Attention Flashcards
Exam 1
What is attention?
The ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations in our environment
Selective Attention
Attending to one thing while ignoring others
Divided Attention
Paying attention to more than one thing at a time
Limited Attention
In Capacity or timing
Overt and Covert
We can consciously attend to information, but some information grabs our attention.
We do not attend to a ____________ fraction of the information in the environment
Large
Dichotic Listening
One message is presented in the left ear and another in the right ear
How did people study selective attention?
Dichotic listening,
In the unattended ear, participants reported that (2)
Knew there was a message and knew the speakers gender
Cocktail party effect
In a loud environment, you can hear certain things through the crowd
Models of selective attention
Early, intermediate, and late selection model
Early selection model
Broadbent’s filter model
Intermediate Selection model
Treisman’s attenuation model
Late selection model
MacKay
Broadbent’s filter model
Early selection model; filtering occurs before meaning is processed of anything; ONLY THE ATTENDED MESSAGE GOES THROUGH THE DETECTOR; NOT USED
Sensory memory
Holds all incoming information for a fraction of a second; temporary storage place that transfers all info to filter
How does the filter work in Broadbent’s model?***
Only the attended message is passed on to the next stage
How does the detector work in Broadbent’s model?
Processes all information to determine higher-level characteristics of the message
Short-term memory
Receives output of detector; holds info for 10-15 seconds
What could Broadbent’s model not explain?
The Cocktail party phenomenon
Why can people shadow meaningful messages and switch from ear to ear
The dear aunt Jane model
Treisman’s attenuation model
Intermediate selection model
What did Treisman’s attenuation model state?
Attended messages can be separated from unattended messages early in the information-processing system; selection can also occur later
What is the attenuator in Treisman’s model?
It analyzes incoming messages in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning.
Treisman’s model said attended message is let through at
Full strength
Treisman’s model said unattended message is let through at
weakened strength
Dictionary unit
Contains words, each of which has a threshold for being activated
Uncommon words have a ________ threshold, while common words have a ________ threshold
Higher; lower
The lower the threshold the __________ it is to be activated
Easier
Late selection models
Selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after information has been analyzed for meaning
MacKay Study
In attended ear, participants heard ambiguous sentences; In the unattended ear, they played misleading words; participants then chose which jambled sentence was closest to the meaning of the original