Attention

Question 1

Attention definition

Answer 1

Phenomenon of processing relevant stimuli and ignoring irrelevant stimuli

Question 2

Selective attention

Answer 2

ability to focus on one thing out of many e.g., reading a book on a train, listening to a conversation

Question 3

Divided attention

Answer 3

the ability to attend to multiple stimuli at once , e.g., talking and driving, listening to music and studying. Tested by asking pps to pay attention to multiple stimuli, this tells us about processing capacity.

Question 4

endogenous attention

Answer 4

deliberate focus on a stimuli, e.g., reading a book on a train

Question 5

Exogenous attention

Answer 5

capture by stimuli, often external e.g., somebody calling your name. Not deliberate, often conflicts with your goals

Question 6

Selective attention

Answer 6

Must filter out irrelevant information somehow. The process of determining which stimuli are relevant and which are not.

Question 7

Dichotic listening task:

Answer 7

Participants with headphones: must attend to the input in one ear and ignore the other.

Question 8

The context in the unattended ear of the dichotic listening task

Answer 8

Participants are aware of low-level properties, i.e. basic characteristics of the signal, speech vs. noise, change in pitch. Participants are unaware of high-level properties, i.e. the content meaning, syntax (whether or not it makes sense)

Question 9

Early selection model (Broadbent 1958)

Answer 9

Filter is placed after the sensory buffer but before systematic analysis, explains sensitivity to physical characteristics but not meaning of the unattended stimuli. Attention acts as a filter to select the more important info. Only allowing selected info through, ignoring irrelevant information. Allows us to focus on the relevant info and not get overwhelmed with all that is available to us.

Question 10

Headphone study for early selection:

Answer 10

Had to listen to both voices in head phones but instead of reporting the numbers back in a sequence they reported all the numbers from the right ear first then the left

Question 10

Evidence for early selection:

Answer 10

difference in processing of attended and unattended streams within 100 ms. Task is much harder when the two streams have same voice- supporting selection based on sensory features.

Question 11

Broadbent’s filter theory

Answer 11

allows input from one channel first then the second channel the sequences are being grouped by input, not the order they were said. Filter based on physical characteristics, one set at a a time

Question 11

Cocktail party effect

Answer 11

So much going on around the room but pay most attention to the topic that is about yourself

Question 12

Problems for early selection

Answer 12

people are sometimes aware of what’s in the unattended stream e.g., salient words if the meaning switches between streams

Question 12

Late selection: (Deutsch and Deutsch, 1963)

Answer 12

The filter is places after systematic analysis. Selection can be made on the basis of both physical characteristics and semantic content. Stimuli remembered if recquired a response

Question 13

Problems for late selection

Answer 13

Secondary task: tap the table whenever you hear the work “green” - in either ear. Shadowed channel 87% taps Non shadowed change: 8%taps. The unattended channel is not semantically processed, even when it requires a response.

Question 14

Attenuation model (Treisman, 1964)

Answer 14

Similar to early selection, except information is moderated rather than filtered out completely. Attended information can be amplified (increase the size) and unattended information attenuated (reduced)

Question 15

Threshold levels

Answer 15

Items over the threshold are passed to working memory, thresholds are lower for salient words

Question 16

Pre attentive research

Answer 16

Red circles pop out from the blue circles

Question 17

Attentive research

Answer 17

Finding F amongst E’s recquired attentive search - serial search for a conjunction of features

Question 18

Feature integration theory

Answer 18

if a single feature (e.g., red) allows detection then it is pre-attentive. If detection requires conjunction of features then it is attentive. Attention is recquired to bind feature’s together

Question 19

Feature integration theory- summary

Answer 19

Fat, parallel processing of single features. Slower, serial processing of feature conjunctions- attention recquired to bind features into objects. Searching for conjunctions of stimuli requires search of every object till the target is located.

Question 20

guided search Wolfe(1998)

Answer 20

Each target feature (red circle) is activated for search. Search restricted to objects with high activation. Non-activated objects are excluded from this “activation map” and easily ignored

Question 21

Visual search summary

Answer 21

Targets (two-stage process) fast processing of features, slower search for conjunctions. Distractors: Easily ignores if no target features are present, targets with the same conjunctions can be rejected together.

Question 22

Auditor