Attention Lecture

Question 1

Input Attention

Answer 1

• Alertness or arousal
• Orienting reflex or response
• Spotlight attention and search
• The nervous system must be awake and able to respond to the environment
• Arousal at the biological level is based on the reticular activating system (RAS)

Question 2

Explicit Processing

Answer 2

Involves conscious processing; which is conscious awareness that a task is being preformed, and usually conscious awareness of the outcome of the performance

Question 3

Implicit Processing

Answer 3

Processing with no necessary involvement of conscious awareness

Question 4

Orienting Reflex or Orienting Response

Answer 4

the reflexive redirection of attention that orients you toward the unexpected stimulus

• We orient to what is different
• We can then divert conscious attention

Question 5

Habituation

Answer 5

A gradual reduction of the orienting response (or performance) back to baseline

Question 6

Spotlight Attention and Visual Search

Answer 6

Focused or controlled; not by eyes, but by the MIND
~Priming involves stimuli that are outside of the spotlight that provide a point to which we will orient our eyes
~Stimuli outside of the spotlight may be implicitly processed to some degree

Question 7

Controlled Attention (Posner and colleagues)

Answer 7

Three distinct networks in the frontal lobe and parietal lobe involved in moving the spotlight.

• Alerting System
• Orienting System
• Executive System

Question 8

Controlled, Voluntary ATTENTION (Controlled, Selective, and Filtering)

Answer 8

• Controlled Attention: a deliberate, voluntary allocation of mental effort or concentration
• Selective Attention: ability to attend to one source of information while ignoring or excluding other outgoing messages around us
• Filtering or Selecting: Mental processes of eliminating those distractions, eliminating unwanted messages

Question 9

Assumptions of Attention

Answer 9

1) There is more information that we can pay attention to
2) WE have limits to what we can pay attention to
3) WE can do some things while paying very little attention
4) With practice some things do become automatic

Question 10

Discrete Task

Answer 10

An experimental task in which the beginning and end are easily identified

Question 11

Continuous Task

Answer 11

Involves actions which require sustained attention across a considerable amount of time

Question 12

Bonebakker (1996)

Answer 12

• **Found that people had memory for words learned while under anesthesia
• Found this out by using a word stem completion task; patients were more likely used to words that were heard while they were under anesthesia

Question 13

Signal Detection Theory

Answer 13

~ Explains how people can maintain vigilance over periods of time

• Prolonged tasks reduce vigilance
• frequency of target affects performance

Question 14

Multitasking

Answer 14

Divided Attention: When preforming two (or more) tasks at the same time, both tasks reduced performance

Question 15

Multiple Resource Theory

Answer 15

Describes the ways in which attention is divided:

1) the stages of attention involved
2) Modality of the codes used
3) Modes of output

Question 16

Psychological Refractory Period

Answer 16

*Attentional Blink…

When doing two things almost simultaneously there is an increase of time on task 2
Bc…takes the brain a few milliseconds to readjust itself

Question 17

Central Capacity Theory

Answer 17

States that instead of a structure there is a set number of resources

• Both tasks can access the central stage simultaneously
• Every task consumes fewer resources
• Different tasks consume resources from a central pool of resources

Question 18

Triesman’s Work

Answer 18

Thought there was more than one channel…messages are alike except for concept.

• Meaning or semantic features are the basis for selection of attention
• If a sentence switched its meaning to the other ear, people followed it to the other ear

Question 19

Norman’s Pertinence Model

Answer 19

Pertinence: The momentary importance of info. whether caused by permanent or transitory factors. (Cocktail party phenomena example)

*Attention is guided by sensory activation and pertinence

Question 20

Automaticity

Answer 20

With little or no necessary involvement of a conscious, limited-attention mechanism
1) Conscious Processing occur with intention
2)Conscious Processing are open to awareness
3)Conscious Processing use up a great deal of resources
“Largely implicit; don’t have to think about it”

Question 21

Shiffrin and Schneider on Automaticity

Answer 21

*Found that automating task reduced resource demand

Question 22

Errors with Automaticity

Answer 22

Use of schemas are important, any changes to schemas—> lots of rigorous practice to learn such change; takes a long time, then mode errors occur—> resort back to previous schema

Question 23

Failures in Attention

Answer 23

Automaticity can lead to this…

• Higher error rate for some things because you overlook them
• Automaticity related to high errors among experts

Question 24

Change Blindness

Answer 24

-A change of some kind, and we don’t even notice it (Ex. somebody cuts their hair and you don’t notice it)

Question 25

Inattention blindness

Answer 25

-Not paying attention at all, complete lack of observation

Question 26

Action Slips

Answer 26

-Commit the wrong action, but have the right intention

“Errors that occur out of our control”
“Can lead to catastrophic errors”

Question 27

Action Slip Categories (Storage, Test, Subroutine, Discrimination, and Program Assembly Failures)

Answer 27

• Storage failure: When actions preformed are forgotten (Ex. Practice something, take break, come back and have to remember how to do it again)
• Test failure: Planned sequences is not carried out and at junctures the wrong action occurs (Ex. Actually pressing the wrong button)
• Subroutine failure: Is when there is an omission or insertion of actions or if actions are preformed in different order—> Miss a step or have a different order
• Discrimination failure: Not properly discriminating between two similar things
• Program Assembly failures: When a combination of actions results in a mix up in actions and intentions

Question 28

Texting and Driving Dilemma

Answer 28

“Inbalance of resource allocation” —> attention goes to more complex task, * Driving becomes an automatic motor task to us because we do it all the time… our attention goes to our texting because it’s not as automatic to us, even though driving is more dangerous. ***Both tasks ultimately suffer