Attention

Question 1

What is attention?

Answer 1

The act of consciously or unconsciously putting focus on internal or external stimuli

Question 2

Name some clinical contexts for attention

Answer 2

• ADHD
• Anxiety
• Schizophrenia
• Neglect

Question 3

Describe the key feature of attention

Answer 3

Attention is a limited capacity resource, if it were not we would be able to attend to every stimulus and thought we experience

Question 4

Name 5 types of attention

Answer 4

1. selective attention
2. sustained attention
3. divided attention
4. overt attention
5. covert attention

Question 5

Describe selective attention

Answer 5

Focusing attention on certain information while ignoring other information (AKA focused attention)

Question 6

Describe sustained attention

Answer 6

Maintaining focused attention on a certain task

Question 7

Describe divided attention

Answer 7

Multi-tasking, focusing on more than one input (this highlights capacity limits as two tasks done together are not done as well had they been done individually)

Question 8

Describe overt attention

Answer 8

Looking directly at what you are focused on

Question 9

Describe covert attention

Answer 9

Not looking directly at what you are focused on, this can be both voluntary and involuntary

Question 10

What methods can we use to study attention?

Answer 10

• eye tracking to look at visual attention

- reaction time experiments

Question 11

How can we study visual attention?

Answer 11

Eye tracking is used to observe what is being directly looked at during a task, however visual attention can move without moving the eyes

Question 12

Name some reaction time experiments which can be used to study attention

Answer 12

• spatial attention test
• visual search task
• distractor effects test
• attentional capture task

Question 13

Describe the function of a spatial attention task

Answer 13

This measures the time taken to react after valid/invalid cues. People are typically slower to respond to invalid cues. This works with both endogenous (arrow) and exogenous (highlighting) cues

Question 14

Describe the function of a visual search task

Answer 14

Tests reaction times for finding pop-out targets compared with conjunction targets. More non-targets does no affect pop-out but does affect conjunction target finding. It is hard to attend to e.g. both colour and shape at the same time

Question 15

Describe the function of a distractor effects task

Answer 15

If including an irrelevant stimulus causes reaction time to increase, we can assume that attention has been distracted e.g. Stoop Task
Responses are typically slower when distractors are incongruent
Even spatially separated distractors cannot be ignored

Question 16

Describe the function of an attentional capture task

Answer 16

We can assume attention has been captured by a stimulus if it slows us down when it is irrelevant

Question 17

Describe early selection processing

Answer 17

Attending to information based on its physical characteristics, the only the selected information gets processed to meaning

Question 18

Describe late selection processing

Answer 18

Attending to information based on the meaning behind it

Question 19

Describe the Cocktail Party Effect

Answer 19

The ability to focus on a particular stimulus where there are many distractors

Question 20

Describe the experiment which showed the Cocktail Party Effect

Answer 20

Colin Cherry’d dichotic listening task, different information input in each each, ppts are told to only attend to one ear.

Question 21

Describe some effects shown in Colin Cherrys dichotic listening task

Answer 21

Participants could usually report some physical characteristics of the unattended message but not;

• Foreign languages
• Reversed speech
• Content of the speech

Question 22

What is Broadbent’s Filter Theory?

Answer 22

Filtering occurs before incoming stimuli are analysed to the semantic level (surface features are analysed but not meaning)

Question 23

List the features of Broadbent’s Filter Theory

Answer 23

Sensory store
Filter
Detector
Short-term memory

Question 24

What does the sensory store do?

Answer 24

Holds incoming information for short periods of time

Question 25

What does a filter do?

Answer 25

Analyses messages based on physical characteristics

Question 26

What does a detector do?

Answer 26

Processes the information to determine meaning

Question 27

What does the short-term memory do?

Answer 27

Holds information for general processing

Question 28

Describe what Moray found in relation to early selection

Answer 28

The 1959 study found that subjects heard and recognised their name when it was said in the unattended stream

Question 29

Describe what Triesman (1960) found in relation to early selection

Answer 29

Bilinguals were influenced by the unattended stream when it was in their second language

Question 30

Describe what Gray and Weddeburn (1960) found in relation to early selection

Answer 30

Participants mixed up the information from the attended and unattended stream to make more sense of it

Question 31

Describe Triesman’s Attenuation Model

Answer 31

An early selection theory in which unattended messages are attenuated rather than lost. Words need to meet a certain threshold to be detected. One’s name has a lower threshold so is easily detected

Question 32

Describe late selection processing

Answer 32

Both attended and ignored inputs are processed to the stage of semantic processing. Selection is based on the importance the response carries

Question 33

Describe what MacKay (1973) found in relation to late selection processing

Answer 33

When the attended stream is an ambiguous sentence and the unattended stream is biasing words, the interpretation of the attended stream is influenced

Question 34

Describe the negative priming effects found by Tipper and Driver (1988)

Answer 34

Responses to previously ignored stimuli are slowed as the ignored stimuli is semantically categorised and inhibited

Question 35

Describe Lavie’s Load Theory

Answer 35

Both early and late selection are possible, which occurs depends on the availability of perceptual capacity

Question 36

According to Load Theory when does early selection occur?

Answer 36

During tasks with HIGH perceptual load, capacity is exhausted so irrelevant distractors are filtered or attenuated early

Question 37

According to Load Theory when does late selection occur?

Answer 37

During tasks with LOW perceptual load there is spare capacity which means irrelevant distractors are automatically processed

Question 38

What evidence is there for Load Theory?

Answer 38

• Response competition
• Inattentional blindness
• Neuroimaging

Question 39

How does response competition show Load Theory?

Answer 39

Distractor interference is almost eliminated when it is similar to the target, however an irrelevant distractor slows reaction time

Question 40

Describe inattentional blindness and its evidence for Load Theory

Answer 40

Participants with a low load task were far more likely to notice irrelevant stimuli than participants on a high low task

Question 41

Describe the evidence for Load Theory using neuroimaging

Answer 41

Schwartz et al. found that a high perceptual load decreases the visual cortex’s response to a tasks background
Bishop et al. found that a high perceptual load decreases the amygdala’s response to fearful faces

Question 42

Describe top-down attentional control

Answer 42

Voluntarily exerting mental control to direct where your attention goes (goal driven/endogenous/executive control)

Question 43

Describe bottom-up attentional control

Answer 43

Involuntarily paying attention to a stimulus based on its physical properties (exogenous/reflexive attention)

Question 44

Describe Biased Competition Theory

Answer 44

Top-down control mechanisms and bottom-up sensory drive mechanisms sensitive to stimulus salience compete among multiple stimuli for representation

Question 45

Describe Stimulus Driven Attentional Selection

Answer 45

Certain stimuli can capture attention due to;

• High salience
• Movement/ abrupt onset
• Relevance

Question 46

Describe Theeuwes (1992) experiment on Salient Colour Singletons

Answer 46

Participants are asked to find the odd shape (colour should be irrelevant), reaction times were slowed by a coloured singleton distractor = complete top-down selectivity is not possible

Question 47

Describe Theeuwes (1992) Two-Stage approach to attention

Answer 47

First stage; the initial sweep across the visual field is entirely bottom-up, attention the goes to the area of highest salience
Second stage; if the selected area is not the target the location is inhibited and attention is shifted to the next most salient location

Question 48

Describe the Attentional Window

Answer 48

Stimulus driven selection only takes place within in attentional window which is dictated by spatial cues. Singletons located outside the cued location do not capture attention

Question 49

Describe what was found by Folk and Remington (1992) in relation to contingent capture

Answer 49

Attentional capture is not stimulus driven, attention can only be captured by stimuli that are relevant to our goals

Question 50

Describe an example where stimulus driven attentional capture takes place

Answer 50

Abrupt onsets can produce attentional capture, could be an evolutionary feature used to detect danger

Question 51

Name some features which can capture attention

Answer 51

• Abrupt onset
• Moving/looming stimulus (but not receding)
• Personal relevance to observer
• Familiarity with stimuli
• Association with reward