gray & Wedderburn., 1960; Moray)

Answer 8

gray & wedderburn
> replicated the split-span experiment
> however, some of the sentences have hidden meaning
> these terms were played in alternate ears
> if filter theory was right, the hidden terms would not be able to be spotted (as meaning of the words should not affect the effect of the filter)
> however they did

Moray
> replicated the Cherry dichotic experiment
> unattended channel occasionally contains the name of the participants
> were able to pick it up
> however, shouldn’t be

Question 9

Explain the structure of the early and late selection filter and their main difference

Answer 9

early
> sensory analysis -> filter -> semantic analysis (LTM) -> report

late
> sensory analysis -> semantic analysis (LTM) -> report

main difference: one proposes the presence of the filter is before semantic analysis, the other proposes the opposite

Question 10

Explain the early sensory analysis framework (experiment that supported it and the criticism)

Answer 10

> similar to filter theory
one main difference is the filter does not block all input, but attenuating them (tune down a bit)
therefore, the evocation in the semantic analysis is also smaller than the attended input

experiment (triesman)
> using the biannual presentation
> have the participants tap a button whenever they hear a keyword
> the % for the unattended channel not 0%, but lower than the attended channel
> this suggests the filter does not block all information, but attenuate them to a degree

criticism
> if that’s the case, the filter has to be very complex and smart

Question 11

explain the late selection model

Answer 11

> proposing all input interacts with the semantic analysis (LTM)
however, interaction does not mean it goes past the filter and reaches conscious reporting
the two criteria
> bottom-up: sensory analysis
> top-down: by pertinence (task and current focus)
if these two criteria not activated = input decays quickly

experiments:
> McKay:
> biannual presentation:
> shadowing some terms are ambiguous
> at the same time the unattended channel = hint and cue for the ambiguous word
> recognition task
> third type: critical sentence that is similar to the sentence
> reports that the cue from the unattended channel affects the perception of the term
> semantic meaning happening in the unattended channel

> Von Wright, Anderson & Stenman
> using galvanic skin response (reaction from the autonomous nervous system) that could be picked up by surface electrode
> classical conditioning (pairing response with fruit category)
> biannual presentation: GSR response recorded if the words appear in the unattended channel, even if the word did not appear in the pairing phrase.
> show that able to generalise and semantic meaning happens without attention