Attention

Question 1

Divided attention

Answer 1

The ability to pay attention to, or carry out, two or more different tasks simultaneously.

Question 2

Attention

Answer 2

Focusing on specific features, objects, or locations or on certain thoughts or activities.

Question 3

Selective attention

Answer 3

The ability to focus on one message and ignore all others.

Question 4

Distraction

Answer 4

Occurs when one stimulus interferes with attention to or the processing of another stimulus.

Question 5

Attentional capture

Answer 5

A rapid shifting of attention, usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement.

Question 6

Filter model of attention

Answer 6

Model of attention that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli.

Question 7

Visual scanning

Answer 7

Movement of the eyes from one location or object to another.

Question 8

Cocktail party effect

Answer 8

The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli, especially at a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations.

Question 9

Dichotic listening

Answer 9

The procedure of presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear.

Question 10

Shadowing

Answer 10

The procedure of repeating a message out loud as it is heard. Shadowing is commonly used in conjunction with studies of selective attention that use the dichotic listening procedure.

Question 11

Filter

Answer 11

In Broadbent’s model of attention, the filter identifies the message that is being attended to based on its physical characteristics—things like the speaker’s tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, and accent—and lets only this attended message pass through to the detector in the next stage.

Question 12

Detector

Answer 12

In Broadbent’s model of attention, the detector processes the information from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning.

Question 13

Attenuation model of attention

Answer 13

Anne Treisman’s model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages. In the first stage, an attenuator analyzes the incoming message and lets through the attended message—and also the unattended message, but at a lower (attenuated) strength.

Question 14

Attenuator

Answer 14

In Treisman’s model of selective attention, the attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning. Attended messages pass through the attenuator at full strength, and unattended messages pass through with reduced strength.

Question 15

Early selection model

Answer 15

Model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering out of the unattended message. In Broadbent’s early selection model, the filtering step occurs before the message is analyzed to determine its meaning.

Question 16

Dictionary unit

Answer 16

A component of Treisman’s attenuation model of attention. This processing unit contains stored words and thresholds for activating the words. The dictionary unit helps explain why we can sometimes hear a familiar word, such as our name, in an unattended message. See also Attenuation model of attention.

Question 17

Late selection models of attention

Answer 17

A model of selective attention that proposes that selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning.

Question 18

High-load tasks

Answer 18

A task that uses most or all of a person’s resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks.

Question 19

Low-load tasks

Answer 19

A task that uses few resources, leaving some capacity to handle other tasks.

Question 20

Processing capacity

Answer 20

The amount of information input that a person can handle. This sets a limit on the person’s ability to process information.

Question 21

Perceptual load

Answer 21

Related to the difficulty of a task. Low-load tasks use only a small amount of a person’s processing capacity. High-load tasks use more of the processing capacity.

Question 22

Load theory of attention

Answer 22

Proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out. High-load tasks result in less distraction.

Question 23

Stroop effect

Answer 23

An effect originally studied by J. R. Stroop, using a task in which a person is instructed to respond to one aspect of a stimulus, such as the color of ink that a word is printed in, and ignore another aspect, such as the color that the word names. The Stroop effect refers to the fact that people find this task difficult when, for example, the word RED is printed in blue ink.

Question 24

Fixation

Answer 24

In problem solving, people’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution. In perception and attention, a pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene.

Question 25

Saliency map

Answer 25

Map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the scene.

Question 26

Saccadic eye movement

Answer 26

Eye movements from one fixation point to another.

Question 27

Stimulus salience

Answer 27

Bottom-up factors that determine attention to elements of a scene. Examples are color, contrast, and orientation. The meaningfulness of the images, which is a top-down factor, does not contribute to stimulus salience.

Question 28

Overt attention

Answer 28

Shifting of attention by moving the eyes. Contrasts with Covert attention.

Question 29

Covert attention

Answer 29

Occurs when attention is shifted without moving the eyes, commonly referred to as seeing something “out of the corner of one’s eye.” Contrasts with Overt attention.

Question 30

Precueing

Answer 30

A procedure in which participants are given a cue that will usually help them carry out a subsequent task. This procedure has been used in visual attention experiments in which participants are presented with a cue that tells them where to direct their attention.

Question 31

Same-object advantage

Answer 31

Occurs when the enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object, so that attention to one place on an object results in a facilitation of processing at other places on the object.

Question 32

Mind wandering

Answer 32

Thoughts that come from within a person, often unintentionally. In early research this was called daydreaming.

Question 33

Experience sampling

Answer 33

A procedure that was developed to answer the question, “what percentage of the time during the day are people engaged in a specific behavior?” One way this has been achieved is by having people report what they are doing when they receive signals at random times during the day.

Question 34

Attentional warping

Answer 34

Occurs when the map of categories on the brain changes to make more space for categories that are being searched for as a person attends to a scene.

Question 35

Automatic processing

Answer 35

Processing that occurs automatically, without the person’s intending to do it, and that also uses few cognitive resources. Automatic processing is associated with easy or well-practiced tasks.

Question 36

Inattentional blindness

Answer 36

Not noticing something even though it is in clear view, usually caused by failure to pay attention to the object or the place where the object is located.

Question 37

Inattentional deafness

Answer 37

Occurs when inattention causes a person to miss an auditory stimulus. For example, experiments have shown that it is more difficult to detect a tone when engaged in a difficult visual search task.

Question 38

Change detection

Answer 38

Detecting differences between pictures or displays that are presented one after another.

Question 39

Visual search

Answer 39

Occurs when a person is looking for one stimulus or object among a number of other stimuli or objects.

Question 40

Continuity errors

Answer 40

In film, changes that occur from one scene to another that do not match, such as when a character reaches for a croissant in one shot, which turns into a pancake in the next shot.

Question 41

Change blindness

Answer 41

Difficulty in detecting changes in similar, but slightly different, scenes that are presented one after another. The changes are often easy to see once attention is directed to them but are usually undetected in the absence of appropriate attention.

Question 42

Binding

Answer 42

Process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create perception of a coherent object.

Question 43

Feature integration theory

Answer 43

An approach to object perception, developed by Anne Treisman, that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object.

Question 44

Binding problem

Answer 44

The problem of explaining how an object’s individual features become bound together.

Question 45

Preattentive stage

Answer 45

The first stage of Treisman’s feature integration theory, in which an object is analyzed into its features.

Question 46

Illusory conjunctions

Answer 46

A situation, demonstrated in experiments by Anne Treisman, in which features from different objects are inappropriately combined.

Question 47

Focused attention stage

Answer 47

The second stage of Treisman’s feature integration theory. According to the theory, attention causes the combination of features into perception of an object.

Question 48

Balint’s syndrome

Answer 48

A condition caused by brain damage in which a person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects.

Question 49

Feature search

Answer 49

Searching among distractors for a target item that involves detecting one feature, such as “horizontal.”

Question 50

Conjunction search

Answer 50

Searching among distractors for a target that involves two or more features, such as “horizontal” and “green.”

Question 51

Ventral attention network

Answer 51

A network that controls attention based on stimulus salience.

Question 52

Effective connectivity

Answer 52

How easily activity can travel along a particular pathway between two structures.

Question 53

Executive functions

Answer 53

A number of processes that involve controlling attention and dealing with conflicting responses.

Question 54

Cognitive control

Answer 54

A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli. Related to executive function, inhibitory control, and willpower.

Question 55

Dorsal attention network

Answer 55

A network that controls attention based on top-down processing.

Question 56

Synchronisation

Answer 56

Occurs when neural responses become synchronized in time, so positive and negative responses occur at the same time and with similar amplitudes. It has been proposed that synchronization is a mechanism responsible for enhanced effective connectivity and enhanced communication between two areas that accompany shifts of attention.

Question 57

Inhibitory control

Answer 57

A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli. Related to executive function, cognitive control and willpower.

Question 58

Executive attention network

Answer 58

A complex network that is involved in controlling executive functions.

Question 59

Willpower

Answer 59

A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli. Related to executive function, inhibitory control, and cognitive control.

Question 60

Gray and Wedderburn

Answer 60

(1960) “Dear Aunt Jane” experiment, participants were told to shadow the message presented to the left ear. But they reported hearing the message “Dear Aunt Jane,” which starts in the left ear, jumps to the right ear, and then goes back to the left ear.