attention

Question 1

what is attention?

Answer 1

ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations in our environment

selective - attending to one thing while ignoring others

divided - paying attention to more than one thing

Question 2

distractions

Answer 2

one stimulus interferon with the processing of another

Question 3

attentional capture

Answer 3

rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise or sudden movement

Question 4

visual scanning

Answer 4

movement of the eyes from one location or object to another

Question 5

dichotic listening

Answer 5

different messages presented to each ear
pay attention to one and shadow (ignore) the other

cannot report content of unattended message
- knew there was a message
- knew gender of speaker
processed at some level but not fully

Question 6

where does attention filtering occur?

Answer 6

early selection model - Broadbent’s filter model
intermediate selection model - Treisman’s attenuation model
late selection model - MacKay

Question 7

Broadbent’s filter model (early selection)

Answer 7

filter message before incoming information analysed for meaning

only attended message goes through filter

detector processes content before entering memory

Question 8

process of Broadbent’s filter model

Answer 8

sensory memory
- holds all incoming information for fraction of a second
- transfers all information to next stage

filter
- identifies attended message based on physical characteristics
- only attended message passed on

detectors
- processes all information from attended
- determines higher level characteristics

short term memory
- receives output of detector
- holds information for 10-15 seconds and moves to long term

Question 9

limitations of Broadbent’s model

Answer 9

cocktail party phenomenon

model suggests we shouldn’t be aware of information in unattended message but we can be

Question 10

Treisman’s attenuation model (intermediate selection)

Answer 10

selection of attended message occurs later

doesn’t involve complete filtering
leaves some attention capacity to be open to relevant environmental information

Question 11

process of Treisman’s model

Answer 11

attenuator - stage 1
analyses incoming message in terms of
physical characteristics
language
meaning

attended message let through at full strength
unattended let through weaker

dictionary unit - stage 2
contains words, each of which has threshold for being activated

words that are common or important have low thresholds - hearing them attracts attention easier

uncommon words have high thresholds - less likely to pay attention to them

Question 12

MacKay (late selection)

Answer 12

selection does not occur until after meaning has been processed

processing capacity
how much information a person can handle at any given moment

perceptual load
the difficulty of a given task

low load tasks = take up less processing capacity
- more resources for processing unattended task

high load tasks = more capacity
- uses all cognitive resources

Question 13

Stroop test

Answer 13

name of word interferes with the ability to name the colour

cannot avoid paying attention to meanings of the words

because reading is highly trained and automated

Question 14

training effects

Answer 14

more often you do a task
better you get at it
more automated it becomes

means less processing capacity is taken up
reduced cognitive load

Question 15

overt attention

Answer 15

observable attention
eg in eye movements

Question 16

measurable eye movements

Answer 16

saccades - rapid eye movements from one place to another

fixations - short pauses on points of interest

track the dilation of the pupil
can indicate emotion or stress

Question 17

bottom up determinant of eye movements

Answer 17

salience of stimuli

how important they are or easily they attract attention

areas or objects that stand out attract attention
high salience = pay more attention

contrast, motion and colour = high

Question 18

top down determinants of eye movements

Answer 18

scene schemas

knowledge about what is contained in a typical scene

exceptions affect what we pay attention to

help guide fixations from one area to another
affected by knowledge - top down

Question 19

covert attention

Answer 19

attention without eye movements

tested using cueing procedure

Question 20

cueing procedure

Answer 20

participant presented with cues (words or phrases) to aid recall of previous stimuli

cues show directions and some location
subtraction method used to determine response times

attention to location - participants respond faster to target at expected location even when eyes fixated

Question 21

divided attention

Answer 21

practise enables people to simultaneously do 2 things at once that were difficult before

atomised and highly practised tasks mean attention can be divided to other things
depends on difficulty

better with practice
automatic processing occurs without intentions and only uses some of a persons cognitive resources

Question 22

feature integration theory

Answer 22

every object has multiple features that need to be integrated after feature detectors have processed them individually

mostly bottom up processing
top down processing influences when participants told what they would see

Question 23

stages of FIT

Answer 23

pre attentive stage
- object analysed into separate features
- automatic - no effort or attention, unaware of process

focussed attention stage
- attention plays key role to combine features
- features are combined so we can consciously perceive an object

Question 24

illusory conjunction

Answer 24

a situation which features from different objects are inappropriately combined
people report combination of features from different stimuli

occurs as features are free floating, combined the second stage of FIT called the focus attention stage

Question 25

Blinding Problem

Answer 25

blinding = process by which features (colour, form, location etc) are combined to create our perception of an object

blinding problem = problem of expelling how an objects individual features become bound together
- explained by Treisman’s FIT

Question 26

Balint’s syndrome

Answer 26

parietal lobe damage
caused inability to focus attention on individual objects
caused issues with focused attention stage

high number of illusory conjunctions reported

Question 27

neural correlates of attention

Answer 27

attention networks in brain

attention network
- more active during tasks
- engaged attention

default mode network
- more active at rest
- mind-wandering