Attention

Question 1

What is attention?

Answer 1

• Focusing on one set of sensation

* Attention is like $, once you use it it is gone.

Question 2

Overt Attention

Answer 2

• Eye movements, attention & perception
• Saccads (rapid movements of the eyes from 1 place to the other)
• Fixations (short pauses on pts. of interest, tracked with eye tracking devices)

Question 3

Broadbents Filter Model

Answer 3

1. Sensory register (all of the diff. things you can pay attention to)
2. Filter (of all occurring 1 will get your attention & proceed through the model)
3. Detector (Perceptual process)
4. Response (Assign memory)

Question 4

When was broadbents filter model supported?

Answer 4

When focusing on the ball counts & ppl. didn’t notice the gorilla passing by

Question 5

What does filter mean in broadbents filter model?

Answer 5

• Attend msg based on physical characteristics (ex: gender of speaker)

Question 6

Detector in broadbents filter model

Answer 6

• processes all characteristics that has to do with the message to determine high level characteristics of the message

Question 7

Selective attention

Answer 7

• Ability to focus on 1 message & ignore all others
• Allows us to filter out some info. & hold on to others for processing at a later time
• We do not attend to a large fraction of the info in the enviornment

Question 8

Cherry (1953)

Answer 8

• Shadowing: listen 2 two distinct msg. & repeat it back
• Binaural presentation: presented to both ears
• Dichotic (2 parts, 2 diff msgs)
- demanding tasks tell you what ear to pay attention to
- 2 diff. msgs recieved
- could not report the content/meaning of the unattended ear, but could pick up details such as the gender, pitch, rhythm, tone, knew there was a message

Question 9

Cocktail party effect

Answer 9

hearing your name at a party even if you are engaged in a conversation

Question 10

Treisman’s Attenuation Model

Answer 10

1. Sensory Register
2. Attenuation Control Filter
3. Perceptual processes (dictionary unit)
4. Response

Question 11

Attenuator

Answer 11

• Analyzes incoming msgs. in terms of physical characteristics
• Gender
• Meaning
• Language

Question 12

Goal director in Treisman’s Model

Answer 12

• If goal is to detect male only first step is necessary (sensory register)

Question 13

Dictionary Unit in Treisman’s Model

Answer 13

• Common or important = low threshold (my name)

Question 14

Treisman’s intermediate-selection model

Answer 14

• Can happen after sensory register or before response
• Early filter
• Late filter

Question 15

Early filter

Answer 15

• Choose what we pay attention to

Question 16

Late filter

Answer 16

• Processing info we don’t need

Question 17

McKay (1973)

Answer 17

• Attending ear= hear ambiguous sentences
“They were throwing stones at the bank”
• Unattended ear= bias word played w/o their knowledge to make participants come up with a meaning
$ or river
• Came up with meaning based on bias word, which means that the word said on the unattended ear was processed= supported late selection model

Question 18

What evidence did researchers find in regards to late or early selection models?

Answer 18

• Early & intermediate, depends on the task demand

Question 19

Task load

Answer 19

• How much cognitive resources are used to accomplish a task

* Do we have limited sources?

Question 20

Low-Load

Answer 20

• Automatic cognition
• uses few resources
• ex: driving home, low load under certain circumstances

Question 21

High Load

Answer 21

• Controlled cognition

* Uses almost all cognition resources

Question 22

What is an example of a high load task?

Answer 22

• Reading a text book to study

* Driving under dangerous conditions