attention part 2 Flashcards
inattentional blindness/vs change blindness
inability to perceive information outside of the attentional spotlight
unlike change blindness it is specificallly not noticing something new
- a failure to attend to new or unexpected events in our attended to environment
change blindness
a type of inattentional blindness - inability to detect changes to scene - usually when something distracts from a change taking place - like a mask
failures of selective attention
selective attention occurs when we pay attention to one thing at the expense of all others - can to forms of inattentional blindness or change blindness
study: people given a task - estimate length of crosses that are presented in flashing snaps - some crosses have another stimuli added (like a word or shape) - most people don’t notice - although it can sometimes unconsciously influence their performance on subsequent tasks
Posner’s attentional spotlight
function of attention is to orient ourselves in a space and ignoring what is located outside of the focused space
it also activates attention for anticipated processing
Posner cueing task
had ps look at a fixation point on a screen- cues pointed to where the object was likely to appear
goal: respond as quickly as they could when object appeared in their periphery (keep eyes on fixation - covert attention)
valid trial: object lined up with cue - ps had significantly faster reaction times
invalid trial: object did not line up with cue
inhibition of return
attention is inhibited from going to a recently attended space after a long duration between space cue and target
- a flip side of the valid trials in the cueing task - if there is too long a gap, valid trials will actually have longer reaction times that invalid trials
what are the two phases of feature based attention
- pre-attention phase
- object features are separately, automatically coded
- bottom up processing - focused attention phase
- object features are integrated together to guide a search
- top down processing, requires voluntary attention
feature integration theory
attention is needed in order to combine distinct features into coherent perceptual objects - anne triesman
conjunction error
people have errors in memory for unattended stimuli - usually only get part of a stimuli correct
lack of attention means that people have a hard time binding together stimuli - feature integration theory
visual search tasks
evidence for feature integration theory
participants look for a target object among a group of distractors
conjunction search
search task where targets can’t be distinguished from distractors only any single property - it is only the conjunction of properties that differentiate them
uses top down processing
in these tasks, as the number of distractors increases from one feature to two, the amount of time it takes people to find the target increases linearly
triesman: we need to use attentional processing to bind the separate features of each distractor, which takes time
feature search
also a pop out/single feature search
visual search task where target differs on one main feature - usually so different that it attracts attention
uses bttom up processing
embodied theories of attention - overt and covert
allocation of attention is typically coupled with where we fix our eyes
overt attention: when you move your eyes to where you are attending
covert attention: moving your attention around even though your gaze is fixed in a particular location
cultural differences in visual attention
studies have shown that westerners focus their eyes on central objects in a scene (more individualistic?) while east asians are more likely to pay attention to the background/have more eye movement overall (more holistic?)
types of top down attention
sustained attention and divided attention
sustained attention
ability to focus on one task - vigilance or concentration
vigilance decrement
as we spend more time on a task, our vigiliance/ability to sustain attention goes down
divided attention
attending to multiple objects at the same time - commonly referred to as multi tasking
debates as to whether we are actually capable of multitasking or whether we engage in task switching
ex. talking on the phone = more likely to miss stop signs and 10% slower to break
overload theory vs underload theory
theories of vigilance decrement:
overload theory: attentional demands increase with time, we get tired
underload theory: boredom - mindwandering - divided attention
mind wandering
when our attention shifts from the external task to internal thoughts
can act as divided attention because we are shifting our mental resources away from the primary task
exogenous vs endogenous attentional control
exogenous attentional control:
when some property of the environment drives us to pay attention to it - bottom up
- temporo-parietal junction (TPJ)
endogenous attentional control:
when a person chooses what to pay attention to, based on his or her goals or intentions
- intraparietal sulcus (IPS)
attentional capture
bottom up cues that are automatically processed - something surprising/a prediction error
things that capture our attention
- survival information
- faces
- human bodies
- personally relevant stimuli
- addictive stimuli
- fearful stimuli
measuring attentional capture of faces
task switching and costs of multitasking
alternative to multitasking - instead of doing two tasks at once maybe we quickly switch our attention from one task to another
could explain the costs of multitasking - takes time as the brain readjusts from the old task to the new task
interesting: people who multitask the most often show the greatest deficits in task switching
multiobject tracking
some evidence that people can pay attention to multiple objects concurrently - people can keep track of around 4-5objects concurrently
two theories for why our visual system has a covert attentional system
- human gaze is easily detected by others and we don’t always want to reveal to others where we are attending
- attention may sometimes precede eye movements by a short amount of time, as a way of ‘scoping out’ the best place to move them
where does attention happen in the brain
everywhere - attention increases perceptual processing in anticipation of incoming stimuli - ex. if someone is expecting an auditory stimulus, a portion of the auditory cortex is likely to be activated
this form of attention is top down, based on anticipation (endogenous)
dorsolateral frontal lobes and posterior parietal lobes in endogenous attentional networks
regions in the dorsolateral frontal lobes and posterior parietal lobes serve to control which other brain areas are activated - modulating
fmri scans of people doing directional detection tasks show activation in the intraparietal sulcus as well as areas meant for processing motion - suggests that the parietal lobes control which portions of the brain are paying attention
brain regions and exogenous attention
regions in right hemisphere, like temporoparietal junction are responsible for capturing our attention to unexpected stimuli
frontal eye fields
area in the frontal lobe that that modulates where we orient our attention - contains a retinotopic map so tells us where in the retina to expect stimuli/pay increased attention to
go/no go tasks
tasks to assess attention and cognitive control
require a subject to press a button as quickly as possible when a target is present but stop pressing it when a different, but similar, target appears
researchers have found that children with ADHD make more errors in these types of tasks and also have less/more inefficient activation of frontoparietal regions when suppressing responses - demonstrates that there is dysregulation in attentional control networks that may increase levels of impulsive behaviours in people experiencing ADHD
Balint’s sundrome
usually occurs due to a stroke that simultaneously affects the occipital and parietal lobes of both hemispheres
patients display both optic ataxia (inability to execute visually guided movements) and simultanagnosia (inability to identify or use more than one object or property in a scene at a time
Autism spectrum disorder and alterations in attention
autism can lead to a reduced tendency to fixate on other peoples eye
this might affect people’s ability to identify the emotions of others because they are not focusing on certain pieces of information
pop out effect
the time needed to find a target that is different by one feature from distractors is independent of the number of distractors
