Attention Flashcards
what is focussed attention?
pick one thing and focus on it
What is dividied attention
Keep track of lots of streams of information at once (multitasking)
What is the technique used to test for auditory attention?
Dichotic listening test…
Listen to two streams of auditory information, have to focus attention on one of these streams
Measures how good we are at focussing attention on one channel of information
What is the cocktail party problem?
The difficulties involved in attending to one voice when two or more people are speaking at the same time.
How did listeners solve the cocktail party problem?
Cherry discovered that people made use of the differences between the auditory inputs in physical characteristics (sec of speakers, voice intensity, speaker location).
When Cherry presented two messages in the same voice to both ears at once (eliminating physical differences) listeners found it very difficult to separate out the two messages.
What did Broadbent propose?
Broadbent’s approach suggests there should be little or no processing of unattended auditory messages.
According to Broadbent, a filter (bottleneck) early in processing allows information from one input or message through it on the basis of its physical characteristics.
The other input remains briefly in a sensory buffer and is rejected unless attended to rapidly. In sum, Broadbent argued that there is early selection.
What did Treisman propose?
Treisman argued that the bottleneck’s location is more flexible. She proposed that listeners start with processing based on physical cues, syllable pattern and specific words and move on to processes based on grammatical structure and meaning. If there is insufficient processing capacity to permit full stimulus analysis, later processes are omitted. Treisman also argued that top-down processes (e.g., expectations) are important. Listeners performing the shadowing task sometimes say a word presented on the unattended input. Such breakthroughs mostly occur when the word on the unattended channel is highly probable in the context of the attended message.
what did Deutsch & Deutsch propose?
They argued that all stimuli are fully analysed, with the most important or relevant stimulus determining the response. This theory places the processing bottleneck much nearer the response end of the processing system than does Broadbent’s theory (see Figure 5.1). In sum, they argued in favour of late selection.
what is unilateral spatial neglect?
Brain damage developed by patients, subects lacks awareness of stimulus present in one visual field. Can see visual field anatomically, just not aware of it. Don’t pay attention to it.
