Attention

Question 1

• Divided Attention:

Answer 1

attention is a limited resource. Can’t split it very well. Doing 2x at once you end up switching between tasks rather than doing them simultaneously. Divided attention occurs when an individual must perform two tasks which require attention, simultaneously.

Question 2

• Joint attention

Answer 2

• Joint attention is the focusing of attention on an object by two separate individuals.

Question 3

• Directed attention

Answer 3

• Directed attention allows attention to be focused sustainably on a single task

Question 4

• Attention

Answer 4

• Attention: focus/concentrating on something at the exclusion of the other stimuli in environment.

Question 5

selective attention:

Answer 5

selective attention: Only have the ability to focus on one thing at the exclusion of everything else.

• Selective attention is the ability to maintain attention on a single task while being presented with masking or interfering stimuli.

-It’s like a flashlight on your attention –you can move it around at any spot. At any given moment illuminating one area of interest.

Question 6

o 2 types of cues that can direct our attention

Answer 6

exogenous and endogenous

Question 7

 Exogenous /External Cues:

Answer 7

Don’t have to tell ourselves to look for them in order for them to capture our attention Ex. Bright colors, loud noises, “pop-out effect”)
• Exogenous attention is driven by bottom-up or external events, i.e. pop-out.

Question 8

 Endogenous Cues / Internal Cues -

Answer 8

• Require internal knowledge to understand the cue and — - the intention to follow it Ex. A mouse arrow, would need internal arrow of what an arrow is to follow it and to know it’s not just a random line.
  • Endogenous attention is driven by top–down or internal events, i.e. the cocktail effect.

Question 9

• Cocktail party effect –

Answer 9

ability to concentrate on one voice amongst a crowd. Or when someone calls your name (endogenous cue..meaning of name draws attention)

Question 10

• Inattentional blindness – aka Perceptual Blindness

Answer 10

o Inattentional blindness is the inability to recognize an unexpected object, event, or stimulus that is in ‘plain sight’. This is due to a psychological lapse in attention, rather than a defect or deficit in sensory perception.

-we’re not aware of things in our visual field when our attention is directed elsewhere in that field.

Question 11

• Change blindness –

Answer 11

• Change blindness – fail to notice changes from a previous to a current state in environment. (Different from inattentional blindness, a subtle but importance difference) ex: don’t notice when your mom gets a haircut.
o Ex. Famous study done where a person asks a stranger in a big city to give directions. The person is swapped with another person and the direction giver does not notice that this was a different person that they were now giving directions too

Question 12

• Distal stimuli

Answer 12

• Distal stimuli are objects and events out in the world about you. Aware of and respond to this – this is what is important. ex. an external object that reflects light
- corresponds to what is generally considered the “actual” object in the environment.

Question 13

• Proximal stimuli

Answer 13

• Proximal stimuli are the patterns of stimuli from these objects and events that actually reach your senses (eyes, ears, etc.). It is the light that is actually falling on the retina.
The proximal stimulus is generally defined as the pattern of energy impinging on the observer’s sensory receptors. The observer depends most directly on proximal stimuli, not distal stimuli, in perceiving his world.

Question 14

• Covert orienting

Answer 14

• Covert orienting is the act of bringing the spotlight of attention on an object or event without body or eye movement.

Question 15

• Overt orienting

Answer 15

• Overt orienting, a person turns all or part of the body to alter or maximize the sensory impact of an event.

Question 16

• Attentional capture

Answer 16

• Attentional capture occurs when attention is attracted by the motion of an object or stimulus.

Question 17

• Neglect syndrome

Answer 17

• Neglect syndrome - occurs when damage to the brain causes a change or loss in the capacity of the spatial dimension of divided attention.

Question 18

• Vigilance/sustained attention and signal detection

Answer 18

• Vigilance attention and signal detection are processes that attempt to detect a signal or target of interest. This allows responses to be primed and quick actions undertaken in response to the signal or target of interest, i.e. a pothole in the road is detected and avoidance actions are undertaken.

Question 19

Neurotransmitter modulation of Alerting Attention

Answer 19

Neurotransmitter modulation of this attentional network is associated with norepinephrine produced in the locus ceruleus.
-more practiced/skilled at task, less attention required
-alerting attention decreases with age
• Previous practice on any skill will improve performance.
Alerting attention - is the process involved in becoming and staying attentive toward the surroundings.

Question 20

• Orienting attention

Answer 20

• Orienting attention involves the capacity to change the focus of attention from one stimulus to another stimulus. This network is predominantly modulated by acetylcholine produced in the basal forebrain.
o Basal forebrain: The basal forebrain is a collection of structures located to the front of and below the striatum. It includes the nucleus accumbens, nucleus basalis,, and medial septal nuclei. These structures are important in the production of acetylcholine, which is then distributed widely throughout the brain. The basal forebrain is considered to be the major cholinergic output of the central nervous system (CNS).

Question 21

• Executive attention

Answer 21

• Executive attention is involved in goal-directed behavior, monitoring conflicts between internal processes, and anticipating the effects of behavior. Dopamine from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) is associated with executing attention.

Question 22

• Selective Attention

Answer 22

ability to focus on task at hand while ignoring other information.

Question 23

• Shadowing task

Answer 23

• Shadowing task – Experiment that studies selective attention. In this task you are wearing headphones and they have two different sounds in each. Left ear hear one thing, right ear another thing. Told to repeat everything said in one ear and ignore the other. Focus on one ear and ignore the other (selective attention). Based on the unattended information that we do and don’t end up comprehending - we can learn about how selective attention works by seeing what they filter out in other ear.

Question 24

Broadbent’s Early Selection Theory –

Answer 24

o All information in environment goes into sensory register (which briefly registers/stores EVERYTHING/all sensory information you receive such as words, clicks, sirens, etc) then the info gets transferred to selective filter right away which identifies what you are supposed to be attending too via basic physical characteristics and filters out stuff in unattended ear based on things you don’t need to understand to identify (based on voice, pitch, speed, accents, etc) and finally information moves to perceptual processes identifies friend’s voice and assigns meaning to words. Then you can engage in other cognitive processes such as deciding how to respond.
 Sensory register -> selective filter -> perceptual process -> Conscious/cognitive processes.
o Some problems – if you completely filter out unattended info, shouldn’t be able identify your own name in unattended ear  but, you can as explained by Cocktail party effect.
o Acronym: someone with the last name Broadbent just filters out everything except what she/he wants to hear

Question 25

Deutch & Deutch’s Late Selection Theory

Answer 25

o Places Broadband selective filter after perceptual processes. This means that you DO register and assign everything meaning but then selective filter decides what you pass on to conscious awareness.
 Deutsch and Deutsch’s late selection theory moved the selective filter from before perception to after the perceptual process.
 Sensory register -> perceptual process -> selective filter -> Conscious
o Some problems – This whole process has to occur quickly, but given limited resources of attention and knowing are brains are super-efficient it seems wasteful to spend all that effort assigning meaning to things first which you won’t ever need

Question 26

Treisman’s Attenuation Theory

Answer 26

o Instead of complete selective filter, have an attenuator – weakens but doesn’t eliminate input from unattended ear. Then some gets to perceptual processes, so still assign meaning to stuff in unattended ear, just not high priority. Then switch if something important.
 Treisman’s Attenuation theory replaced the selective filter with an attenuator, which selectively allows the attended message to be processed to a greater extent than the unattended message.
 Sensory register -> attenuator -> perceptual process -> Conscious

Question 27

Johnson and Heinz (modified Treisman’s attenuation theory of selective attention)

Answer 27

• Later experiments showed that difficulty of task being attended to can affect when filtering occurs and how long it takes.
o Johnson and Heinz proposed that the location of the information attenuator (sometimes described as a bottleneck) was able to be varied by the listener depending on the demand necessitated by a particular attention task.

Question 28

• Spotlight model of attention.

Answer 28

• Spotlight model of attention. Selective attention – takes info from 5 senses, but don’t pay attention to everything.
o Aware of things on an unconscious level – ex. Priming, where exposure to one stimulus affects response to another stimulus, even if we haven’t been consciously paying attention to it.
o We’re primed to respond to our name. Why it’s a strong prime for pulling our attention.

Question 29

• Resource model of attention

Answer 29

we have limited resources in attention. Resources that are easily overtasked if we try to pay attention to multiple things @ once.
o Both models say something about our ability to multitask – not very good at it.
o Supported by research study: ex. DICHOTIC listening task, you aren’t able to focus on both the “attended channel” and the “unattended channel”. You are able to recall info from the attended channel, but not the unattended channel

Question 30

• Multitasking/divided attention

Answer 30

o What about talking on phone or texting while driving? Maybe not multitasking, just switching spotlight (attention) back and forth.
 Results in a high # of car accidents
o Three factors have an influence our ability to perform multiple tasks at once: task similarity, task difficulty, practice
• In general, multitasking is not as efficient as working on a single task, even if the tasks are relatively simple. This is true when it comes to learning as well (high levels of FB/text messaging) while studying correlated to poor student grades.

Question 31

o Task similarity

Answer 31

– ex. Listening to radio or listening to interview while writing a paper. Better to listen to classical music, because harder to multitask with similar tasks. Easier to multitask with music.

Question 32

o Task difficulty –

Answer 32

harder tasks require more focus. Ex. Texting while driving is more difficult than talking to a passenger in a car. Also, you turn off/down radio in an unfamiliar town…because driving requires more focus/becomes a harder task when you don’t know where you are going.

Question 33

o Practice

Answer 33

– activities well practiced become automatic processes, or things that occur without need for attention. Whether task is automatic vs controlled is determined by the amount of practice. A controlled task is harder, and would struggle to complete if attention is divided. Automatic task occurs with greater experience.