Attention

Question 1

Stroop effect

Answer 1

When one thing distracts the other

When professing the list of words it interferes with the naming of the colours

Question 2

Bottleneck vs capacity r

Answer 2

The division of limited mental resources
Metal queuing that results from a structural bottleneck
How much of our attention so capacity do we devote to different tasks

Question 3

Focused auditory attention

Answer 3

Listening to one thing

Question 4

Cherrys cocktail party phenomenon

Answer 4

When in a room with many people talking we can attest to one persons speech, ignoring others

Question 5

Broadbent 1958

Answer 5

Attention is all or nothing
The control entry of info to prevent overloading of consciousness/memory on the basis of the physical characteristics of the stimuli

Question 6

Wright et al (electric shock)

Answer 6

Ppts conditioned to be given electric shock to certain word
Ppts shower GSR in the electric shock word when heard in the unattended channel
Even though unaware, still processed it’s meaning

Question 7

Limitations of broadbands model

Answer 7

Some individuals can detect their own name in unattended stimuli
Ability to group info from unattended channel when similar to that in shadowed channel
The existence of implicit learning from unattended stream despite unawareness

Question 8

Deutsch and deutsch - selection takes place ..

Answer 8

At the level of response
All stimuli are fully analysed
Most relevant stimulus determines what response is made

Question 9

Deutsch and Deutsch problems

Answer 9

Simpler theories can account for the phenomenon (not parsimonious)
Not cognitively/evolutionarily economical (why process stimuli at he highest level when most of it is irrelevant)

Question 10

What is attention? (3 things)

Answer 10

Alerting (maintaining arousal)
Executive processing (selective and goal oriented of some things while avoiding others)
Orienting (spatial orienting of mental resources)

Question 11

Treisman (1960) leaky filter

Answer 11

Attenuation theory - info in unattended channel isn’t completely blocked out
It is attenuated or turned down .
When capacity is reached, tests at the top of the hierarchy are prevented

Question 12

So when does selection occur? 3 theories

Answer 12

Broadbent: early
Triesman: sometimes early and sometimes later
Deutsch and Deutsch: late

Question 13

Lavie (2005) early and late selection..

Answer 13

Depends on context
Early: we have lots of perceptual resources and are inclined to use them
Perceptual demands are low - we process more than we need
If high - use early selection filters to process things from one channel
But also post perceptual demands eg working memory
When high we experience slippage and failure to maintain early selection filters
So must use late selection filters

Question 14

Visual search tasks

Answer 14

Search for targets among a series of distractions

Quickly detect a target within a visual display

Question 15

Conjoint search

Answer 15

Where targets and distracters share features, pop out isn’t likely

Question 16

Feature integration theory (FIT)

Answer 16

Features of objects are separable from the object itself
Attention independent
Then a slower, serial process to form objects from combining features
Attention is ‘visual glue’ that binds feature together into a coherent percept

Question 17

Attentional engagement theory (AET)

Answer 17

Argues that search time depends not only on similarities between target and distracter - but also a degree of sims in the distracters themselves

Question 18

Spotlight model

Answer 18

Posner (1980)
Attention is to locations rather than objects
Ranges over entire physical world and can be focused on a particular spatial location

Question 19

Divided attention - capacity

Answer 19

How much of our attention can we devote to different tasks?

Dual task methodology (2 concurrent tasks)

Question 20

Strayer et al (2003) driving task

Answer 20

Follow car ahead, break when car breaks, keeping safe distance
Converse with confederate about interesting topic, 50% talking and 50% listening
In high density traffic 3 out of 40 had collisions
Breaking was slower on phones
Kept a bigger distance

Question 21

Watson and strayer 2010 multi task

Answer 21

Driving without distraction to it paired with memory span test
Out of 200, 5 identified as ‘super taskers’