Attention

Question 1

Attention has three components…

Answer 1

Posner and Boies (1971)

orienting to sensory events,

detecting signals for focused processing,

and maintaining a vigilant or alert state.

Question 2

What is attention?

Answer 2

Attention is the process that involves, at any given moment, selecting some information for further processing and inhibiting other information from receiving further processing.

Question 3

Failures of attention in space:

Answer 3

Failing to notice all of the information when presented simultaneously.

Question 4

Failures of attention in time:

Answer 4

Failing to notice new information when presented successively in a rapid stream.

Question 5

Simons and Levin (1998):

what was their study called?

Answer 5

‘The Door’ study

Question 6

Change blindness:

Answer 6

The failure to detect changes in the physical aspects of the scene (Simon & Rensink, 2005)

Question 7

We select partial information from the world around us and not attentive to the rest
true or false

Answer 7

true

Question 8

We tend to perceive the world as…

Answer 8

coherent and continuous

Question 9

Who said this?….

changes of central interest (thematic content of a scene) are detected more quickly than changes marginal interest.

Answer 9

Rensink et al. (1997)

Question 10

Two types of changes of interest in the failures of attention in space…

Answer 10

Change of marginal interest

change of central interest

Question 11

When can failures of attention in space also occur?

Answer 11

when trying to attend two stimuli at once.

The ability to attend to two sources is impaired compared to the ability to process information from one source alone.

Question 12

Focused attention:

Answer 12

Concentration on one source of input to the exclusion of any other.

Question 13

Divided attention:

Answer 13

Attending to more than one source of information.

Question 14

Limitations on the speed with which information can be processed in temporal sequence (e.g., Shapiro et al., 1984).
the two tasks???

Answer 14

Single task: Ignore T1 and indicate whether T2 was present or not. The percentage of correct detection of T2 was recorded as a function of how long after T1 it appeared.

Dual task: Report the presence of T2 and identify T1 whenever it appeared.

Question 15

Attentional blink is a

Answer 15

short period during which incoming information is not registered, similar in effect to the physical blanking out of visual information during the blink of an eye.

Question 16

Bottleneck:

Answer 16

restriction on the amount of information that can be processed at once: certain critical mental operations have to be carried out sequentially (Pashler & Johnston, 1998).

Question 17

Dual task interference:

Answer 17

Divided attention impairs the performance when attempting to perform two tasks at once (e.g., Neisser & Becklen, 1975).

Question 18

Endogenous attention:

Answer 18

Some internal goals/thoughts guide our attention (top-down).
Voluntary, effortful, controlled.
(an arrow pointing to something)

Question 19

Exogenous attention:

Answer 19

Some external stimuli capture our attention (bottom-up)
Automatic, easy, stimulus-driven
(two boxes, one highlighted)

Question 20

Both endogenous and exogeneous cues can…

Answer 20

facilitate or inhibit the attention.

Question 21

Selective attention involves a dynamic process that enhances…

Answer 21

some information and inhibits other.

Question 22

When does selection occur?

Two types…

Answer 22

Early: before further processing or late: after further processing

Question 23

The early selection stages…

Answer 23

Input: External stimuli
Sensory Store
Selective attention
Information processing
Output:response

Question 24

The late selection stages…

Answer 24

Input: external stimuli
Sensory store
Information processing 
Selective attention
Output: response

Question 25

Filter model (Braodbent,1958): Selection is made at an early stage of processing.
Describe 3 components...

Answer 25

sensory store: briefly stores all incoming input

selective filter (bottleneck): analyses the physical properties of all incoming input (e.g., loudness, pitch, motion, colour) and identifies the attended input on the basis of its physical properties and filters out all unattended inputs.

further information processing: analyses the meaning of the attended input

Question 26

Cocktail party effect

Answer 26

Unattended information can intrude and capture attention (e.g., hearing your name at a loud party).
According to the early selection models, cocktail party effect should not be possible.

Question 27

Treisman’s attenuation model (Treisman, 1964):

Answer 27

Analyses the physical properties of all incoming input.

Question 28

Selective attention involves a dynamic process that enhances…

Answer 28

Selective attention involves a dynamic process that enhances some information and inhibits other.

Question 29

1-When does selection occur?

Answer 29

(Early: before further processing or late: after further processing)

Question 30

Early selection models

Answer 30

Filter model (Braodbent,1958)

Attenuation model (Treisman,1964)

Question 31

late selection models

Answer 31

Response selection model (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963)

Corteen and Dunn (1974)

Duncan et al. (1997): Biased/Integrated competition theory

Question 32

‘Competition’ and ‘load’ models of attention

Answer 32

Lavie (1995): Load model

Question 33

Feature integration theory

Answer 33

Concerned with role of attention in selecting and binding complex information (Treisman, 1986)
The perceptual system is divided into separate maps, each registering a visual feature: colour, shape, size
Examined in ‘visual search’ tasks

Feature (Disjunctive) search
Scan for a single feature
Color, size, shape
Target pops-out
Short reaction times / Rapid

Conjunctive search
Scan for a combination of features
Color & size, size & shape
No pop-out
Long reaction times / Slow

Question 34

Feature integration theory stages

Answer 34

Preattentive stage
Does not involve attention
visual input is analysed into separate features (e.g., colour, size, orientation)
each feature is represented by a separate mental feature map
features are represented immediately
feature search occurs in parallel (all-at-once)
Input (stimulus)

Focused stage
Involves attention
features must be combined for conjunction search
our attentional resources act as the mental “glue” that combines features
but features can only be combined one item at a time
conjunction search occurs serially (one-at-a-time)
output (response)

Question 35

Treisman and Schmidt (1982)
Briefly presented with the display of numbers and objects
what are the two steps?

Answer 35

(1) Report the numbers

(2) describe the object at a specific location

Question 36

Feature integration theory

Answer 36

Behrmann et al. (2003)

They examined the visual search performance of neglect patients.

Question 37

Guided search theory

Answer 37

Wolfe et al. (1989)
Both disjunctive and conjunctive searches involve two consecutive stages.
Parallel stage: Simultaneous activation of all potential targets. Includes feature maps as in FIT, but items that cannot be the target are eliminated.
Serial stage: Sequential evaluation of each of the activated elements.

Question 38

automaticity:

Answer 38

automaticity: state in which tasks do not require conscious control

Question 39

Automatic processes:

Answer 39

Require little or non intentional effort or attentional resources.
The processing is parallel (all at once) and rapid.

Question 40

Controlled processes:

Answer 40

Require intentional effort, attentional resources.

The processing is serial (one at a time) and relatively slow

Question 41

How does a controlled process become automatic?

Answer 41

People use automatic processing on easy or very familiar tasks but are forced to use controlled processing for difficult or new tasks.
By practice, the efficiency of the processes increase and become automatic.

Question 42

Difference in cognitive control that can be applied to automatic and controlled processes: once a process becomes automatic, it becomes difficult to control
who said this?

Answer 42

(Schneider & Chein, 2003).