Attention Flashcards
what is attention?
attention is taking into possession , one of multiple possible objects or trains of thought
what is focused attention?
individuals attend and focus on one type of stimulus input while ignoring others
What is one of the major system involved in visual attention?
the endogenous system is the major system involved in visual attention (top-down voluntary goal directed system)
it is located in the dorsal front-pariteal network
it is activated by peripheral cues
What is the other major system involved in visual attention?
the exogenous system
(automatic involuntary stimulus driven system)
used when unexpected and important stimuli are present
it is located in the ventral front-parietal network
evidence for the two attentional systems (endogenous and exogenous)
neuroimaging showed dissociate areas of activation, suggesting two processing systems
what is single spotlight theory?
people have a small area of focus and little is seen outside this area
evidence for the single spotlight model …
La Berge: Zoom lens study
- five letter words presented
- a probe is presented instead of or immediately after the word
there were two conditions, the subject must focus attention on middle letter of the word or were required to categorise the entire word
people responded to the probe faster when it fell in the central attentional beam, the attentional spotlight can have either a narrow or broad beam
multiple spotlight theory…
main principle is that there is split attentio0n, meaning that attention can be allocated to two or more areas of the visual field
evidence for multiple spotlight theory …
participants were presented with a 5x5 visual display which contained 23 letters and two digits
the task was to identify these two digits
before the display participants were given a cue and asked to anticipate the location of the digits, on 20% of the trials the cues were invalid, being near or far
findings supported the multiple spotlight theory ads performance was significantly worse for the digits presented between the locations as oppose =ed to the cued locations
what theories believe in location based attention.
spotlight and zoom lens models characterise space based attention
that attention operates in a particular location
evidence for object based attention …
patients with doral simultagnosia (ballet’s syndrome) can only perceive a portion of their visual field and act as if they can only see a single object at once
if two objects are presented together they only see one
space and object based attention
evidence that attention is both object and space based
that attention is a flexible resource
inhibition of return means…
reduced perceptual priority for information in a region that recently enjoyed a higher priority
what happens to unattended visual stimuli?
unattended visual stimuli receive less processing than attended visual stimuli
what factors influence processing of unattended visual stimuli?
perceptual load - distraction is greater under conditions of low versus high perceptual load
load on executive cognitive control functions - need this control to distinguish between target and distractors
evidence for perceptual load and load on executive cognitive control functions …
detect target in one of six positions
high perceptual load condition (other 5 positions contained non-target letters)
low perceptual load (other 5 positions are empty)
it was hypothesised that it would take a longer time to identify target stimuli under high versus low perceptual load
What is divided attention?
refers to the allocation of resources when performing two tasks at the same time
factors that influence dual task performance
task similarity- found that two monitoring tasks interfered with each other more when the tasks were in the same sensory modality
task practice - practice makes perfect
task difficulty -
Practice effect (automaticity)
moving from a controlled activity to an automatic processing
what is the distinction between automatic and controlled processing
automatic requires little or no attention and occurs without conscious awareness. automatic processing shows little interference with other cognitive activities
resources models for explaining divided attention or dual task activity
- central capacity model
- multiple resource theories
