Attention: Theories of Selection Flashcards
What is filtration based on in early selection?
Physical characteristics
What is filtration based on in late selection?
Meaning
What effect did Cherry (1953) find?
The ‘cocktail party effect’
What did the dichotic listening task reveal?
- easily shadow the attended message, but could only report the physical characteristics of the unattended message
- rarely noticed when unattended was foreign language
- couldn’t remember any content from unattended, even when same word was presented 35 times
What selection model did Broadbent (1958) support?
Early-selection
Name the 4 components of Broadbent’s Filter Theory (1958)
- sensory store
- filter
- detector
- short-term memory
What is the role of the filter in Broadbent’s Filter Theory (1958)
Analysing messages based on physical characteristics - e.g. tone, pitch, location of stimulus
Identify 3 problems with Broadbent’s Filter Theory (1958)
- heard name in unattended stream
- bilinguals influenced by unattended if in their second language
- when switching between ears, skipped a switch to ensure sentence made semantic sense
What did Moray (1959) find? - hint: name
During the dichotic listening task, participants heard their own name in the unattended stream
What did Treisman (1960) find? - hint: bilingual
During the dichotic listening task, bilinguals were influenced by the unattended stream if it was in their second language
What did Gray and Weddebum find? - hint: switching
During a version of the dichotic listening task where participants had to switch their attention between the streams, they skipped switches to preserve semantic meaning.
How did Treisman’s attenuation model modify Broadbent’s filter theory?
Proposed that unattended messages were attenuated, not lost completely.
How does Treisman’s attenuation theory explain breakthrough in dichotic listening?
Words must meet a certain threshold of signal strength to be attenuated; specific words have lower thresholds so are more easily detected
In accordance with Treisman’s attenuation theory, give 2 examples of words with lower attenuation thresholds
- own name
- words primed by context
In which theory does selection take place at a higher stage of processing?
Late-stage selection
In which theory is selection based on an analysis of the importance that the input receives a response?
Late-stage selection
What 3 things can late-stage selection explain?
- the effect of biasing words in dichotic listening
- response competition interference
- negative priming
What did MacKay (1973) find? - hint: ‘bank’
In a version of the dichotic listening task, a biasing word in the unattended stream can influence an ambiguous sentence in the attended stream - e.g. if ‘money’ was presented in the unattended stream, more likely to interpret ‘bank’ in attended sentence as the financial institution
Eriksen and Eriksen (1974) studied response competition interference; what does this show?
An incongruent distractor in an irrelevant location slows reaction time, showing that the distractor identity has been processed.
What is the impact of negative priming on attention?
Responses to previously ignored stimuli are slowed
What did Tipper and Driver (1988) do? - hint: negative priming
- Participants were tasked with categorising red stimuli and ignoring green stimuli.
- They found that responses to words were slowed when preceded by a semantically related ignored image.
- This suggests that the ignored stimuli is semantically categorised and inhibited.
What does Lavie’s Load Theory suggest about selection?
Both early and late selection is possible; depends on availability of perceptual capacity, which depends on the perceptual load of the task.
How does load theory link perceptual load with early/late selection?
Perceptual capacity is limited; - tasks with high perceptual load exhaust capacity so early selection
- tasks with low perceptual load leave spare capacity so opportunity for late selection
Give 2 behavioural measures of distraction supporting Load Theory
- Response competition effects found under low load; reduced/eliminated under high load
- Similar effects found with irrelevant distractor measure
What do Simons and Chabris (1999) and Cartwright et al. (2006) study? - hint: gorillas
Inattentional blindness (‘Gorillas in our midst’)
What did Schwartz et al. (2005) do and find in support of Load Theory? - hint: neuroimaging and crosses
- The low load condition was to detect a cross, high load to detect a conjunction, both while ignoring background.
- Found high perceptual load reduces visual cortex response to background.
What did Bishop et al. (2007) find supporting Load Theory? - hint: fearful faces and amygdala
High perceptual load reduces amygdala response to fearful faces
What implications does Load Theory have for individual differences?
Individuals with a higher perceptual capacity will require an increased perceptual load to avoid distraction
What 3 groups are perceptual capacity differences associated with?
- Autistic individuals (higher)
- Children and elderly (lower)
- Video game players (higher)
What did Green and Bavelier (2003) find? - hint: videogame
Experienced video game players remained distracted under high load.
