Attention and Performance Flashcards
What is attention?
1) An ability - focus on one of many incoming stimuli
2) Intentional - done on purpose and controlled
3) Is limited - attend to one thing means you lack attention to everything else
What happens when we move from many inputs to few outputs?
Lose information along the way
Countless stimuli enter in parallel
actions are emitted in serial fashion (3/sec)
Why do we need attention?
Because we receive about 45GB of info/ sec
Need to filter out useless information and focus on what is relevant
What is parallel processing>
Handling two or more streams of information at the same time
What is the stroop effect?
Competition between the response to the colour word and the ink colour
-shows parallel processing and that streams compete
What is the cocktail party effect?
Engrossed in one conversation in a noisy environment but automatically hear your name
-Shows parallel processing and that streams of info are being processed without explicit attention
What is inattention blindness?
When our attention is absorbed by one stimulus stream and as a result we are “blind” to other info
What is sustained attention?
After a period of time the task of concentrating on a single target of our attention becomes a progressively more difficult chore
What are the limits in response selection?
It is difficult to perform two very different tasks at the same time
Depends on whether the tasks are controlled or automatic
What is a controlled task?
IP that is voluntary, slow and sequential, attentionally demanding
What is an automatic task?
IP that is non-conscious, fast, parallel and low attention load
What is a Production Unit?
A group of subtasks that , through practice become automatically performed (reading)
Why do fakes work?
One person chooses to initiate
The other has to identify an react- when the programming is wrong there is interference when you try to stop and start another action.
What are the limits of movement?
Not a limit of identification
Not a limit of selection
But a limit of programming