Attention Flashcards
What are the two methods of studying attention?
Selective and divided
What is selective attention?
being presented with two or more simultaneous messages and only processing and responding to one of them
What is a way to practice selective attention?
the shadowing method
What is the shadowing method?
one message being fed into the left ear and a different message into the right (through headphones) and people verbally relay one of the messages as they hear it
Which researcher put shadowing into practice?
Cherry (1953)
Why is Cherry (1953) important to Moray’s study?
it is the background
What is divided attention?
a dual-task technique where people attend and respond to all messages - deliberately dividing people’s attention
What is the nature of attention?
selective
What did Broadbent (1958) suggest?
that the world is composed of many more sensations than can be handled by the perceptual and cognitive capabilities of a human observer
How does Broadbent (1958) relate to selective attention?
That to cope with floods of information humans must selectively attend to only some information based on physical properties
What are examples of some physical properties of attention?
- colour
- loudness
- pitch
- direction
How does Broadbent (1958) describe attention?
As a limited-capacity information-processing system
What did most early models of attention assume?
assumed serial processing, a step-by-step process
What was Broadbent’s (1958) model?
the filter model
Who followed Broadbent (1958)?
Treisman (1964)
What was Treisman’s (1964) model?
the attenuation model
What is attenuation?
turning down the volume
How does Treisman relate to Broadbent?
follows / agrees with Broadbent’s points but adds the attenuation point:
attenuation > elimination of unattended info
Who followed Treisman (1964)?
Deutsch & Deutsch (1963) ; Norman (1969)
What was the Deutsch & Deutsch (1963) ; Norman (1969) model?
the pertinence model
What does the Deutsche x2 model suggest?
- meaning is processed first
- decide whether it is important
- relevent items are stored in the STM
What did early attempts to explain divided attention believe?
serial processing (same of selective)
Who was the researcher who first began exploring divided attention?
Kahneman (1973)
What was Kahneman’s (1973) explanation for divided attention?
central capacity theory
Who disagreed with the divided attention being serial processing?
Allport (1980)
What was Allport (1980) theory about divided attention?
multi-channel theory
What did the multi-channel theory suggest?
that two or more operations can be carried out at the same time
