Attention and Performance

Question 1

Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)

Answer 1

A medial portion of the prefrontal cortex important in cognitive control and in dealing with conflict.

Question 2

Attention

Answer 2

The allocation of cognitive resources among ongoing processes.

Question 3

Attenuation theory

Answer 3

Treisman’s early-selection theory of attention, which proposes that some incoming sensory signals are attenuated (weakened) on the basis of their physical characteristics.

Question 4

Automaticity

Answer 4

The ability to perform a task with little or no central cognitive control.

Question 5

Binding problem

Answer 5

The question of how the brain puts together features in the visual field to produce perception of an object.

Question 6

Central bottleneck

Answer 6

The inability to detect a change in a scene when the change matches the context.

Question 7

Dichotic listening task

Answer 7

A task in which participants inn experiment are presented with two messages simultaneously, one to each ear, and are instructed to repeat back the words from only one of the messages.

Question 8

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)

Answer 8

Upper portion of the prefrontal cortex thought to be important in cognitive control.

Question 9

Early-selection theories

Answer 9

Theories of attention proposing that serial bottlenecks occur early in information processing. Contrast with late-selection theories.

Question 10

Executive control

Answer 10

The direction of central cognition, which is carried out mainly by prefrontal regions of the brain.

Question 11

Feature-integration theory

Answer 11

Treisman’s proposal that one must focus attention on a stimulus before its individual features can be synthesized into a pattern.

Question 12

Filter theory

Answer 12

Broadbent’s early-selection theory of attention, which assumes that, when sensory information has to pass through a serial bottleneck, only some of the information is selected for further processing, on the basis of physical characteristics, such as the pitch of a speaker’s voice.

Question 13

Goal-directed attention

Answer 13

Or endogenous control; attention controlled by one’s goals. Contrast with stimulus-driven attention.

Question 14

Illusory conjunction

Answer 14

Illusions that features of different objects belong to a single object.

Question 15

Inattentional blindness

Answer 15

Unawareness of unattended areas of the visual field.

Question 16

Inhibition of return

Answer 16

The decreased ability to return our attention to a location or an object that we have already attended to.

Question 17

Late-selection theories

Answer 17

Theories of attention proposing that serial bottlenecks occur late in information processing. Contrast with early-selection theories.

Question 18

Object-based attention

Answer 18

Allocation of attention to particular objects.

Question 18

Serial bottleneck

Answer 18

The points in the paths from perception to action at which people cannot process all the incoming information in parallel.

Question 19

Perfect time-sharing

Answer 19

The ability to pursue multiple tasks simultaneously without cost to the performance of any task.

Question 19

Space-based attention

Answer 19

Allocation of attention to visual information in a region of space.

Question 20

Stimulus-driven attention

Answer 20

Or exogenous control; Attention controlled by a salient stimulus.

Question 21

Stroop effect

Answer 21

A phenomenon in which the tendency to name a word will interfere with the ability to name the colour in which the word is printed.