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Brain And Cogntion > Attention > Flashcards

Attention Flashcards

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1
Q

What is attention?

A

Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating (focusing) on one aspect of the external or internal environment, while ignoring other aspect.

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2
Q

What are the forms of attention ?

A

Active vs passive

Focused vs divided

External vs internal

Overt vs covert

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3
Q

What is active and passive attention?

A

Active (top down, endogenous): controlled actively by the individuals intentions, goals or expectations.

Passive (bottom-up, exogenous): controlled by external stimuli

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4
Q

What is focused and divided attention?

A

Focused (selective): directed to one specific stimulus or task among many other distracting (irrelevant) stimuli

Divided: Directed to more than one stimulus or task at a time

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5
Q

What is external and internal attention?

A

External: Directed to the selection of sensory information (‘from the outside’)

Internal: Directed to internally generated information (thought, responses, memory)

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6
Q

What is over vs covert attention:

A

Overt: eyes are directed to the object/ Space that is under focused attention

Covert: Eyes are directed elsewhere to the focus of attention.

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7
Q

How is attention related to perception?

A
  • the physical stimulations that reach our sensory systems will not be processed unless we pay attention to them.
  • this is an evolutionary strategy to help an organism cope with bombarding information.
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8
Q

What is the change blindness experiment ?

A
  • A.K.A the flickering paradigm

- Developed by Ronald Rensik eat al (1997)

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9
Q

Describe the procedure of the change blindness experiment?

A

Task: To spot a difference between two pictures (with a brief blank screen between the two pictures)

Participants needed dozens of alternations between two pictures to spot changes as big as the disappearance of a whole object.

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10
Q

What did the change blindness experiment find?

A

We have an inability to perceive a change between two (apparently identical) scenes that are presented in succession for a short time (interleaved by a blink/blank screen).

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11
Q

Outline why the results from the flickering paradigm occur?

A
  • The bottom up perceptual processing is optimised towards continuous input.
  • In continuous input changes are easily detected (usually changes in motion). Motion is highly salient and pulls attention towards it.
  • The brief blank screen between two pictures disrupts the basic bottom up processing. No continuous motion is detected, and it thus cannot be used as a cue to spot the change.
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12
Q

What is intentional blindness?

A

Inability to spot obvious events whilst we are focusing attentional resources on a given task.

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13
Q

What study supports intentional blindness?

A

Gorillas in the midst by Simons and Chabris

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14
Q

Attention being linked to perception, how does it have important implication in real life?

A

Eyewitness testimony: Wintesses ma miss changes in the identity of a suspect

Driving: elderly are slower in change detection and substance abuse affects change in detection

Human machine interaction: Missing of important signals.

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15
Q

What are key research questions in attention?

A

How do people choose which stimuli to attend (select) from the environment and which to ignore?

At what level information is processed when we decide to pay attention to a stimulus?

What happens to the stimuli that are unattended ?

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16
Q

What is the cocktail party phenomenon?

A

In a party we have no problem following a conversation despite all conversations.

-found by Colin Cherry (1953)

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17
Q

How does our brain manage to pick up the sounds currently relevant to us in a cocktail party?

A

Sound segregation: A mixture of sounds reaches the ear, and the listener has to decide which sound to attend.

Sound source of interest: once the sound is detected attention must be directed and kept towards its source - this is effortful.

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18
Q

How did Cherry investigate the cocktail party phenomenon?

A

He played different auditory messages in participants ears at the same time.

They were required to selectively shadow one (target) message by focusing attention to one channel and repeat aloud the words.

A.K.A - Dichotic Listening Paradigm.

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19
Q

What are the results of a Dichotic listening paradigm?

A

When voices were different it is easy to separate the messages.

If they have same physical properties, it is very hard to distinguish meanings.

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20
Q

What is needed for us to discriminate between two different messages?

A

Clear physical differences such as voice intensity, sex of speaker (low pitch in males, high pitch females), speaker location…

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21
Q

What do people according to the Dichotic listening paradigm know about unattended messages?

A

Very little only physical properties

They miss complex characteristics, meaning e.g. language, reverse speech, word repetition.

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22
Q

What model did Donal Boradbent propose (1958)?

A

Broadbents filter model

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23
Q

Describes the first stage of Broadbent’s filter model

A

A series of specialised channels process different types of information (auditory, visual, etc..) simultaneously.
-received by sensory systems and receptors

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24
Q

Describe the second stage of Broadbent’s filter model

A

Information passes through the channels and reaches a buffer store (analysis based on physical characteristics)

Visual=V1
Auditory=auditory cortex

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25
Q

Describe the third stage of Broadbent’s filter model

A

At this point a filter selects what information is allowed to go for further processing (based on physical properties e.g voice frequency, tone, pitch, intensity).

  • Top down factors: intentions, expectations
  • Bottom up factors: physical salient features e.g sex of voice, tone of voice
  • lowers perceptual processing
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26
Q

Describe the fourth stage of Broadbent’s filter model

A

Selected stimuli reach consciousness and drive behaviour.
-the selected stimuli are rejected without their meaning being identified.

  • higher level processing, representation at memory
  • unattended information is left to decay
27
Q

How is Broadbent’s filter model inflexible?

A
  • all or nothing filter
  • any stimuli we don’t want to attend the brain doesn’t process at all and is forgotten about at higher level processing.
28
Q

What is the limitation of Broadbent’s filter model?

A

-any stimuli that is not unattended to can be processed if they have relevant meaning to the person.

29
Q

What early selection model did Treisman’s propose (1964)?

A

-attenuator model.

30
Q

Describe the first stage of the attenuator model

A

Information reaches the buffer store passing through specialised channels. Information is received from receptors.

31
Q

Describe the second stage of the attenuator model

A

The filter attenuates instead of eliminating the unattended material. All stimuli pass through the attenuator simultaneously- but not all with the same level of importance.

Top down factors (intentions, expectations) select which information to amplify to be sent to higher level processing. representation at memory level.

32
Q

Describe the third stage of the attenuator model.

A

-Some stimuli reach threshold for detection more easily than others and go to semantic processing and memory level, and influence response.

Unattended information can exceed the threshold and be attenuated and be processed by the brain if it has special characteristics.

Attenuated messages become the focus of attention

-unattended information that doesn’t pass through decays

33
Q

What is a strength of the attenuator model?

A

Allows unattended information to reach semantic level of processing if it becomes salient (e.g familiar or semantically relevant)

-it is a little bit more flexible compared to the filter model

34
Q

What determines the chances of a stimulus making it through to be processed?

A
  • All stimuli have thresholds: minimum amount of activation required to produce conscious awareness of a stimulus.
  • Expected stimuli have low thresholds for detection (top down influence)- they’re a silly make their way into awareness.
  • unattended stimuli (distractors) have high thresholds- they get filtered out.

Some unattended stimuli are special: They have lower thresholds than others, e.g.

  • Words that have some important meaning for us
  • words that have been already processed in the attended channel
  • words that are primed by the content from attended channel
35
Q

What is the limitation of the attenuator model?

A
  • Did not explain the nature of the attenuation process
  • did not explain which stimuli should be processed beyond physical properties
  • we are sometimes aware of the messages that are unattended
36
Q

What late selection models do we have?

A

Deutsche & Deutsche model (1963)

Norman model (1968)

37
Q

describe Deutsche and Deutsche and Duncan’s models first stage of attention after reaching higher levels of processing?

A

All stimuli (both attended and unattended) reach full processing level: they all obtain a representation in the brain and get recognised.

This is after receptors Receive information and transmit information to the brain through channels.

38
Q

Describe second stage of Deutsche & Deutsch’s and Duncan’s model?

A

Selection of information/message is made on the basis of semantic relevance/ pertinence for a specific reaction to be initiated.

Only this information reaches consciousness.

39
Q

What is an important factor of Deutsche and Deustch late selection attention model?

A

According to this model the unattended stimuli can affect behaviour (despite the fact that people unaware of them)

40
Q

Summarise late selection model by Deutsche Deutsche and Norman

A

A. All information reaches memory; the relevant information is then selected based on its meaning and will reach consciousness

B. The filter is placed at a higher pre-conscious level- after all stimuli have been fully analysed and achieved a representation in memory. Which results in our conscious experience

C. Unattended stimuli can influence behaviour/ processing of attended stimuli (without awareness)

41
Q

What is subliminal persuasion and who developed it?

A
  • James Vicary

- Presenting stimuli that could unconsciously influence people’s behaviour

42
Q

What is subliminal priming?

A

Briefly presenting subliminal stimulus that can affect cognitive processing of following stimuli.

43
Q

What is a congruent prime?

A

Subliminal stimulus that belongs to same category as target stimulus which facilitates execution of a task

44
Q

What is a incongruent prime?

A

A subliminal stimulus that belongs to different categories than target stimulus which interferes with execution of the task.

45
Q

How can the effects of subliminal priming be tested?

A

response times or accuracy of responses.

46
Q

What is the advantages of late selection model?

A

-All information passes no information is missed. the environment in its entirety is processed and can influence behaviour.

47
Q

Disadvantages of late selection model?

A

-it is very resource demanding, lots of brain power “wasted” in processing for meaning irrelevant information.

It is also difficult to test experimentally. (Dichotic listening not appropriate as requires to apply early filters inevitably)

48
Q

What is the perceptual Load model?

A

A model that doesn’t see attention as a filter but as a system with limited resources capacity

49
Q

What determines the amount of resources required in the perceptual load model?

A

If the task is demanding, lots of resources are required to narrow the focus on it. Fewer resources will be left for other stimuli.

If a task is easy not many resources is required, which can instead be dedicated to other purposes.

50
Q

How does the perceptual load model integrate both early and late selection models?

A

Early selection happens when the task is highly demanding

Late selection occurs when the task is not demanding.

51
Q

Advantage of perceptual lad model?

A

Instead of focusing on what information passes the selection, it tries to understand why this selection occurs and in what way.

52
Q

What aspect of the early selection model does the perceptual model keep?

A

The assumption that perceptual capacity is limited.

-It is not possible to fully process all stimuli that reach our sense at ever instant…

53
Q

What aspects does the perceptual load model keep of the late selection model?

A

The assumption that perceptual processing is automatic, in the sense that it cannot be withheld deliberately.
-So we perceive whatever is in our capacity to perceive…

54
Q

What is shiffrins model? and Schneider’s

A

Atoumacity model

55
Q

Describe controlled processes in attention

A
  • effortful
  • slow and error prone
  • require attention
  • controllable
56
Q

Describe automatic processes in attention

A
  • effortless
  • fast with few errors
  • outside awareness
  • uncontrollable
57
Q

How can certain behaviour go from controlled to automatic?

A

Practice and repetition.

58
Q

Describe shiffrin and Schneider’s automaticity model

A

Processing is either controlled or automatic

They are both based on same cognitive processing

Practice results in an increase in the efficiency of these processes

From control to automatic processing is a gradual process

59
Q

Describe the instance theory of automaticity developed by Gordon Logan ?

A

Controlled and automatic processing is based on different cognitive processes…
-practice results in a shift of strategy of how a task is performed

60
Q

Describe how new unpractised tasks are performers according to instance theory of automaticity?

A

They require controlled processes

  • they will rely on crude, slow and effortful strategies
  • A sort of general algorithm used to solve problems
61
Q

Describe how familiar practiced tasks are performed according to the instance theory of automaticity

A

They are automatic processes

  • with frequent encounters of a stimulus/task, relevant memory traces are stored and reinforced
  • these instances can later be retrieved when the same stimulus is encountered.
62
Q

What is the dangers of automaticity?

A

Inflexible mechanism
-change in patterns in behaviours that have become automatic patterns that are detrimental to us such as stress and sleep deprivation will be hard to deviate from.

63
Q

What is don Norman and Tim shallices theory?

A

Revise form book

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