Chapter #3 / Session #3 - Attention and Consciousness

Question 1

What is Attention?

Answer 1

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. Meanwhile, the unattended items lose out, and they are not processed in detail.

Question 2

Why is attention described as a “Gatekeeper”?

Answer 2

Because it allows you to direct your mental effort toward thoughts and environmental stimuli that are most important to you given your current goals.

At the same time, your attentional systems allow you to filter out information that is not useful or important given your current goal state.

Question 3

Do attention tasks rely on bottom-up or top-down processing?

Answer 3

Both

Question 4

When an object in your environment catches your attention, what type of processing is that?

Answer 4

Bottom-up processing

Question 5

Is attention based in just one process or system?

Answer 5

No, “attention” refers to multiple coordinated systems and processes that together provide you with the ability to strategically allocate your attention.

Question 6

What is Divided Attention?

Answer 6

When you try to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages/tasks, and want to respond appropriately to each message.

Question 7

What happens when you attempt to equally divide your attention?

Answer 7

Both your speed and your accuracy suffer.

Question 8

Your ability to equally divide your attention is more likely to suffer when ___.

Answer 8

The tasks are challenging

Question 9

What is Multitasking?

Answer 9

When people multitask, they try to accomplish two or more tasks at the same time

Question 10

What are the effects of multitasking?

Answer 10

When people are multitasking, they strain the limits of attention, as well as the limits of their working memory and their long-term memory

Question 11

Does research support multitasking being effective?

Answer 11

No, multitasking, especially when trying to do things like study, is not effective

Question 12

What is Selective Attention?

Answer 12

A selective-attention task requires people to pay attention to certain kinds of information while ignoring other ongoing information

Question 13

What is the difference between a Divided-Attention task and a Selective Attention task?

Answer 13

A divided-attention task requires people to try to pay equal attention to two or more kinds of information, while a selective-attention task requires people to pay attention to certain kinds of information while ignoring other ongoing information.

Question 14

What are 3 types of selective attention tasks?

Answer 14

Dichotic listening (auditory), the Stroop Effect (visual), and Visual Search (visual).

Question 15

In general, people can process ___ message(s) at a time.

Answer 15

1

Question 16

People are more likely to process the unattended message when ___.

Answer 16

(1) both messages are presented slowly,
(2) the main task is not challenging, and
(3) the meaning of the unattended message is immediately relevant.

Question 17

What is the cocktail party effect?

Answer 17

Even if you are paying close attention to one conversation, you may notice if your name is mentioned in a nearby conversation.

Question 18

What is Working Memory?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

People with a relatively ___ capacity have difficulty blocking out the irrelevant information such as their name. In other words, they are easily distracted from the task they are supposed to be completing.

Answer 19

low

Question 20

According to the Stroop effect, people take a long time to name the ink color when that color is ___. In contrast, they can quickly name that same ink color when ___.

Answer 20

used in printing an incongruent word // it appears as a solid patch of color

Question 21

In a typical study on the Stroop effect, people may require about ___ seconds to name the ink color of 100 words that are incongruent color names (for example, blue ink used in printing the word YELLOW). In contrast, they require only about ___ seconds to name the ink colors for 100 colored patches

Answer 21

100 // 60

Question 22

How does the Stroop effect demonstrate selective attention?

Answer 22

People take longer to pay attention to a color when they are distracted by another feature of the stimulus—namely, the meaning of the name itself

Question 23

What is an attentional bias?

Answer 23

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

Question 24

What prefrontal area of the cortex has been implicated in the systems responsible for the allocation of attention and for emotion regulation?

Answer 24

The right ventral prefrontal cortex

Question 25

What did Jeremy Wolfe find in his visual search task?

Answer 25

People are much more accurate in identifying a target if it appears frequently.

Question 26

What is the isolated-feature/combined-feature effect?

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What is the feature-present/feature-absent effect?

Answer 27

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

Question 28

When people are searching for a feature that is present (positive), this is ___ processing.

Answer 28

bottom-up

Question 29

When people are searching for a feature that is absent (negative), this is ___ processing.

Answer 29

both top-down and bottom-up

Question 30

What is the purpose of a saccadic eye movement during reading?

Answer 30

To bring the center of your retina into position over the words you want to read

Question 31

The area of the Retina that has the most visual acuity is ___.

Answer 31

the Fovea

Question 32

When you read a passage in English, each saccade moves your eye forward by about ___ letters.

Answer 32

7-9

Question 33

Researchers have estimated that people make between ___ saccadic movements every day

Answer 33

150,000 and 200,000

Question 34

You cannot process much visual information when your eyes are ___.

Answer 34

moving

Question 35

What is a Fixation?

Answer 35

Fixation occurs during the period between two saccadic movements. During each fixation, your visual system pauses briefly in order to acquire information that is useful for comprehending the written text.

Question 36

The duration of a fixation in English typically ranges from ___.

Answer 36

200 to 250 milliseconds

Question 37

What is perceptual span?

Answer 37

The term perceptual span refers to the number of letters and spaces that we perceive during a fixation

Question 38

When we read English, we are looking for visual information in the text that lies to the ___.

Answer 38

right

Question 39

When you read English, this perceptual span normally includes letters lying about ___ positions to the left of the letter you are directly looking at, as well as the letters up to about ___ positions to the right of that central letter.

Answer 39

4 // 15

Question 40

What is Parafoveal preview?

Answer 40

Parafoveal preview 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 41

Parafoveal preview can cause ___ fixation durations on a nearby word when information about the properties of the text is available parafoveally.

Answer 41

shorter

Question 42

We usually cannot actually identify a word that lies more than ___ spaces to the right of the fixation point.

Answer 42

8

Question 43

Good readers make ___ jumps. They are also ___ likely to make regressions The good reader also has ___ pauses before moving onward

Answer 43

larger // less // shorter

Question 44

What structures in the cerebral cortex are responsible for attention?

Answer 44

Frontal lobe, Parietal lobe, Temporal lobe, Occipital lobe

Question 45

Where are the two important components of the orienting attention network located?

Answer 45

the parietal lobe

Question 46

What is the orienting attention network?

Answer 46

When you are selecting information from sensory input, your orienting attention network is activated.

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

Question 47

What is unilateral spatial neglect?

Answer 47

When a person ignores part of his or her visual field

Question 48

In what year of life does the orientating network develop?

Answer 48

During the first year of life

Question 49

What is the executive attention network?

Answer 49

The executive attention network is responsible for the kind of attention we use when a task focuses on conflict, nhibits your automatic responses to stimuli

Question 50

What is the region of your brain where the executive attention network is especially active?

Answer 50

the prefrontal portion of the cortex

Question 51

The executive attention network is primarily involved during ___ control of attention.

Answer 51

top-down

Question 52

In what year of life does the executive attention network develop?

Answer 52

age 3

Question 53

What is Distributed attention?

Answer 53

Distributed attention allows you to register features automatically; you use parallel processing across the field, and you register all the features simultaneously.

Question 54

What is focused attention?

Answer 54

Focused attention requires slower serial processing, in which you identify one object at a time.

This more demanding kind of processing is necessary when the objects are more complex.

Question 55

What is an illusory conjunction?

Answer 55

An illusory conjunction is an inappropriate combination of features, perhaps combining one object’s shape with a nearby object’s color.

Question 56

The human visual system actually processes an object’s features ___.

Answer 56

independently

Question 57

What is Consciousness?

Answer 57

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

Question 58

Blindsight

Answer 58

Blindsight refers to an unusual kind of vision without awareness. In more detail, blindsight 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.