attention Flashcards
What are two main ways to define attention
- attention as a mental process (concentrating effort on a stimuli/event)
- attention as a limited mental resource (limited energy/resources)
Selective attention
you have so much stimuli but not a lot of time/cognition to fully process
- massive information+limited capacity
- selecting to focus on one thing and ignore others
Information processing model
- Sensation
- Perception
(attention) - Mental Representation
- Memory (retrieval if going backwards)
What is the effect when you are in a loud room and you hear someone say your name far away, even if you were in the middle of a conversation
cocktail party effect (you notice critical info)
Dichotic listening experiments
- one different message in each ear at the same time, the person may shadow (repeat one side and ignore the other)
For Dichotic listening experiments, who was a key player and what did they find
- Cherry
- found people could process surface level info of the voice (ie gender, pitch) but not the content
- suggesting info is processed but filtered
Early vs late filters for attention processing
- Early: can select physical characteristics. Broadbent says filter follows detection but is before recognition
- Late: can select via meaning. Deutshs says it happens after recognition (processes after some understanding)
How did Treisman build off of the filter theories for attention
- switching experiment (shadow message, but have it jump)
- Intermediate-selection model: attended messages can separate from unattended ones early in info processing, filter based on meaning or physical traits
Treisman’s attenuator
- attended message is let though at full strength (stuff that matters gets a signal boost, stuff that doesn’t is slowed)
- not all or none, strong or weak varies
Treisman’s dictionary unit
- contains words that have thresholds for being activated
- common words=low thresholds
- uncommon=high thresholds
t or f: for treisman’s dictionary unit, words with high thresholds have less of a need for a signal to activate
false, low threshold=less of a need for signal to activate and high=ignored
Because its hard to distinguish filter models for attention, emphasis has shifted to _______ of attention
- capacity theories
- ability/resources for info processing
- multitasking
automaticity
- highly practiced
- hard to overcome/override
Whether attentional capacity is exceeded depends on _____ and _____
the task and state of the person (ie. alertness/autonomic or effortful tasks)
Automaticity vs controlled attention
auto: no mental effort needed, practice, w out intention, unconscious, doesnt interfere w other tasks
control: deliberate, voluntary allocation of effort/concentration (ex creative, different situation each time)
When looking for a red circle among blue circles, this is a:
a) attentional control task
b) automatic attention task
b) automatic
When looking for a vertical red among vertical blue and horizontal red rectangles is it uses:
a) attentional control task
b) automatic attention task
a)
Because reading becomes an automatic process ______ words are often skipped
function/small (ex. of, the)
Stroop effect
- difficulty saying colour of font if word is a different colour
- reading is automatic
- solution: blue eyes
disadvantages of automaticity
- hard to undo/override
- brain is efficient at cutting corners
- even if task is set up, brain will skip things (ex proof reading)
Feature vs conjunction search
feature: easier, autonomic
conjunction: searching but you need to find combo of features to find it
Feature integration theory
- Treisman and Gelade
- Perception occurs in two stages: preattentive (physical features) and attention processes (features glues together)
- you only get true perception of things when you pay attention to it
- fast parallel processing of visual features
Conjunction errors
- attention is not enough
- confused with a near stimuli easier
some jobs require automaticity be avoided to ___________
accurately perform the job without error
Inattentional Blindness
- You see very little when youre not paying attention (Neisser)
- when controlled or conscious attention takes away from noticing other things
- outside of control
- can include purposefully ignoring info to complete a task
Walking and chewing gum at the same time is considered _____ _______
divided attention
Dual task procedure
- have someone do two tasks
- measure performance of primary task then on both tasks to determine if theres a decrease in performance
- Johnston & Heinz (shadow message and flashing light)
t or f: it is the actually act of speaking that takes up the most amount of resources
false, its planning on what you’ll say
PRP (divided attention)
- psychological refractory period
- time between making selections of more than one stimuli
- during points of processing, those processes take up all your resources
- you need to finish one task before doing another, you can recover info but response takes time
real world example of psychological refractory period
fakes in sports games
Damage to the _______ lobe causes attentional neglect
right parietal (damage to left side of visual field)
t or f: attentional neglect is not a sensory level problem
true (but it does affect all senses)
Posner’s attentional cueing paradigm
- attention
- cueing participants right or wrong to see response time
- the way you direct attention helps you focus and react to info
- slow reaction when arrows were in wrong direction
Why is there a time difference between Posner’s attentional cueing paradigm when the arrows were wrong
- participants need to disengage and reorient attention to proper side (disengage, move, and enhance attention)
