Attention and Visual Search

Question 1

what is attention?

Answer 1

reduces the information overload of sensory stimuli to the brain, to determine perception

Question 2

inattentional blindness

Answer 2

very salient things in the environment can be missed

Question 3

what does inattentional blindness suggest?

Answer 3

attention is a distributable and limited resource, as participants were less likely to see the object during a difficult primary task

Question 4

change blindness

Answer 4

failing to notice major changes in the environment

Question 5

central capacity theory

Answer 5

there is a single pool of limited resources to distribute across tasks

when tasks exceed the total resource, dual task costs emerge

Question 6

attentional blink

Answer 6

something can be made invisible by presenting it very quickly following another important stimulus

Question 7

inference theory

Answer 7

T1, T2, and their masks are encoded into a temporal buffer which takes up items in short-term memory

Question 8

what are N400 ERPs used for?

Answer 8

to mark whether the brain processes meaning

used to study if T2 is processed without conscious experience

Question 9

unified theory

Answer 9

increased attention is required to process T1, leaving T2 vulnerable to decay and interference

Question 10

what is the cocktail party problem?

Answer 10

found unattended auditory information is processed to a lower level of complexity than attended information

1/3 of participants report hearing their name in the unattended ear

Question 11

bottom-up processing in CPP

Answer 11

dichotic listening is easier when voices are physically different

Question 12

top-down processing in CPP

Answer 12

familiar voices are easier to pay attention to and ignore

Question 13

stages of attention as early selection

Answer 13

1. parallel inputs enter the sensory system
2. these are filtered by physical characteristics
3. filtering prevents overloading the limited capacity mechanism
4. remaining inputs are available for later semantic processing

Question 14

attention as early selection

Answer 14

broadbent believes attention occurs during early low-level visual processing

Question 15

evidence to support early selection

Answer 15

unattended stimuli only undergo limited processing, and inputs are filtered by physical characteristics

Question 16

evidence to dispute early selection

Answer 16

some of the unattended stream is processed semantically (hearing name) and unconscious stimuli (blindsight, T2) can alter behaviour

Question 17

attention as late selection

Answer 17

deutsch and deutsch believe all stimuli are processed up to the point of meaning, and the most relevant stimulus determines what response is made

Question 18

evidence to dispute late selection

Answer 18

ERPs are smaller for unattended stimuli, showing attention must occur at an earlier stage

Question 19

stages of attention as flexible selection

Answer 19

1. unattended information is filtered after the sensory register
2. stimulus analysis occurs through a hierarchy of physical characteristics up to semantic meaning
3. when capacity is reached, tests are precluded for all but the attended stimulus

Question 20

posner cueing paradigm

Answer 20

sighted people can pay attention to a part of space they are not directly looking at
(covert attention)

Question 21

endogenous cues

Answer 21

top-down, goal driven

Question 22

exogenous cues

Answer 22

bottom-down, stimulus driven

Question 23

endogenous attention

Answer 23

choosing to pay attention to a particular part of space makes you react faster to things that happen in that part of space

Question 24

exogenous attention

Answer 24

the same is true, but only if something happens in that part of space very quickly after attention is shifted to it

Question 25

what is endogenous attention controlled by?

Answer 25

intentions and expectations
- dorsal/parietal regions

Question 26

what is exogenous attention controlled by?

Answer 26

automatic shifts of attention when peripheral cues are presented
- ventral/parietal/frontal regions

Question 27

feature search

Answer 27

the target has unique features not shared by other items in the display, in order to pop out

Question 28

conjunction search

Answer 28

the target has a unique combination of features

Question 29

reaction time for feature search versus conjunction search

Answer 29

significantly higher for conjunction search when there are more distractors

remains stable in feature search

• can be explained by feature integration theory

Question 30

feature integration theory

Answer 30

perceptual features are encoded in parallel prior to attention, meaning unique perceptual objects may be detected without the need for attention

Question 31

what is required to serially search all objects in FIT?

Answer 31

spatial attention

Question 32

what does FIT believe?

Answer 32

an object is an object only if you pay attention to it

Question 33

stages of FIT visual search

Answer 33

1. rapid initial parallel process to identify features without attention
2. slow, serial process to form objects by combining features

Question 34

illusory conjunctions

Answer 34

experiencing shapes that are the combination of others they did not pay attention to

Question 35

evidence against FIT

Answer 35

negative priming tasks

Question 36

negative priming tasks

Answer 36

show semantic processing of unattended stimuli and altered reactions to subsequent stimuli

Question 37

guided search theory (dual path model)

Answer 37

explains visual search in the real world by using top-down knowledge to narrow down the environment

Question 38

what does GST believe?

Answer 38

early parallel processing and late serial attentive processing are mixed to produce an activation map

Question 39

what follows the activation map?

Answer 39

different parts of the scene are weighed based on how promising they are, and objects with the highest activation receive the most attention