Attention (CH 4) Flashcards
What was the Broadbent’s Filter Model of Attention?
- Based on Early Selection
- Explained results of experiment of Colin Cherry (1953)= resulted in Cocktail Party effect
- System= Messages –> Sensory Memory –> filter –> detector –> memory
how did the Early Selection version of Broadbent’s Filter Model of Attention work?
- Messages enter through Sensory Memory= all incoming info
- Then go to Filter= Identifies message on physical characteristics
- Then the Intended message goes to Detector= processes info to determine higher level of characteristics (meaning)
- Then message moves on to Memory
What was the Attentuation Mode of Broadbent’s Model of Attention?
- Based on Intermediate intermediate selection
- Proposed by Anne Treisman (1964)= people replaced “Dear,7, jane” with “Dear aunt jane” aunt appearing in a different ear
- Selection occurs in 2 stages= replaced filter w/ attentuator
- System= Messages –> Attentuator –> Dictionary Unit –> Memory
How does the Attentuation Mode of Broadbent’s Model of Attention work?
- Messages go to the Attentuator= Organizes incoming messages in terms of physical characteristics (high/low pitch), Language (syllabus and words), & meaning
- After both Attended & Unattended messages pass through Attenuator= attended is Full Strength vs Unattended is Weak
- After both messages pass, there may be a leaky filter= some of the unattended message gets through
- The Dictionary Unit contains words stores in memory & each word has a threshold to become activated= Common words have Lower Thresholds vs Uncommon Words have Higher Thresholds
- Then message goes to memory
What is the Late Selection Model of Broadbent’s Model of Attention
- Based on Late Selection
- Most of incoming info is processed at the level of meaning before the message to be further processed is selected
- Explains the results from the experiment when people heard ambiguous sentence in on ear and a related word in another (right ear=they threw rocks at the bank yesterday, left ear is saying money or river)
- Earlylate Contraversy= where early demonstrated under some conditions vs late demonstrated under other conditions depending on subject’s task & type of stimuli presented
What is Processing Capacity?
- Amount of info that people can handle
- Sets limit to ability to process incoming info
What is Perceptual Load?
- Difficulty of task
- Low-load tasks take up small amount of processing capacity
- Higher-load tasks take up all processing capacity= irrelevant stimuli cannot be processed
What is the Stroop Effect?
- Named after J.R. Stroop (1935)
- Tasks irrelevant stimuli is powerful
- Saying the color that the word is in instead of what the word is
What is Central Vision?
-Area where you’re looking at
What is Peripheral Vision?
-Everything off to the side
What is the Fovea?
-Where objects in Central Vision fall
What is Fixation?
-Focusing on 1 object at a time
What is Saccadic Eye Movement?
- Rapid/Jerky movement from one fixation to the next
- Usually 3 times/sec
What is Overt Attention?
-Shifting attention from one place to another
How is Bottom-Up processing used in Eye movements when scanning a scene?
- Use Bottom-Up processing bc depends on pattern of light & dark color w/ contrast in stimulus
- Results in the creation of Saliency Map= Combo of color, orientation, intensity at each scene/location
How is Top-Down processing used in eye movements when scanning a scene?
- Scanning is influenced by preferences a person brings to situation (memory schemas)
- People tend to look longer at things that seem out of place bc attention is affected by knowledge of what’s usually found in scene
What are Memory Schemas?
-An observers knowledge about what is contained in a typical scene
How do we Scan Scenes based on Task Demands?
- Person’s eye movement were determined by what task they are performing
- Just-in-Time Strategy= eye movements occur just before we need info they will provide
How does scanning scenes based on Cognitive Factors and Task Demands compare?
-Both of these scanning are influenced by their predictions
What is Covert Attention?
- Shifting attention while eyes are still
- “Looking out from the corner of your eye”
What did Posner & Coworkers (1978) do?
- Asked if whether paying attention to location improved a person’s ability to respond to stimuli presented in the same location
- Attention improves our ability to respond to location
- Gave rise that our attention is a “Spot Light”
How does our Attention improve our ability to respond to objects?
- When attention is directed to one place on an object, the enhancing effect of that attention spreads to other places on the same object
- Same-Object advantage
How Does Attention affect our Perception?
- Attending to object makes it clear & vivid
- This clearness helps us respond faster to location of objects
What did Datta & Deyoe discover?
- Asked what happens in the brain when people shift their attention to different locations while keeping their eyes stationary
- Used fMRI to measure brain activity=attention to locations increases activities in specific areas of the brain
- “Attention Maps”= directing attention to specific area activates specific area of the brain
What did Cakur & coworkers discover?
- Branched off of Huth’s experiment (The one where people are watching movies & developed map for brain activity
- Had 3 experimental groups= passive view, search for people, search for cars
- Found categorical shifts in brain scanning= some are more prominent than others depending on what they were tasked to do
- Attentional Warping= when person is looking for a specific item, brain tunes/ warps itself so that larger areas can respond best to that item & things that related to that item
How can Divided Attention be successfully achieved?
- Practicing task hella times like in experiment by Schneider & Shiffrin
- After practicing hella times= Automatic Processing= occurs w/o intervention & person’s cognitive resources
- BUT divided attention becomes more difficult when tasks are harder (driving in heavy conditions= turning off radio, cutting off convo, etc)
What did Strayer & Johnston (2001) discover?
- Looked at effects of distracted driving w/ cellphone
- Subjects missed 2x as many as while on the phone or handsfree device
- Talking on the phone uses mental resources that could’ve been used for driving the car
What are the effects of being Distracted by the Internet?
- Checking phone constantly= Operant Conditioning behavior bc behavior is controlled by rewards
- Constantly switching from one activity to another= Continuous Partial Attention
What is Mind Wandering?
- Thoughts coming from within (daydreaming)= extremely prevalent
- Associated with activity in the Default Mode Network (DMN)
What happens if we don’t Attend to a situation/scene?
-If we are paying attention to specific things, we may miss other things
What is Inattentional Blindness?
- People are unaware of clearly visible stimuli if they aren’t direction their attention to them
- High Load task increases the chances of missing out on stimuli
What is Inattentional Deafness?
- People are unaware of hearing stimuli
- Focusing on difficult task results in impaired hearing
- High Load task increases chances of missing out on stimuli
Why is it hard for us to detect Change in Scenes?
- Change Blindness
- We don’t focus on Continuity Errors in film bc we’re usually focusing on other things in the scene
Since we have a “spot light” for attention, how does that affect our everyday experience?
- There’s hella stimuli in our environment= we only pay attention to small number of it which results us to miss out on big things
- Argued that our perception features focus on 1 small portion of environment at a time= adaptive bc we are focusing on what’s important
- Since we only focus on small ass portion= our perceptual system is at its optimal
- Plus we have scene schemas to guide us
What is Binding?
-Process by which features (color, motion, location) are combined to create our perception of coherent object
What is the Feature Integration Theory? (FIT)
- 2 Stages
- 1st= Pre Attentive Stage
- 2nd= Focused Attention Stage
What is the 1st Stage of the Feature Integration Theory?
- Pre Attentive Stage
- Automatic, unconscious, effortless
- Objects are analyzed independently in separate areas of the brain that are NOT YET ASSOCIATED with specific object
What is the 2nd Stage of the Feature Integration Theory?
- Focused Attention Stage
- Attention is focused on object & independent features are combined= observer is consciously aware
- Think of individual features as components of visual alphabet= Features (letters) are put together= Perception of whole object (words)
What’s Illusionary Conjunction?
- Experiment= Illusionary Conjunctions= one object can take on the property of another
- Mostly Bottom-Up processing bc prior knowledge is not involved
- Can still occur if stimuli is same size & shape
- Occurs bc In Pre Attentive stage, each figure exists independently from others= NOT ASSOCIATED w/ specific object in early processes, just features (curved line, tilted, etc)
- People w/ Balint’s Syndrome (parietal lobe damage) has inability to focus attention on individual objects
What is Conjunction Search?
- Combo of 2 or more features of the same stimulus
- EX; Looking for horizontal green line in group of red horizontal lines & green vertical lines
- Involves scanning display in order to focus attention to a specific location
- Attention= essential component to mechanism that creates our perception of objects from a # of different features
What is the Ventral Attention Network?
-Controls attention based on Salience
What is the Dorsal Attention Network?
-Controls attention based on Top-Down processing
What does Salience mean?
-An objects prominence/ being noticiceable
What is Effective Connectivity?
- How easily an activity can travel along particular pathway
- Located between different areas of a network
- Basic system becomes the same but flow becomes easier in certain directions based on conditions
How does Effective Connectivity change?
- Synchronization
- More effective communication
What is the Executive Attention Network?
- Complex
- Range of processes= controlling attention, dealing w/ conflicting responses
- Dealing w/ conflicts= Cognitive Control or Inhibitory Control or Willpower
What is Stimulus Salience?
- Physical properties of a stimulus
- Color, contrast, movement
