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Year 1 Cognition 1 > Attention > Flashcards

Attention Flashcards

1
Q

Meaning of attention according to William James

A

“Attention is…the taking into possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalisation, concentration of consciousness are of its essence”

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2
Q

General types of attention

A

Active attention - where attention is controlled ‘top-down’ i.e it is controlled and purposefully deployed due to some motivational reason for attending to a specific item

Passive attention - where attention is deployed in a ‘bottom-up’ fashion due to some property of external stimuli

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3
Q

What is focused attention?

A

Kind of thing we see when we present participants with two or more stimuli and ask them to attend (and/or respond) to only one of them

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4
Q

What is divided attention?

A

We can think of this like multi-tasking. We present participants with multiple stimuli and ask them to attend (and/or respond) to all of them

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5
Q

What is sensory buffering?

A
  • Info that comes into thew senses if buffered
  • Aim of the buffer is to hold all the incoming info until the attentional system can act on it
  • This provides a valuable block to the incoming info long enough for the attentional system to select the important info
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6
Q

Types of sensory systems

A

2 types:

Vision –> Iconic
Auditory –> Echoic

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7
Q

Sperlings Iconic memory experiment

A
  • Presented participants with a number of cards via a tachistoscope
  • Each of the cards contained a number of letters, between 2 and 12, and these were presented to participants for 50 ms
  • Participants were asked to report as many items as they could from the display –> whole report technique
  • Brief display meant that we have to rely on the mental representation, not on the image
  • Representation of the image is called the icon
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8
Q

What did sperlings iconic memory experiment find?

A
  • Most participants could report back the complete display as long as there were fewer than 5 items
  • If there was a greater number of stimuli onscreen than 5, participants only reported back between 4 & 5 items
  • Suggests the capacity of sensory memory is 4.5 items
  • Participants reported that they felt they had seen more, but couldn’t remember it
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9
Q

Sperlings cookie jar senario experiment

A
  • Participants see the same display as they did previously
  • Hear a tone after the display is removed telling them which line to report
  • Partial report as they only report a part of the display
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10
Q

Results of Sperlings partial report

A
  • By scaling up how many letters they reported against how many there were to possibly report that participants were able to report nearly the whole display
  • Concluded there is no limit to sensory memory
  • All of your perception is available to you
  • Limitation is actually the speed at which you are able to report the required information
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11
Q

How is iconic and echoic memory limited

A
  • Decay process
  • Takes only 300 milliseconds for half the info to be lost
  • After 1 second there was no advantage to partial report vs. whole report
  • If the info is not moved onwards rapidly from sensory memory, then the icon stored will decay
  • At some point it will be too poor to be recoverable
  • It is attention that needs to act on the info stored to move it further in the info processing system
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12
Q

Cocktail party phenomenon

A 
Cherry (1953)
With several people in a room, there are physical qualities of the stimuli that we can take advantage of to differentiate people we are listening to:
- Sex of the speaker 
- Voice intensity 
- Voice localisation
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13
Q

Dichotic listening task

A
  1. Present the same voice at the same intensity to both ears but with different messages
  2. Participant asked to ‘shadow’ one of the messages
  3. The question becomes, what do the participants notice about the message in the ear they are not attending
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14
Q

Results of dichotic listening task

A
  • Message in non-shadowed ear is very poorly remembered
  • If the speaker in thee unattended ear switched language, the participants generally failed to notice
  • If they started speaking backwards it wasn’t noticed
  • If a pure tone was played, or the pitch or gender was altered in the unattended ear, that was almost always detected
  • Moray (1959) inserted a word 35 times into the message, yet still participants didn’t notice
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15
Q

Attentional selection theories

A

2 contrasting ideas:

  • Early selection: We select out info at an early stage of processing
  • Late selection: We perform detailed analysis of incoming stimuli before making a decision as to what is attended to.
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16
Q

Broadbent’s theory of attention

A
  • Keen on investigating the nature of the bottleneck

- Used the dichotic listening task to investigate how people would manage to recall information as you overloaded them

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17
Q

Results of Broadbent’s theory of attention

A
  • Incoming info from multiple channels is initially processed in parallel and placed in a sensory buffer
  • One of these channels is selected to be allowed to pass through a filter based on its physical characteristics
  • While the selected message is passed on for further processing, along a limited capacity channel, the message blocked by the filter remains in the sensory buffer, during which time it is decaying
  • Although messages are short-lived in the buffer, we can switch between the input channels (in this case echoic memory), as long as too much decay hasn’t occurred, we can pass them through one after the other
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18
Q

Problems with Broadbent model

A
  • Doesn’t allow for any of the unattended info to ‘leak through’
  • Primarily used naive participants
  • Underwood (1974) found that naive participants only detected 8% of digits presented to a non-shadowed ear, but an experienced shadower was able to detect 67%
  • Access to info presented in unattended ear was analysed beyond the purely physical
  • Moray (1959) found that although most of what was presented in the unattended ear went by unnoticed, participant were much likely to detect their own names in the unshadowed ear
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19
Q

Triesman’s (1964) attenuation theory

A
  • Believed there was a filter but disagreed with Broadbent about its nature
  • Incoming stimuli proceed through a hierarchy of processing levels (physical, syllable pattern to meaning0
  • If insufficient processing capacity test towards the top of the hierarchy are omitted
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20
Q

Similarities and differences between Treisman’s and Broadbent’s models

A

Similarities:

  • Assumption of a filter
  • Filter prevents the non-shadowed input from interfering with the selected input channel
  • Physical differences between the sources are a part of the selection of one channel over the other
  • Both are early-selection accounts

Differences:

  • Triesman’s model doesn’t assume a complete phasing out of the non-shadowed message, rather it is turned down/dampened
  • Pre-attentive analysis is more complex, it’s not just on physical differences and cam be as complex ads semantic analysis
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21
Q

Support for the Treisman model

A
  • More easily accounts for some of the findings
  • E.g. when we hear our own name (Moray, 1959)
  • In the Treisman model, we will process that to a certain level meaning that it is more likely to be perceived
  • The reporting of different sets of numbers to each ear being serially reproduced is easier to explain if we first assume they all have a level of processing, with priority for one being the physical channels
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22
Q

Problems with the Treisman model

A
  • Complicated
  • We have a pre-attentive analysis that extends as far as semantic processing
  • This is so far down the processing stream we wonder what is left for attentional processing
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23
Q

Late selection theories

A
  • All info makes it to memory and that selection of information to act upon is done at that level
  • Shadowing tasks are not ideal for testing: By asking someone to shadow one ear you are essentially selecting out the information in that one ear to save prior to any detailed analysis
  • There are some clever ways of examining the viability of a late selection model, primarily through subliminal priming
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24
Q

Late selection theories: Deutsch & Deutsch (1963)

A
  • Late selection model
  • Broadbent supposed that only some information is selected and that the rest is not processed
  • Treisman suggested that it is all processed pre-attentively, pre-working memory, with those inputs that best match the filter continuing on for further processing
  • Deutsch & Deutsch assume that almost all incoming stimuli are sent on for further processing, with final selection for the very topmost level occurring at the level of working memory
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25
Q

Support for Deutsch & Deutsch

A

Lewis (1970)

  • Dichotic listening task, with shadowing of one ear
  • Words in the unshadowed ear could be semantically unrelated or synonyms of words in attended ear
  • Vocal response to shadowed words were slower if they occurred with a semantically related word in unshadowed ear
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26
Q

What is the perceptual load model of attention

A
  • Does not assume a specific point at which items are selected
  • Dependent on the difficulty of the task
  • When load is high, selection is made early
  • When load is low, selection is made late
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27
Q

What is orienting

A

Our response to an immediate change in thee environment

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28
Q

What is overt orienting

A

The alignment of sensory receptors to the location of an external stimulus

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29
Q

What is covert orienting

A

The alignment of mental resources to an external stimulus which can be involuntary or voluntary

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30
Q

Unilateral neglect symptoms

A
  • Damage to thee right parietal lobe
  • Patient can’t orient (move attention) to one half of the visual field
  • Visual, auditory, and tactile neglect have been documented
  • No sensory damage
  • Bumping into objects and people on their left side
  • May fail to groom the left side of their body or eat the left side of what is on the plate
  • Voluntary attention and movement to the ‘neglected’ side is possible but doesn’t always occur naturally
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31
Q

What can we tell about attention from neglect?

A
  • Informs us about how selective attention is allocated
  • SPace is important in visual input
  • Selective attention selects from that (space-based) representation - or organisation - of the visual field
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32
Q

Spatial cueing task

A
  • Known also as Posner spatial cueing or spatial orienting task
  • Simple methodology and simple stimuli
  • Used with patients and animals
  • Reveals mechanisms of orienting: how selective attention is allocated
  • Reveals the units of orienting: what is selected
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33
Q

Exogenous cueing

A

Valid trials - the event influencing attentional deployment to a spatial position facilitates responding to the target

Invalid trials - the event influencing attentional deployment to a spatial position hinders responding to the target

Neutral trials - neither hinder nor facilitate responding to the target

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34
Q

Endogenous cueing

A

Valid trials - if the symbolic information presented at fixation influences attentional deployment to a spatial position should facilitate responding to the target

Invalid trials - if the symbolic information presented at fixation influences attentional deployment to a spatial position should hinder responding to the target

Neutral trials - should neither hinder nor facilitate responding to the target

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35
Q

Differences between exogenous and endogenous

A
  • Outcome is very similar

- There is deployment of attention to a region of space, but they act differently

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36
Q

How does attention act like a spotlight

A
  • Attention starts at our fixation point
  • Arrow appears within it
  • Spotlight moves in the direction of the arrow
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37
Q

Spotlight: Eriksen & James (1986)

A
  • Extended the spotlight metaphor to include a ‘zoom’ function
  • Suggest that the spotlight is more diffuse in its initial state
  • When action is required, as indicated by a cue, then the spotlight zooms and becomes both more narrow, and concentrated
  • As with Posner (1980) items outside the spotlight don’t . receive much processing
38
Q

What does the spotlight of attention do?

A
  • Facilitates perception
  • Spotlight is directed towards a location and enhances direction of events within its beam
  • This focusing of attentional resources helps to bind different fuses together to form the percept of an object
39
Q

Spotlight evaluation

A
  • Assumes that attention operates upon locations in space
  • Makes intuitive predictions and can account for a large amount of data
  • Can’t account for data that show that attention can select one of two superimposed images
40
Q

What is the spotlight doing?

A
  • Strong link between perception and attention and how attention assists in the perceptual process
  • Attention is a bit like ‘perceptual glue’ that binds features of objects in space and across time, mediating processes such as object recognition and multiple object tracking
41
Q

Visual cortex organisation

A

V1/Striate cortex
- Receives input from lateral geniculate nucleus and from this point we start processing visual elements such as colour, motion and basic shape

Extra-striate cortex

  • V3: Depth
  • V4: Colour
  • V5/MT: Motion
  • Lateral occipital complex (LOC): Shape
42
Q

Patient evidence for visual cortex organisation

A

Motion agnosia
- Patient lost the ability to detect motion despite preservation at tasks that test other visual processing abilities after damage to areas V5/MT

Cerebral achromatopsia
- Loss of ability to see colour but intact in all other visual properties after damage to V4

43
Q

Visual search

A
  • Participants traditionally look for a specific target that is hidden amongst an array of distractors
  • The target is present on 50% of trials
  • Critically, the target differs from distractors in one or more dimensions
44
Q

What makes a search harder/easier

A
  • An ‘easy’ search is one that has a target defined by a single feature
  • When a search target is defined by a single feature it often is very fast
  • A pop out effect occurs where the target appears to pop out
  • To make a target search harder we can define the target as a combination of features e.g. colour and shape
45
Q

What factors affect visual search

A

Target - distractor similarity:
- The more features the distractor shares with the target the slower the search. Biased competition

The size of the array (set size):
- The more distractors the slower the search for a conjunction target

Looking for the presence or absence of a feature:
- If the target differs from the distractor in terms of an absent feature than the search takes longer

46
Q

Why does conjunction search take longer?

A

Feature Integration theory

Proposed that visual search proceeds in two stages:

  1. Basic visual features are detected and processed in parallel, no need for focused attention
  2. Different visual features are bound together, which is a serial process, to form a higher order feature or object. Requires focused attention. Attention works as a glue, binding the features together
47
Q

Feature integration theory

A
  • Treisman & Gelade, 1980
  • Feature singletons are found faster because they differ from distractors in one single feature
  • Conjunction targets are found slower because they differ on the basis of how the two or more features are bound together
  • The process of binding features together to create a coherent visual percept requires focused attention
48
Q

Illusory conjunctions

A
  • Before focused attention acts on the separable components of the simulus representations, the visual features and identity of the target are unbound
  • Once you attend to the location, the features that are present together at that location are bound together into a single unit
  • Without that focused attention features from different objects may be combined randomly forming what are called ‘illusory conjunctions’
49
Q

Resource theories

A
  • A lot of info enters via the sensory system
  • There are limited resources/mental energy available
  • Any info can be processed as long as doing so does not exceed the available resources
  • Attention is a mental resource
50
Q

What is the cost of dual-tasking

A
  • When we do more than one task at a time, we need to split our resources between them
  • Less resources mean that the tasks are either performed slower or less well
  • Failure to perform some tasks have serious consequences e.g. talking and driving
51
Q

Benefits of dual-tasking

A
  • Despite the seriousness of failures to successfully multi-task, there are clear benefits
  • It allows us to get several things done in a fairly coherent and uninterrupted way
52
Q

How do we study dual-tasking?

A
  • Get participants to perform task a & b separately and measure how well they do
  • Participants then perform task a with task b, and then task b with task a, and compare with when they did the tasks separately
  • The difference in performance between when they are doing single and dual tasks is called the dual-task cost
53
Q

Central resource capacity theory: Daniel Kahneman (1973)

A
  • Conceptualised attention as ‘cognitive effort’
  • Single resource of attention with flexible capacity limits for which all tasks compete
  • Arousal determines our capacity limits
  • Difficult tasks utilise more of the attentional capacity than easy tasks
  • Task difficulty should therefore affect dual-task performance

Two rules determine the allocation of attention during dual-tasking:

  1. Enduring dispositions (e.g. allocated resources to a novel or meaningful stimulus)
  2. Momentary intentions (e.g. instructions)
54
Q

Bourke, Duncan & Nimmo-Smith (1996)

A

Participants undertook 4 tasks in different combinations (either single tasks or dual-tasks):

  • Tone discrimination
  • Random letter generation
  • Motor task
  • Visual recognition task
  • To avoid simple interference effects, the tasks were designed to not share input modality or common response type
  • Basic finding was that the tasks interfered with each other to a different degree
  • Greatest interference was with the letter generation task
  • Least interference was with the tone discrimination task
  • This data supports Kahneman’s theory that dual-task performance depends on the demand of each task on the total available capacity of the single central resource
55
Q

Spelke, Hirst & Neisser (1976)

A
  • Investigated the effect of practice on people’s ability to dual-task
  • Trained two participants (John & Diane) over 85 sessions (29 hours total), on a dual-task

Task A: Reading for comprehension (selection of short stories)
Task B: Writing down dictated words

  • Although initially poor at performing both tasks, with practice dual-task performance improved
  • Authors suggest that with practice we can perform two tasks together equally well
  • No fixed limit on the number of tasks that can be performed simultaneously
  • Some criticism that the participants weren’t truly multi-tasking but switching rapidly between tasks
56
Q

Multiple resource theory

A
  • Not one central resource, but multiple pools of resources, each with its own capacity

Dual-task performance then is determined by similarity at different levels (Wickens, 1984)

  • Input modality similarity (both tasks requiring vision, hearing)
  • Output modality similarity (both tasks requiring verbal responses)
  • Processing stage similarity (both tasks requiring comprehension)

The degree of interference is dependent on the extent to which each pool of resource is shared

57
Q

Treisman & Davies (1973)

A
  • Participants monitored information both visual and auditory
  • Two visual streams were words presented through headphones

Participants monitored:

  1. A single stream (one ear or one screen)
  2. Two visual stream s
  3. Two auditory streams
  4. One visual and one auditory stream
  • Performance was best when the participants had to monitor a single modality stream
  • Next best was monitoring two different input modality channels (one computer screen and one ear)
  • Worst was when the participants had to monitor inputs from the same modality channel (both computer screens or both ears)
58
Q

Cross-modal studies

A
  • Some cross-modal studies have failed to support the multiple resource account
  • Strayer & Johnston (2001)

Participants either:

  • Drive only
  • Drive and talk on mobile
  • Drive and talk on hands-free
  • Additionally, they were either in stimulated high or low density traffic
  • Measured how many red lights were missed and their RT to break on seeing a red light
59
Q

Results of Strayer & Johnston (2001) experiment

A
  • Participants were more likely to miss the red light and took longer to hut the break if they were on the phone, compared to listening to the radio
  • Talking and driving should be drawing from different resource pools
60
Q

Central capacity theory evaluation

A
  • Accurately predicts that task difficulty influences dual-task performance
  • Can’t account for the effects of task similarity (input/output modality, and processing codes)
  • There is a central resource which different tasks use and as long as the tasks do not exceed the capacity of that resource there should be no interference
  • Some tasks can be done together and others cannot which this theory fails to account for
61
Q

Multiple resource theory evaluation

A
  • Can account for many of the dual-task findings
  • In particular the similarity of processing of input and output modalities and processing codes; The greater the similarity the more of a hit to dual-task performance
  • Monitoring of two visual inputs is more difficult than monitoring a visual and an auditory input
  • Can’t account for the findings that there is interference between two tasks requiring different pools of resources/different modalities
62
Q

Criticisms of resource theories

A
  • Theories of dual-task performance and not necessarily of attention
  • Poor control of timing of the tasks raises the possibility of task (or attentional) switching rather than parallel processing
  • With increasing data regarding what can and cannot be processed together, there would have to be too many specific resources to make for an easy theoretical model
  • Non of these theories explain the details of the underlying computation, why, how, and what is selected
63
Q

Maintaining attention: Sustained/Vigilence

A
  • Attention can be deployed quickly between tasks, and in many cases this is the primary mode of it’s use
  • Recent changes to the way that we work has altered the way that we need to use attention: Monitoring and supervisory tasks
64
Q

Problems with sustained attention: Mackworth clock task

A
  • Towards the end of WWII it was noted that radar and sonar operators out on anti-submarine patrols had a tendency to miss weak signals at the end of a shift
  • To study this Mackworth devised the ‘clock-test’
  • Over the complete period (2hrs) there was a significant drop in performance
  • Most notable the accuracy of detection of the critical signal dropped by 10% to 15% after only 30 mins
  • Performance declined more gradually over the remaining 90 mins
65
Q

Problems with sustained attention: Dorrian, Roach, Fletcher and Dawson (2007)

A

Examined the performance of train drivers as a function of their fatigue levels:

  • Uncertain shift times
  • Long commutes
  • Limited rest before night shifts

Drivers performed an 8hr simulated train journey and a 10 min psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) under 3 conditions:

  • Training (acclimatisation)
  • Daylight (between 10 and 1800)
  • Nighttime (between 23 and 0700)

In addition to examining PVT scores also looked at the number of driver errors

  • Fuel usage
  • Trip time
  • Peak forces (bunch and draft)

Over time both their subjective fatigue increased, as did their poor performance (overall less safe from a combination of too much speed and inefficient braking)

66
Q

What affects vigilance: early work

A
  • Initial suggestions that the vigilance decrement was due to the nature of the task: long boring task with little ever happening
  • Decline in our arousal state due to under stimulation
  • Monotonous and repetitive tasks suppress activity in key brain system that affect vigilance e.g. thalamus which directly affects out arousal
  • Amongst other tasks the thalamus is involved in sleep and wakefulness regulation
  • Reduced activity means reduced global alertness and a reduced efficiency to detect signals
  • Evidence points more strongly to failures of vigilance due to excessive task demands over time
67
Q

What affects vigilance: Helton, Dember, Warm and Matthews (2000) experiment

A
  • Examined vigilance performance (detecting a low probability target p=0.2) over a short period of time (2 x 8 mins)
  • As an aside, they also measured their personality trait for ‘optimism’

Task designed to be stressful:

  • Limited contrast
  • Hugh representation rate (57.5 events/min) @ 40ms per item
  • Low target probability (p=0.2)
  • Fast action required < 1s
68
Q

What affects vigilance: Helton, Dember, Warm and Matthews (2000) experiment results

A
  • Rapid decline in performance appears to mirror the stress of the task
  • Clear drop in performance after only 8 mins
  • Mackworth had a 10-15% drop in 30 mins, here we have that level of drop after 6
  • Clear differences between personality types and drop in performance over time
  • Optimists have preserved performance and feel more ‘in control’ and leads to reduced stress
69
Q

What affects vigilance: Recent work

A
  • Highlighted the intense information processing demand of maintaining vigilant attention and the stress of the types of task that trigger a vigilance decrement

Later studies have concentrated on the effect that:
- Task type
- Perceived mental workload
- Task-induced stress
have on our capacity to maintain focus on task

70
Q

Significance of task type

A
  • Likely a central resource that all tasks are tapping into, but they drain at different rates
  • Successive tasks are more resource demanding, as they rely on a memory component, than simultaneous tasks where all the information to distinguish the critical stimulus is present in itself

Other task factors that affect vigilance performance:

  • Increasing the rate of stimuli requiring scanning
  • Irregularities in timing of the items to be scanned
  • Spatial uncertainty in the location of critical items
  • Multitasking
71
Q

Mental workload

A
  • Based on Wickens (1984)
  • Idea that there is a degree of information processing capacity expended during task performance
  • Workload as a perceived measure is often recorded using the NASA task load index

This inventory asks participants to rate their feelings on 6 aspects of workload:

  • Mental
  • Physical
  • Temporal
  • Performance
  • Effort
  • Frustration
72
Q

Control and automaticity since late 1970s

A

Perception and cognition can occur with or without conscious effort

73
Q

What is automatic processing?

A
  • Riding a bike
  • Effortless: consumes few cognitive resources
  • Controlled by stimulus
  • Happens without intention or conscious awareness
  • Not available to conscious awareness
  • Operates rapidly
74
Q

What is strategic/controlled processing

A
  • Riding a bike for the first time
  • Conscious
  • Takes time
  • Control and effort is required
75
Q

What are the two types of automatic processes

A

Innate automatic behaviours:

  • Saccade to movement
  • Orient to loud noise
  • Duck oncoming objects

Learned automatic behaviours:

  • e.g Reading
  • Highly practiced
  • Skilled behaviour (driving, riding a bike)
  • Hard to suppress (Stroop effect, Simon effect)
76
Q

What is learnt automatic processing

A
  • With practice we store the relevant info in memory
  • Memory is a necessary element of automaticity
  • When we perform a task we do not rely on serial processing and computation of the external input but on retrieval from long-term memory
  • Amount of practice matters
  • Frequent mapping between stimulus input and behavioural response leads to a behaviour becoming automatic
77
Q

What is the cost of automaticity

A
  • Automatic processing is hard to suppress
  • Automatic behaviours are hard to unlearn
  • Serious costs; Can lead to errors e.g. car controls, plane pilots, proofreading
  • Frustrating costs: action slips
78
Q

What is the Stroop effect

A
  • The effect of an irrelevant dimension of a stimulus (e.g. meaning) on the relevant dimension (e.g. colour naming)
  • Happens without intention
  • Info from one processing system (word naming) ‘leaks out’ and interferes with info from another processing system (colour naming)
79
Q

What is the Simon effect

A
  • The effect of an irrelevant dimension of stimulus (location) on the relevant dimension (colour of the square)
  • Happens without intention
  • Location of the square, which was irrelevant to the task, interfered with responding to the colour of the square, which was the relevant aspect of the task
  • Shows how an automatic process can interfere with a controlled process
80
Q

What are the benefits of automaticity

A
  • Reduces processing load: automatic tasks leave resources available for other more demanding tasks
  • Increases efficiency and speed of performance
  • Allows multi-tasking and saves time
81
Q

Action slips: Capture slips

A

An action performed is very similar to one well practiced:

- Stopping on roller skates and trying the same way on ice skates

82
Q

Action slips: Data-driven slips

A

External events activate well-practiced action schemas & cause inappropriate action:
- Use a pen to write, when you were actually looking for something to stir your drink

83
Q

Action slips: Description errors

A

Carry out an action on the wrong object:

  • Put the cereal in the fridge
  • The action is appropriate but performed on the wrong object
84
Q

Action slips: Loss of activation errors

A

Going into a room to get something and forgetting what it was:
- Solution: Re-trace your steps from where you first started

85
Q

Advantages and disadvantages of the categorical descriptors of emotion

A
  • Anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise
  • Match our subjective experience
  • Useful when describing the effect of emotions on cognition
86
Q

Advantages and disadvantages of the dimensional descriptors of emotion

A
  • Arousal & Valence
  • More quantifiable approach, allows us to more easily understand the effect of emotion on other systems and the similarity between the various emotions
  • Happy and excited fall in upper right quadrant
  • Calm in lower right quadrant
  • Anger in upper left quadrant
87
Q

What is attentional blink and how do you test it

A

It is a measure of temporal attention

  • Present participants with a very fast rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP)
  • Ask them to identify either (i) a single target or (ii) two targets
  • Typically if the second target appears in the first 500ms, after the first target, we see a drop in the participants ability to detect the second target
88
Q

Attentional blink: Keil & Ihssen (2004) study

A
  • Used attentional blink task where participants had to determine the two emboldened words in a RSVP
  • The second target word in the RSVP could belong to one of three emotional categories: unpleasant, neutral, or pleasant
89
Q

Attentional blink: Keil & Ihssen (2004) study results

A
  • Compared to the neutral condition, participants were more likely to spot the ‘emotionally charged’ stimuli when the two stimuli were close together
  • Emotionally charged positive and negative words lead to attentional capture: 15% improvement in the detection accuracy of the emotional verbs in the period of the attentional blink
  • Although we see improvement in emotional word detection of both valence, overall the unpleasant words are better detected
  • Suggest that when attention is deployed the ‘default’ attention is supplemented with additional attentional resources depending on the emotional content
90
Q

How do we study emotion using faces?

A

FACS - facial action coding system assigns number to the presence of specific facial features (eyebrows raised, nose wrinkle) created through the contraction of specific muscles
- Different emotions are then defined by the presence of various features

Happiness = 6+12 (muscles around the mouth + eyes)
Anger = 4+5+7+23 (muscles around brow, upper lip, &amp; eyes)

Year 1 Cognition 1 (2 decks)

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