ATTENTION Flashcards
“Attention is the taking possession of the mind, in
clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem
several simultaneously possible objects or trains of
thoughts… it implies withdrawal from some things in
order to deal effectively with others.”
William James
We select and process a limited amount of
information; captured by our senses, our stored
memories and other cognitive processes.
Attention
Ability to attend a field of stimulation over a
prolonged period
•
Watchfully waits to detect a signal stimulus that
may appear at an unknown time
•
Needed in setting in which a given stimulus
occurs rarely but requires immediate attention as
soon it occurs.
VIGILANCE
-people pick out
the important stimuli embedded in a wealth of
irrelevant, distracting stimuli.
-Often used to measure sensitivity to target’s
presence.
Signal Detection
Includes both conscious and unconscious
processes.
Attention
allows us to use our limited mental
resources judiciously. We can focus more on the
stimuli that interest us by focusing less on
outside stimuli and inner stimuli that are not of
interest to us
Attention
4 MAIN FUNCTIONS
(ATTENTION)
Signal detection and Vigilance
Search
Selective Attention
Divided Attention
•
Involves using our attentioinal resources to
actively and often skillfully seek out a target.
•
Scan of the environment for particular features -
actively looking for something when you are not
sure where it will appear.
Search
-2 Different Kinds of Searches-
Feature search
Conjunction search
Used in signal detection theory
SIGNAL DETECTION MATRIX
4 possible outcomes of signal detection
Hits - “true positives”
False alarms- “false positives”
Misses-“false negatives”
Correct rejections -“true negatives”
•
Anne Treisman (1986)
• Nobel laureates David Hubel and Torsten
Wiesel (1979)
•
explains why it is relatively easy to conduct
feature searches and relatively difficult to
conduct conjunction searches
Feature Integration Theory (FIT)
2 Stages when we perceive objects
- color and size
- Connecting 2 or more features with some
“mental glue”
The more similar target and distracter are, the
more difficult it is to find the target.
•
The difficulty of search tasks depends on how
different distracters are from each other. But it
does not depend on the number of features to be
integrated.
Similarity Theory
True or False. THEORIES OF DIVIDED ATTENTION
- One model suggests that one single pool of
attentional resources can be divided freely. - Another model suggests multiple sources of
attention are available, one for each modality.
True
Initial performance was
poor for the two tasks when the tasks had to be
performed at the same time (enough practice,
participants improved)
Dual-Task Paradigm
Dichotic Presentation
Attended inputs > 👱< Unattended inputs
•
Collin Cherry (1953)
•
Cocktail Party Problem - tracking one
conversation while distracted by other
conversation
•
He devised a task known as shadowing -
listening to two different messages.
•
“Dichotic Presentation” - he presented a separate
message to each ear.
Selective Attention
FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE OUR
ABILITY TO PAY ATTENTION
- anxiety
- arousal
- task difficulty
- skills
Being “prepared” to attend to some incoming event,
and maintaining this attention.
Alerting
The selection of stimuli to attend to.
-This kind of attention is needed when we perform a
visual search
Orienting
- includes processes for monitoring and resolving
conflicts that arise among internal process
Executive attention
WHEN OUR
ATTENTION FAILS US
-Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
-Change blindness/inattentional blindness
Three primary symptoms of
ADHD are:
Inattention
Hyperactivity
Impulsiveness
