Chapter 3

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

can be defined as a concentration of mental activity that allows you to take in a limited portion of the vast stream of information available from both your sensory world and your memory

mental activity

Question 2

divided-attention task

Answer 2

you try to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages, responding appropriately to each message. You may try to use divided attention, for example, when concentrating on both your professor’s lecture and a nearby whispered conversation between two students.

Question 3

multitask

Answer 3

they try to accomplish two or more tasks at the same time

Question 4

selective-attention task

Answer 4

requires people to pay attention to certain kinds of information while ignoring other ongoing information

Question 5

dichotic listening

Answer 5

studied by asking people to wear earphones; one message is presented to the left ear, and a different message is presented to the right ear

Question 6

shadow

Answer 6

research participants are asked to shadow the message in one ear. That is, they listen to that message and repeat it after the speaker. If the listener makes mistakes in shadowing, then the researcher knows that the listener is not paying appropriate attention to that specified message

Question 7

cocktail party effect

Answer 7

The phenomenon of noticing one’s own name, when it is mentioned in a nearby conversation, even when paying close attention to another conversation.

Question 8

working memory

Answer 8

is the brief, immediate memory for material that we are currently processing.

Question 9

Stroop Effect

Answer 9

The observation that people take a long time to name an ink color that has been used in printing an incongruent word, even though they can quickly name that same ink color when it appears as a solid patch.

Question 10

emotional stroop test

Answer 10

When people are instructed to name the ink color of words that could have strong emotional significance to them, they often require more time to name the color of the stimuli, presumably because they have trouble ignoring their emotional reactions to the words

Question 11

phobic disorder

Answer 11

excessive fear of a specific object

Question 12

attentional bias

Answer 12

describes a situation in which people pay extra attention to some stimuli or some features

Question 13

cognitive-behavioural approach

Answer 13

psychological problems arise from inappropriate thinking ( cognitive factors) and inappropriate learning ( behavioral factors).

Question 14

posttraumatic stress disorder ( PTSD)

Answer 14

an anxiety disorder characterized by repeated re-experiencing ( through nightmares, flashbacks etc) of an extremely traumatic event

Question 15

visual search

Answer 15

the observer must find a target in a visual display that has numerous distractors

Question 16

isolated-feature/combined-feature effect

Answer 16

People can typically locate an isolated feature more quickly than a combined feature

Question 17

feature-present/feature-absent effect

Answer 17

People can typically locate a feature that is present more quickly than a feature that is absent

Question 18

saccadic eye movement

Answer 18

Small changes in eye position during reading, in order to bring the center of the retina into position over the words currently being read.

Question 19

Fovea

Answer 19

a very small region in the center of the retina that has better acuity than other retinal regions

Question 20

fixations

Answer 20

Brief pauses occurring between saccadic eye movement, in which the visual system acquires information that is useful for reading and other visual tasks.

Question 21

perceptual span

Answer 21

the number of letters and spaces that we perceive during a fixation.

Question 22

Parafoveal preview

Answer 22

refers to the fact that readers can access information about upcoming words even though they are currently fixated on a word to the left ( in English) of those words.

Question 23

regressions

Answer 23

moving the eyes backwards to earlier material in the sentence

Question 24

orienting attention network

Answer 24

generally responsible for the kind of attention required for visual search, in which you must shift your attention around to various spatial locations.

Question 25

brain lesion

Answer 25

specific brain damage cause by strokes, accidents or other traumas

Question 26

unilateral spatial neglect

Answer 26

when a person ignores part of his or her visual field

Question 27

executive attention network

Answer 27

responsible for the kind of attention we use when a task focuses on conflict.

Question 28

Bottleneck theories - Based on the fact that the narrow neck of a bottle restricts the flow into or out of the bottle

Answer 28

proposed a similar narrow passageway in human information processing. In other words, this bottleneck limits the quantity of information to which we can pay attention.

Question 29

feature-integration theory

Answer 29

This theory of attention, developed by Anne Triesman, proposes two elements: (1) distributed attention, processing all parts of the scene at the same time, and (2) focused attention, processing each item in the scene, one at a time.

Question 30

distributed attention

Answer 30

allows you to register features automatically; you use parallel processing across the field, and you register all the features simultaneously. Low processing. You are not even aware you are using it!

Question 31

focused attention

Answer 31

requires a slower serial processing, in which you identify one object at a time. More demanding than distributed attention.

Question 32

illusory conjuction

Answer 32

An inappropriate combination of features ( for example, combining one object’s shape with a nearby object’s color). An illusory conjunction is formed when the visual system is overwhelmed by too many simultaneous tasks.

Question 33

binding problem

Answer 33

A characteristic of the visual system, in which characteristics such as color and shape are registered separately; as a result, the visual system does not represent these important features of an object as a unified whole.

Question 34

consciousness

Answer 34

the awareness that people have about the outside world and about their perceptions, images, memories and feelings.

consciousness is NOT automatic

Question 35

mindless reading

Answer 35

your eyes may move forward, but you do not process the meaning of the material.

Question 36

mind wandering

Answer 36

occurs when your thoughts shift from the external environment in favour of internal processing.

Question 37

thought suppression

Answer 37

trying to eliminate the thoughts, ideas, and images that are related to an undesirable stimulus

Question 38

ironic effects of mental control

Answer 38

describe how our efforts can backfire when we attempt to control the contents of our consciousness

Question 39

blindsight

Answer 39

is a condition in which an individual with a damaged visual cortex claims not to see an object; however, he or she can accurately report some characteristics of that object, such as its location.

Question 40

Attenuator model

Answer 40

Unattended information can have no effect on behaviour. Behaviour is only affected by information we become aware of, i.e. by attended information

Question 41

Automatic versus Controlled Processing

Answer 41

Controlled:

• Requires Attention
• Limited capacity
• Rather slow
• Effortful
• Is aware, conscious

Automatic:

• Does not require attention
• Unlimited capacity
• Rather fast
• Effortless
• Outside awareness
• Uncontrollable
• Inflexible

Question 42

t