Attention Flashcards
define attention
brain’s mechanism of selection. if something is selected it can be processed more thoroughly, in an area related to the processing of that item
define exogenous attention
automatic control of your attention by the characteristics of the stimulus
define endogenous attention
controlled by your chosen intentions and interest
describe a way of testing exogenous cueing
fixation cross in centre of screen. cue appears on one side. test stimulus. cue automatically attracts attention to correct area, so reaction time is faster
describe a way of testing endogenous cueing
fixation cross in centre of screen. cue appears in centre. test stimulus. ‘decision’ to pay attention to cue direction. reaction time faster if you pay attention to where it says to.
what parts of the brain are involved in exogenous attention?
ventral attention system: bottom-up reorienting
what parts of the brain are involved in endogenous attention?
dorsal attention system: top-down visuospatial
what happens to endogenous attention with age and why?
decreases due to prefrontal cortex decline.
what type of attention shows a slower decrease with age, and what does this seem to be dependent on?
emotion-related. valence-dependent.
describe the filter theory of attention
Broadbent, 1958. metaphor of radio communicator. blocks out irrelevant information (early selection). only important messages reach central channel for processing
describe how a dichotic listening task works
different speech streams presented simultaneously into both ears. listener asked to shadow (repeat) the message in one ear and to ignore the other
what is the cocktail party phenomenon?
highly salient information is attended to (Cherry 1953, Moray 1959)
describe the amendments made to the filter theory
intensity of the irrelevant info is diminished but not eliminated (Treisman, 1960). experiment w/ bilingual speakers, can also account for cocktail party phenomenon. late selection: attention filter occurs late in the processing stream (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963)
give an example of an experimental paradigm used to test attention
visual search: how do we use attention to search for a target in a visual display - feature integration theory (Treisman & Glade, 1980)
describe the visual search task
a perceptual task during which participants actively scan the environment for a particular object (target) amongst other objects (distractors)
what are the two different ways of searching?
feature and conjunction
describe conjunction search
affected by distractors; bottom-up & top-down processing; conducted in a serial manner; attention needed
describe feature search
not affected by distractors; depends on feature saliency; bottom-up processing; conducted in parallel
describe some factors influencing conjunction search
set size; presence and absence of target; features and target-distractor similarity; distractor heterogeneity
describe resource theory
attention is limited resource distributed appropriately. computer metaphor, attention helps get right info to central processing unit
what other theories is resource theory similar to?
spotlight theory (Laberge, 1983) or the Zoom lens model (Eriksen et al, 1985;1986).
describe the attentional load theory
Lavie, 1995. amount of processing the unattended stimulus receives depends on how difficult it is to process the attended target
describe a dual-task paradigm
tests how limited attention resources are allocated eg. by comparing task performance on two tasks independently or together. outcome depends on if task requires controlled or automatic processing, which depends on amount of practice. serial or parallel processing?
