Attention - Modern Attention Research

Question 1

What are the characteristics of attention?

Answer 1

Goal-directed

Varies in effort

Can be shifted

Can be zoomed

Selective

Limited

Can be captured

Can be divided

Question 2

What does it mean that attention is “goal-directed”?

Answer 2

Deployed to achieve something

e.g. finding someone in a crowd

Question 3

What does it mean that attention “varies in effort”?

Answer 3

Deploying attention can be very easy or very difficult (visual search)

Pop-out searches are very easy

Serial search tends to be much harder (Where’s Wally?)

Question 4

What does it mean that attention “can be shifted”?

Answer 4

Light that follows someone round on a stage, keeping your focus and directing your attention - spotlight metaphor

In visual search, attention and eye movement often coupled to refocus attention

e.g. scanning left to right

Question 5

What does it mean that attention “can be zoomed”?

Answer 5

Shift our focus to look at small patch of scene in detail

Question 6

What does it mean that attention is “selective”?

Answer 6

Attention as a filter metaphor

e.g. deciding to focus on one conversation at a party while ignoring other things

Dominates early modern attention research

Attending to one thing means not attending to other things

Question 7

What does it mean that attention is “limited”?

Answer 7

Attention as a resource metaphor

e.g. trying to listen to two people at the same time

Limited “amount of attention” and can “run out of” attention

Question 8

What does it mean that attention “can be captured”?

Answer 8

Don’t have complete control of attention

Can control attention but only to a degree

e.g. searching for your friend with red hair who never sits in first row but attention still captured by other red-haired students in first row

Question 9

What does it mean that attention “can be divided”?

Answer 9

e.g. between modalities - listening and seeing

Question 10

What is modern attention research?

Answer 10

Started in 1950s following a paradigm shift from behaviourism to cognitivism - “cognitive revolution”

Cognitivism underlies most modern research

Donald Broadbent was one of the founding fathers

Question 11

What was the stimuli in Broadbent’s (1952) experiment?

Answer 11

Grid with 5 locations

Different symbols in some locations

Question 12

What was the task in Broadbent’s (1952) experiment?

Answer 12

Participants heard both
- “S-1 from G.D.O. Is there a heart on Position 1?”
- “S-2 from G.D.O. Is there a cross on Position 4?”

Recordings played simultaneously

Various conditions
- answer question for S-1 but ignore S-2

Question 13

What were the results of Broadbent’s (1952) experiment?

Answer 13

Only about 50% of questions answered correctly

Task was very difficult even with limited number of possible alternatives

Question 14

What was Cherry’s (1953) cocktail-party problem?

Answer 14

“how do we recognise what one person is saying when others are speaking at the same time?”

Question 15

What was the first condition in Cherry’s (1953) cocktail-party problem experiment?

Answer 15

Two messages by same speaker played to both ears (you hear both messages in both ears)

Instruction - repeat one message and ignore the other (shadowing)

Result
- task is very difficult but possible after many repetitions

But only tested one participant

Question 16

What was the second condition in Cherry’s (1953) cocktail-party problem experiment?

Answer 16

Two messages by the same speaker simultaneously played to different ears

Called dichotic listening

Participants instructed to shadow one speaker

Much easier to be able to attend to one ear

Question 17

What happened to the irrelevant message in Cherry’s (1953) cocktail party problem experiment?

Answer 17

No words or semantic content reported

Change in language not noticed

Reversed speech was something recognised

Change from male to female or to pure tone recognised - suggest that basic physical characteristics processed

Question 18

What were Cherry’s (1953) conclusions from his two experiments into the cocktail-party problem?

Answer 18

Very hard to attend to two messages that are not separable by physical cues (i.e. same speaker, same ear)

With physical cues (i.e. location of speaker) is much easier

We can attend to one message and report very little back about other message

Question 19

What was Broadbent’s filter theory?

Answer 19

Senses -> short term store -> selective filter -> limited capacity channel (P system)

Question 20

What is the nightclub analogy for Broadbent’s filter theory?

Answer 20

Limited capacity channel = nightclub

Selective filter = bouncers (prevent overcrowding)

Short-term memory store = the queue

Question 21

How does the short-term memory store function in Broadbent’s filter theory?

Answer 21

Information from multiple sensory inputs enters short-term memory store

Simple physical stimulus properties (location, pitch, intensity) processed in parallel

Question 22

How does the selective filter function in Broadbent’s filter theory?

Answer 22

Identifies information for further processing

Uses physical stimulus properties as basis for selection

Question 23

How does the limited capacity channel store function in Broadbent’s filter theory?

Answer 23

Serial processer

Can only process one thing at a time so other things must wait

Current term - focus of attention in working memory

Question 24

In Broadbent’s filter theory, what does selection/filters occur before?

Answer 24

Stimuli identified

Stimuli recognised

Stimuli fully analysed

Stimulus meaning fully analysed

Question 25

What type of theory is Broadbent’s filter theory?

Answer 25

Early selection of theory - selective filtering takes place before full meaning analysis can occur in limited capacity channel

Question 26

What are the three studies that can be used as evidence against early selection?

Answer 26

Own-name effect (Morary, 1959) (Wood and Cowan, 1995)

Message switching (Treisman, 1960)

Conditioning with electric shocks

Question 27

What is the own-name effect?

Answer 27

About 1/3 participants noticed own name when presented in irrelevant ear

Not possible to recognise words without processing their meaning

Suggests that presumably unattended information was analysed - not consistent with early selection theory

Question 28

What is message switching?

Answer 28

Participants report information from irrelevant ear when message switches from one ear to the other

So presumably unattended information analysed - not consistent with early selection theory

Question 29

What was the conditioning with electric shocks study?

Answer 29

Phase 1 - words paired with electric shocks

Phase 2 - words to presented irrelevant ear

Result - words affect skin conductance responses (stress level)

So must have been some level of processing - not consistent with early selection

Question 30

What are some alternatives to early selection?

Answer 30

Attenuation theory (Treisman)

Late selection (Deutsch and Deutsch, 1963)

Question 31

What is the attenuation theory?

Answer 31

Filter not completely selective

Provides explanation for failures of early selection

Some concepts in “mental dictionary” more readily available (e.g. own names)

Relatively weak signal sufficient to activate these concepts

Question 32

What is the late selection theory?

Answer 32

Meaning analysed before input filtered

Central assumptions about processing of perceptual input - however is good evidence that these assumptions wrong when taken together
- automatic (not under control)
- not capacity-limited (everything is fully analysed)