Attention (P&C) Flashcards
William James
First Great American Psychologist
→ our experience is what we attend to - selective attention that gets processed
→ some information is suppressed or not processed
Define Selective Attention
is the ability to focus on what’s important in a task while ignoring or suppressing task irrelevant information
How does Selective Attention work?
How does selection work? - Early or Late Selection (pre or post processing such as identification or recognition)
When does selective attention work?
→ When does selection work? - Structure or Capacity models (can you not attend to something bc of the structural limitations of system or bc the system has limited capacity to pay attention)
Define Broadbent’s Filter Model as an early selection structural model
→ Early Selection: the information not attended to is filtered out before any processing such as identification (early not late)
→ Structural (not capacity) limitations: they are built in, not due to processing power limitations of the system (not capacity)
Describe Cherry’s Dichotic Listening as evidence for Broadbent
- different information in each ear and listener only attends to the important information and understand it by repeated it out loud
- the unattended speech is not processed beyond physical characteristics (gender) so no semantic processing = selection is early prior to processing
What are the elements of Broadbent’s model?
- there is a store for psychical characteristics for all stimuli (the sensory store)
- selection of ‘to be attended to’ from the store = filter
- processing limited to ‘attend to’ material: perceptual and semantic analysis
What are the predictions for Broadbent’s model
- all or nothing processing - when the filter is focused on one channel, there should be no real processing beyond basic physical elements and no divided attention
- doing two things at once is actually doing one thing after another (channel switching 300-500ms)
Describe Triesman’s model
- the message from either ear becomes one message and the unattended info is not filtered but turned down and the signal from the unattended channel is weaker
- HOWEVER, some stimuli are louder than others such as own name, words associated with electric shock
- same model as Broadbent but the filter is taken out and replaced with an attenuator
Describe Deustch and Deustch late select model
- all incoming info is processed to the highest level and all stimuli’s physical characteristics are processed
- everything goes through processing - selection and filtering happens after processing - new bottleneck is prior to response but still a structural model
What evidence for the Deustchx2 model did Lackner and Garrett find?
- needs to be strong evidence of processing of unattended messages
- ppts use material from unattended channel to resolve ambiguous sentences
- ppts paraphrase reflected the content of the unattended channel - so they were clearly paying attention to some extent
Describe capacity models of attention
- no structure bottleneck, cog system has limited amount of processing capacity and paying attention is the same as investing energy
- so limiting factor is not a structural one (filter or attenuator and early or late) it how much resource you have to spend
- task dependent on allocation of capacity at task (habits, preferences, momentary needs of the moment and evaluation of demands of capacity)
Whats the role of arousal in attention
too much = reduced focus and more irrelevant details being noticed
too little = no real motivation and increased levels can counteract capacity limits
Describe the Perceptual Load Theory
limited system - can only focus on certain amount of stimuli (similar to Broadbent here)
when info is simple - we can attend to more stimuli as there is little demand for perceptual processing
when task if hard = need for high perceptual processing and you will not be distracted by anything else
Describe Lavie’s perceptual load theory
- limited system
- but we process everything until it runs out of capacity
- so when there is low demand on capacity, more of what is seen is processed - increase chance of non relevant elements processed
- when high demand on capacity, less of what is seen is processed - non relevant unattended parts filtered out
- you can have early and late selection within your system - when that happens is dependent on the demands of the attended stimuli
Describe the study that supports perceptual load theory (Lavie)
Stimuli: is z or x present in these stimuli?
- dependent measure: RT for incongruent - RT for congruent
- high score: more interference by incongruent (the incongruent takes longer)
- low or no difference (no interference)
- low perceptual load (single letter stimuli) strong compatibility effect - high RT for incongruent compared to congruent
- High perceptual load (multiple letters) - so no real compatibility effects, no real difference in RT between congruent/incongruent
What are the results of Lavie’s load theory
- low load means late filtering - more of the scene processed (broad focus of attention)
- high load means system filters out irrelevant stimuli early (not processed) - less of the scene processed (narrowed focus to attention)
describe inattentional blindess
not noticing task irrelevant elements in the visual scene - basketball and gorrilas etc
→ increased load: reduced ppts noting irrelevant elements of stimuli
→ perceptual load reduces the compatibility effect and increases inattentional blindness
Describe load theory: the role of working memory
→ perceptual load reduced interference: but what about general control processes beyond the perceptual system?
→ even when distractors are processed they seldom gain control of behaviour → cognitive control processes (working memory) maintain a clear distinction between task relevant and task irrelevant information
The role of working memory
- High WM load the increases the impact of the incongruent pictures/names, larger difference in RT between congruent and incongruent compared to low WM load
so
- high working memory load increased interference
- high perceptual load reduces interference
- overloading the passive system reduces interference and overloading the active one increases it
