Ch5 - Attention Flashcards
attention
definition + key features
cognitive mechanisms that combine to help us select, modulate and sustain focus on information that might be most relevant for behaviour
- attention has a capacity limit
- can be directed to internal thoughts and feelings or external sensations and information
Selective attention
definition
ability to pay attention to one input or task while ignoring other stimuli
dichoting listening
alternate name + description
“The Cocktail Party Effect”
We have 2 attention channels, attended and unattended
unattended channel does not percieve:
- most semantic content
unattended channel does percieve:
- physical attributes (eg: music, voices, alarms…)
- personally important semantic content (eg: your name)
inattentional blindness
description + one study’s findings
failure to notice a prominent stimulus, even when staring directly at it
- study showed participants were more likely to notice a change in the dot they were looking at if they were warned it would occur
name 3 types of inattention
inattentional:
- blindness
- deafness
- numbness
change blindness
description
inability to percieve changes in stimuli despite looking at them directly
cause of inattentional and change blindness
we either fail to percieve the stimulus or cannot remember the stimulus
early selection hypothesis
description
inputs are filtered before perception/analysis
- only attended input is analyzed/percieved
- unattended inputs recieve little/no analysis
late selection hypothesis
description
inputs are filtered after analysis and selectively remembered
- all inputs are analyzed
- selection occurs after analysis, unimportant inputs are forgotten
Priming
- perceiver anticipates the attended channel (eg: expect to find keys on a hook by the door)
- detectors that are needed for the attended channel fire more rapidly (eg: faster to notice when keys aren’t on their hook)
biased competition theory
description
- temporary bias created in neuron sensitivity
- more responsive to inputs with desired properties
stimulus driven/bottom-up attention
data-driven processing
- occurs automatically
- for stimuli that are prominent or unexpected
- requires little to no concious effort
expected based/top-down attention
- directed by expectations, goals or knowledge
- requires concious effort
repetition priming
description + features
priming produced by a previous encounter with a stimulus
- requires no effort
- stimulus driven
expectation driven priming
description + features
priming produced deliberately by the person
- effortful
- requires an expectation or interest
spatial attention
description
ability to focus attention on a specific location in space
spatial attention study
description + findings (see figure 1 for graph)
participants press a button as soon as a visual target appears
given different cues: neutral, arrow pointing to future target, arrow pointing away from future target
- expected location: fastest response time
- neutral: average response time
- unexpected location: slowest response time
3 control systems for attention
names + purpose + basic brain areas (see fig 2 attention sites)
orienting: disengage, shift and engage attention
- vision areas in frontal, parietal & temporal lobes
- superior colliculus and pulvinar nuclei
alerting: maintain alert state in the brain
- frontal & parietal lobe
- thalamus
executive: control voluntary actions
- frontal lobe
- anterior cingulate gyrus
!!unsure if knowing these areas is neccessary
factors affecting what captures our attention
list
- visual prominence
- level of interest
- importance
- beliefs and expectations
- culture
ways our attention is controlled and how they differ
endogenous control: we choose to direct our attention
exogenous control: our attention is “seized” without our concious input
divided attention
description + features
skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously
- easier if the tasks do not require the same resources (eg: listening to a podcast and knitting)
- just because multitasking is easier with different tasks, performance can still be affected
executive control
description + features
concerns mechanisms allowing us to: control thoughts, retain goals, organize mental steps, shift plans/strategy, inhibit automatic responses
- executive control is devoted to one task at a time
practice (effects on attention)
effects + descriptor for practiced tasks
practiced skills require fewer resources or less frequent use of resources
automacity describes these tasks, they require little to no executive control
Stroop interference
description + study showing this effect
When automaticity interferes with a given task
- participants asked to name the color of words
- one list had gibberish words (sjofd) another had color words (red)
- participants struggled to name the color of the text if the word described a different color
see figure 3 - stroop interference for an example of these lists
