ch, 4 Attention

Question 1

what is attention?

Answer 1

the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations

Question 2

What are two types of attn?

Answer 2

selective and divided

Question 3

Selective attn

Answer 3

attending to one thing while ignoring others

Ex: doing math hw around people who are talking

Question 4

distraction

Answer 4

one stimulus referring interfering with the processing of another stimulus.

Question 5

divided attn

Answer 5

paying attn to more than one thing at a time

Question 6

Attentional capture

Answer 6

a rapid shifting of attn usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement.

Question 7

visual scanning

Answer 7

movements of the eyes from one location or object to another

Question 8

Why is Broadbent’s model called the Early Selection Model?

Answer 8

the filter eliminates the unattended information right at the beginning of the flow of info

Question 9

The Filter Model of Attention

Answer 9

model of attn that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli

Question 10

Why was Broadbent’s filter model of attn significant?

Answer 10

it provided testable predictions about selective attn, which stimulated further research

Question 11

Anne Treisman (1964)

Answer 11

proposed a revision to Broadbent’s model

Question 12

Treisman’s Model of Attenuation

Answer 12

model that proposes that selection occurs in 2 stages. In the first stage, an attenuator analyzes the incoming msg and lets through the attended msg- and also the unattended msg, but at a lower strength

Question 13

what is the role of the attenuator?

Answer 13

analyzes the incoming msg in terms of

1) its physical characteristics– whether it is high pitched or low pitched; fast or slow
2) language– how the msg groups into syllables or words
3) meaning– how sequences of words create meaningful phrases

Question 14

Dictionary Unit

Answer 14

the second stage of the attenuation model. this contains words stored in memory, each of which has a threshold for being activated.

Question 15

Late Selection

Answer 15

a model that proposed most of the incoming information is processed to the level of meaning before the msg to be further processed is selected

Question 16

What is the difference btw early and late selection models?

Answer 16

the stage at which the meaning of the information is assessed.

Question 17

J.R. Stroop (1935)

Answer 17

discovered the stroop effect in cog pysch on attention

Question 18

Stroop Effect experiment

Answer 18

a task in which a person is instructed to respond to one aspect of a stimulus, such as the color of the ink that a word is printed in, and ignore another aspect, such as the color that the word names.

Question 19

what does the Stroop Effect teach us about attention?

Answer 19

our brain has an automatic response to look for the meaning of words as we read them rather than how they are presented to us (the color or font for ex)

Question 20

Low-load tasks

Answer 20

a task that uses up a small amount of the person’s processing capacity

Question 21

High-load tasks

Answer 21

tasks that are difficult and perhaps not as well practiced; uses up a larger amount of person’s processing capacity

Question 22

Treisman’s Feature Integration Theory

Answer 22

an approach to object perception, that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object

Question 23

What are the steps to Treisman’s FIT?

Answer 23

1) Preattentive stage

2) Focused Attention stage

Question 24

Preattentive Stage

Answer 24

objects are analyzed into separate features

Ex: rolling a red ball, analyzed into features like color, shape, movement

Question 25

illusory conjunctions

Answer 25

the combination of features from different stimuli, stage 1 of the FI theory
Ex: eyewitness testimony, seeing a man in green grab a yellow purse, but a witness reporting the colors switched

Question 26

Focused Attention Stage

Answer 26

the second stage in the FI Theory, once the features have combined, we can perceive the objects
(bottom-up processing)

Question 27

visual search

Answer 27

something we do anytime we look for object among a number of other objects

Question 28

scene schema

Answer 28

a persons knowledge about what is likely to be contained in a particular scene. this knowledge can help guide attn to different areas of the scene.

Question 29

What are the flaws of attention?

Answer 29

attention can be manipulated easily

such as inattentional blindness and change blindess

Question 30

What is binding?

Answer 30

the process by which features such as color, form, motion and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object

Question 31

Why is binding necessary?

Answer 31

binding is necessary to describe the localization of function. in the ex with the red ball, different areas of the brain perceive each feature

Question 32

The Binding Problem

Answer 32

the question of how an objects individual features become bound together

Question 33

Overt attenition

Answer 33

shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes

Question 34

Covert attention

Answer 34

directing our attention while keeping our eyes stationary

Question 35

The difference btw Overt and Covert attn?

Answer 35

Overt-shifting eyes

Covert-stationary eyes

Question 36

When does automatic processing occur?

Answer 36

a type of processing that occurs (1) without intention and (2) at a cost of only some of a person’s cognitive resources

Question 37

Cocktail Party Effect

Answer 37

a form of selective attention, this is “ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli.”

Question 38

What is another name for Broadbent’s model?

Answer 38

the bottleneck model, bc the filter restricts information flow as much as the neck of a bottle restricts the flow of liquid.