Attention

Question 1

How is attention defined?

Answer 1

Attention is the means by which we actively process a limited amount of information from what is available through our sensory perceptions.

Question 2

Selective attention: auditory system. What is the cocktail party effect?

Answer 2

Describes the process of tracking one conversation in the face of distraction from other conversations. The auditory system can switch from one sound source to another. It is a binaural effect closely related to sound localisation.

Question 3

Selective attention - visual system: What is visual spatial attention?

Answer 3

If a subject fixes a fixation point, but attends covertly to another region (without moving the eyes), then stimuli presented in the covertly attended location are reported much better than stimuli in the rest of the field.

Question 4

What is dichotic listening (Cherry 1953)?

Answer 4

Method: 2 voices, each speaking different passage presented to the left and right ear. Subjected instructed to attend one input and repeat it.
Results: subjects were able to accurately report the content of the attended channel, but very little of the other.

Question 5

What is the filter theory?

Answer 5

physical characteristics of messages are used to select one message for further processing and that all others are lost.

Question 6

What are the limitations of the filter theory (Broadbent)?

Answer 6

1. unattended messages can be processed at a semantic level e.g., training: naive subjects only detected8% of the digits on the non-attended channel but an experienced subject can detect 67%.
2. Processing with no awareness - when a word previously associated with electric shock in the non-attended channel, Ps sometimes showed a galvanic skin response.

Question 7

What 2 stages does the Attenuation Theory of Attention (1964) say selective attention involves?

Answer 7

Attenuator - analyse the incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language and meaning.
Dictionary - unit contains words with threshold.

Question 8

What is the leaky filter model?

Answer 8

Words that are common and important have low threshold which means it takes a weak signal in an unattended channel can activate that word (e.g. your name).
Uncommon or unimportant words have higher threshold so it needs a strong signal to attended channel to activate these words.

Question 9

What is the late selection theory?

Answer 9

Information could be filtered out at different levels of processing depending on the need of the task.

Question 10

What was Mckay (1973) study re late selection theory?

Answer 10

In attending ear, subjects heard ambiguous sentences “they were throwing stones at the bank” and in the unattended ear, participants heard either “river”, “money”.
Unattended information changes the interpretation of the ambiguous word.

Question 11

What is the Load Theory of Attention?

Answer 11

Processing capacity: How much information a person can handle at any given moment? Perceptual load i.e. the difficulty of a given task (high-load, difficult, tasks use higher amounts of processing capacity. Low-load, easy, tasks use lower amounts of processing capacity.

Question 12

What does automatic processing consist of?

Answer 12

Low attention demands, associated with easy and/or well-practiced tasks, can occur without intention.

Question 13

What does controlled processing consist of?

Answer 13

High attention demands, associated with difficult tasks that might not become automatic, even with high levels of practice, requires intention.

Question 14

What is the stroop task results?

Answer 14

Automatic word reading interferes with colour naming even when we are not trying to read the words, not intentionally controlled.

Question 15

What is overt attention?

Answer 15

Moving the eyes to look directly to object of interest.

Question 16

What covert attention?

Answer 16

attending to, or shifting attention to a location in the visual field different from there the eyes are fixated.
It has been proposed that covert visual attention coevolved with the gaze control system, and overt shift of attention might be preceded by covert attentional shifts.

Question 17

What is inattention blindness?

Answer 17

a stimulus that is not attended is not perceived, even though a person might be looking directly at it.

Question 18

What is change blindness?

Answer 18

Inability to detect a change on the environment (e.g., continuity errors in films).

Question 19

How does the Feature Integration Theory work (Treisman&Gelade 1980)?

Answer 19

Elementary features such as colour, form, motion, texture are organised in maps. Each map provides information about the location in the visual field of that particular feature. Processing of these maps is done early and in parallel. In contrast, in conjunction search, information from separate feature maps must be compared or combined. The focusing attention is important in binding perceptual features into coherent representation of objects.

Question 20

How did the illusory conjunction experiment work?

Answer 20

A display of numbers/coloured shapes is flashed 200m/s. When subjects are asked to report the black numbers, in 18% of the trials they reported seeing subjects made from a combination of features from different objects (illusionary conjunctions). When subjects are instructed to ignore the black numbers and focus their attention on the 4 targets, all shapes were paired with their correct features.

Question 21

What is the explanation for the illusory conjunction experiment?

Answer 21

In the pre-attentive stage an objects features and floating. Because they are not attached to a particular object, they can become potentially attached to any object in the display. When this happens an illusory conjunction is created.

Question 22

What effect can top-down processing have on illusory conjunctions?

Answer 22

It can reduce them. When subjects are told they will be presented a ‘carrot’ a ‘lake’ and a ‘tire’ illusory conjunction were less likely occur.

Question 23

What does attention enhance in the brain?

Answer 23

Attention enhances activity at the locations on the brain’s topographic map that represents where the subject is directing his attention.

Question 24

Distributed attentional processing: what is alerting?

Answer 24

Achieving a high sensitivity to incoming stimuli.

Question 25

Distributed attentional processing: what is orientating?

Answer 25

is focusing attention where visual targets might appear. Both overt and covert.

Question 26

Distributed attentional processing: what is executive control of attention?

Answer 26

Occurs for tasks that involve conflict, such as the stroop task.

Question 27

What is the default-mode network?

Answer 27

A network of brain regions that are active when the individual is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest.

Question 28

What has the default-mode network been hypothesised to do?

Answer 28

to generate spontaneous thoughts during mind wandering and may relate to creativity.

Question 29

When is the default-mode network activated?

Answer 29

when the mind is wandering

Question 30

When is the attentional control system activated?

Answer 30

For demanding cognitive tasks,