Attention - Chapter 4 Content

Question 1

Define selective attention.

Answer 1

That we only focus our attention on one or a few tasks at any given time because we process info differently depending on whether or not we are actively focusing on a stimulus.

Question 2

Explain what the dichotic listening tasks are.

Answer 2

A participant listens to different messages played simultaneously in opposite ears and then is asked to repeat what they heard out loud. The logic behind this is that in order for someone to understand the message, they must concentrate on the message in one ear as it takes your attentional resources but the message in the other ear, you would be able to tell very superficial things about like the voice.

Question 3

What is filter theory?

Answer 3

That there are limits on how much info a person can attend to at any given time. They filter in what they want to hear and asses meaning and block out the rest. What we filter is based on very superficial things, and is done early because it is done on the basis of basic auditory features.

Question 4

Why does the cocktail party effect differ from filter theory?

Answer 4

This is explaining that people will hear their own names in an unattended convo because this will cause them to switch their attention to that message.

Question 5

Describe attenuation theory.

Answer 5

This was the way of considering that unattended messages were more so turned down and that the info might be still available, even if hard to recover. The 2 stages are Attenuator (analyzing for physical characteristics, language and meaning) and Dictionary Unit (showing how stored words have a different threshold, such as your names having a low threshold and can get your attention quickly, essentially turning down the volume on other stimuli)

Question 6

What are the 3 analysis tools used to process incoming messages?

Answer 6

Physical properties (loudness, pitch), linguistics (putting the message into syllables and words), semantic (processing the meaning of the message)

Question 7

What is priming?

Answer 7

Have pre-seen context in your mind that makes you more prepared to interpret something in a certain kind of way.

Question 8

What is the late-selection theory?

Answer 8

This states that all messages are routinely processed, very late relative to earlier models and elaborated material or making a response to stimuli is making it more likely to be retained. Selecting what you pay attention to is during the response output stage.

Question 9

Describe the Stroop Effect.

Answer 9

A series of colour bars or words are presented in a conflicting colour, and the participant is asked about the ink colour. This shows how we read so quickly and effortlessly that not reading the word is hard, making this an autonomic function. The downside of this is that it becomes really hard to undo the automatic behavioural and this is why it takes so much longer to say colours over words.

Question 10

What is autonomic processing?

Answer 10

1. must occur without intention
2. must occur without involving conscious awareness
3. must not interfere with other mental activity

Over time the attentional capacity required for a given task decrease as you become more familiar to do it unconsciously.

Question 11

What is controlled processing?

Answer 11

This is used for difficult tasks and ones that involve unfamiliar processes. Usually operates serially (with time) and requires attention, limited capacity and has to be under conscious control.

Question 12

What is PRP?

Answer 12

It is the psychological refractory period, and this waiting time is analogous to the slowed response time to the second stimulus, S2, at short intervals between the presentation of S1 and S2. (ATM machine)

Question 13

Explain what the attention hypothesis of automatization is.

Answer 13

This is stating that attention is needed during the practice phase of a task and determines what gets learned during practice. Learning is a side effect of attendance.

Question 14

Describe what feature integration theory is.

Answer 14

The idea is that we perceive objects in two distinct phases.
1. preattentive/automatic, we register features like colour and shape
2. attention allows us to glue together the features into a unified object, which is necessary for complex objects or detecting objects with similar features.

Question 15

What is the illusory conjunction?

Answer 15

This is when people make mistakes when attention is diverted and make glueing errors, combing stimulus incorrectly.

Question 16

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 16

The phenomenon of not perceiving a stimulus that might be right in front of you unless you are paying attention to it. (bear walking through basketball game)

Question 17

What is the difference between early and late selection with selective attention?

Answer 17

Early selection is referring to how you are only paying attention to the main features like colour and size. Whereas the late selection is talking about how information that is being ignored is still gonna be processed for meaning but it is only used when a response is needed.

Question 18

How is the white bear example used to describe how we can’t undo our attention?

Answer 18

Showing the white bear to people may not be a significant thing, but telling them to not pay attention and forgot about it is very hard to do. If there is nothing else to occupy your attention, then the only thing occupying it is the bear making you remember it better.

Question 19

Describe the effects of semantic/attentional leakage.

Answer 19

This is because even when using a dichotic listening activity, you are still processing both messages to an extent. This is where the story is started in one ear and is finished in the other and you can recall the story because you are processing both and unconsciously switching your attention to finish the story.

Question 20

What are the 3 problems with the filter theory?

Answer 20

The cocktail party effect, sematic/attentional leakage, and unconscious learning of associations.

Question 21

Describe the associations that can be learned unconsciously.

Answer 21

This is an experiment that was done where certain city names were paired with shocks. In a recall task, the city names (shocks) and new city names were presented in the unattended ear. Uneven though the ear not attending to the message, there was still a GSR (arousal) response to both new and old city names, saying that we still are processing the info in both messages but not deeply unless we have to give a response.

Question 22

What are the key features of controlled processing?

Answer 22

• serial
• requires attention
• capacity is limited
• under conscious control
• deliberate

Question 23

What are the key features of automatic processing?

Answer 23

• without intention
• no conscious awareness
• doesn’t interfere with other mental activities
• parallel
• does not constrain capacity limitations

Question 24

What are the 3 main areas associated with attention in the brain?

Answer 24

Anterior cingulate gyrus (conflict processing), superior parietal lobe (spatial awareness) and temporoparietal junction (shifting attention to unexpected stimuli)

Question 25

Describe the main dysfunction with hemispatial neglect.

Answer 25

There is a right hemisphere lesion in the parietal lobe that creates an attentional deficit (nothing wrong with vision). Patients neglect the left-hand side of their ability to attend to things (drawing a picture). Usually occurs after a stroke but can improve and regain attention with time.

Question 26

Explain the conscious vs unconscious knowledge of visual neglect.

Answer 26

They do not have a conscious knowledge (a word will not be noticed) of info in the neglected field but they show unconscious knowledge (but can prime for response to words).

Question 27

Describe the connection between related/unrelated words with a neglected field.

Answer 27

With related words, if the word dog was shown in the neglected field, the brain is not attending to it but is priming for when they respond with a cat in the non-neglected. Whereas when it’s two unrelated words, it takes them much longer to make a connection between the words. In more unrelated the words become, the longer the response time is.

Question 28

Describe how attention was described in the real world.

Answer 28

The main example used to study this was the pursuit rotor task. This si where they are given a cursor and must keep it on the moving target and when the target flashed red, pushes a button, or flashed green, do nothing. They were presented with either a single task (tracking the cursor only) or a dual task (tracking while talking on the phone or listening to the radio).

Question 29

What were the results from the pursuit rotor task?

Answer 29

It showed that when people had to use their cell phones while keeping their attention on the cursor, it was much more likely that they would miss and that their reaction time went much higher compared to just listening to the radio. The act of a conversation on a phone is more distracting that talking to someone in the car as on the phone the other person is unaware of your environment.