Attention

Question 1

What User Has to Do

Answer 1

1) Selectively attend to different sources of info
2) Distribute attention across multiple sources of info
3) Maintain attention on a single display for long periods of time

Question 2

Attention

Answer 2

Our ability to attend to stimuli is limited. How we direct attention depends on how well we perceive, remember, and act on information.

Question 3

Selective Attention

Answer 3

Determines our ability to focus on certain sources of information and ignore others.

Question 4

Divided Attention

Answer 4

Determines our ability to do more than one thing at once (ex: Driving while talking).

Question 5

Mental Effort

Answer 5

Cognitive demands of a user’s duties.

Question 6

Attention Demanding

Answer 6

Task requires considerable mental effort.

Question 7

Executive Control

Answer 7

Strategies a person adopts to control the flow of information and task performance. Performance depends on this.

Question 8

Models of Attention

Answer 8

1) Bottleneck Models-Early Selection, Late Selection

2) Resource Models- Single Resource, Multiple Resource

Question 9

Bottleneck Models

Answer 9

Specify a particular stage in the information processing sequence where the amount of information we can attend to is limited. Performance decreases as the amount of information stuck at the bottleneck increases.

Question 10

*Early Selection and Late Selection

Answer 10

Refer to where the bottleneck is placed in the information processing sequence. Early selection is closer to perception and people have little awareness of stimulus to which they are not attending. Late selection is closer to response and shows that major reductions in performance are associated with processes that occur after perception.

Question 11

Resource Models

Answer 11

View attention as a limited-capacity resource that can be allocated to one or more tasks, rather than as a fixed bottleneck. Performance decreases as the amount of resources decrease.

Question 12

Single Resource and Multiple Resource

Answer 12

Characterized by the number of resource pools used to perform a task. Single resource is just one, multiple resource is two or more.

Question 13

Executive Control Models

Answer 13

Models that do not hypothesize any capacity limitations. View decrements in performance as a consequence of the need to coordinate and control various aspects of human information processing.

Question 14

Filter Theory (Bottleneck)

Answer 14

Early selection model in which stimuli enter a central processing channel one at a time to be identified. Extraneous messages are filtered out early. (Looking for red squares in a box of toys so you’re going to ignore things that are not red).

Question 15

Filter-attenuation Model (Bottleneck)

Answer 15

Claims an early filter serves only to decrease the signal of an unattended message rather than to block it entirely.

Question 16

Late-selection Model (Bottleneck)

Answer 16

All information comes into the processing sequence but if they are not important, they decay rapidly. Moves bottleneck to later in the processing sequence.

Question 17

Load Theory (Bottleneck)

Answer 17

Whether selection is early or late will depend on whether the perceptual load is high or low. High: early selection. Low: late selection.

Question 18

*Unitary-resource Models

Answer 18

Depicts how people can control how attention is divided across tasks. Performing several tasks at once is not difficult unless the available capacity of attentional resources is exceeded.

Question 19

Dual-task Procedures

Answer 19

Measure performance when attempting to do a primary and secondary task simultaneously. Increased attention to primary task reduced performance on secondary task.

Question 20

Malleable Attentional Resources

Answer 20

When tasks are automized, we pay less attention to them. Performance can suffer when their is mental overload and the task is too easy.

Question 21

*Multiple Resource Model/Theory

Answer 21

States that instead of one resource of attention, there are several distinct cognitive subsystems and each have their own limited pool of resources. Performance of multiple tasks will be better if task dimensions do not overlap. Multi-task performance is often worse when tasks share the same sensory and motor modalities or processing codes.

Question 22

*Executive-Process Interactive Control (EPIC) Theory

Answer 22

Emphasizes importance of strategic coordination of the tasks. Reductions in multiple-task performance are due to the strategies that people adopt to perform different tasks in different manners. Assumes there is no limitation in the capacity of central, cognitive processes.

Question 23

EPIC Example

Answer 23

Present people with two tasks. Stimuli for tasks presented in rapid succession and responses for Task 1 should be made before Task 2. Responses are slower than normal for Task 2 because response is strategically deferred.

Question 24

Selective Listening

Answer 24

Used to present a target message with a distractor message to determine what characteristics of the distractor interfere with the target message by masking the target or confusing the listener.

Question 25

Selective Listening is Easy When…

Answer 25

1. Target message physically distinct from distractor
2. Spatial separation of target and distractor
3. Target and distractor are of different intensities
4. Target and distractor are from different frequency regions

Question 26

Covert Orienting

Answer 26

Observer should be able to selectively attend to a location in the visual field that is different from his/her fixation point. Spotlight metaphor.

Question 27

Endogenous Orienting

Answer 27

Shifting your attention voluntarily.

Question 28

Exogenous Orienting

Answer 28

Involuntary shift of attention. Can happen when observer does not move his eyes.

Question 29

Inhibition of Return

Answer 29

Tendency to avoid returning the the same location (once attention has shifted away from an exogenously cued location).

Question 30

Divided Attention

Answer 30

Problems arise when two or more targets must be identified separately. (Flash green-flip switch, flash red-turn wheel). Prioritizing can help a user divide his attention between sources.

Question 31

Performance-Operating Characteristic (POC) Curve

Answer 31

Trade offs described by this. Baseline performance for each task when performed by itself compared to when the tasks are combined.

Question 32

Independence Point

Answer 32

Point where no attentional limitations arise from doing the two tasks together.

Question 33

Performance Efficiency

Answer 33

The distance between the POC curve and the independence point. Indicator of how efficiently the two tasks can be performed together.

Question 34

Cost of Concurrence

Answer 34

The difference between performance for one task alone and dual-task performance.

Question 35

Arousal and Attention

Answer 35

Theoretically, performance will not decrease at high levels of arousal if attention remains on the task at hand.

Question 36

Perceptual Narrowing

Answer 36

Restriction of attention that occurs under high arousal. Same idea as “tunnel vision”.

Question 37

Vigilance Decrement

Answer 37

A decrease in vigilance (sustained attention) when a task is performed for an extended period of time.

Question 38

Vigilance Task

Answer 38

One in which the user is expected to monitor multiple displays simultaneously while having nothing to do for long periods of time between events.