CHAPTER 4 Flashcards
refers to how we actively select and process limited information from what our senses capture, memories, and cognitive processes.
Attention
includes both awareness and content of awareness, with some overlap with attention.
Consciousness
explains how people detect important stimuli amid distractions.
Signal-detection theory (SDT)
Correct detection of a target (e.g., lifeguard saves a drowning person).
Hits (true positives):
Incorrect detection of a target (e.g., lifeguard thinks someone is drowning but they are not).
False alarms (false positives):
Failing to detect a target (e.g., lifeguard misses a drowning person).
Misses (false negatives):
Correct identification of no target (e.g., no one is drowning).
Correct rejections (true negatives):
refers to an individual’s ability to maintain attention over a prolonged period, in order to detect a particular target stimulus that may appear at any time.
Vigilance
involves actively scanning the environment to locate a specific target.
Search
Involves looking for one specific feature that distinguishes the target (e.g., color or shape).
Feature Search:
Involves looking for a combination of features (e.g., color and shape together).
Conjunction Search:
Argues that search difficulty depends on how similar the target and distracters are, not the number of features to integrate.
Similarity Theory
Suggests that when perceiving a stimulus, features are “registered early, automatically, and in parallel, while objects are identified separately” and at a later stage in processing.
Feature-Integration Theory
is the ability to focus on a specific conversation or stimulus while ignoring others.
Selective attention
Participants listen to two different messages presented to each ear (dichotic listening) and are required to shadow one message while ignoring the other.
Shadowing Task:
Incoming information is filtered right after being sensed, with only selected messages passing through to be processed in more detail.
Early Filter Model
This suggests that personally significant information can bypass the sensory filter, even if it is part of an unattended message.
Selective Filter Model
Instead of blocking out unattended messages, the filter attenuates (weakens) them.
Attenuation Model
All incoming stimuli are analyzed for both physical properties and meaning before being filtered.
Late-Filter Model
occurs when an individual engages in two or more tasks simultaneously, requiring the allocation of attention between them.
Divided attention
When two tasks overlap and require speedy responses, performance on one or both tasks slows down.
Psychological Refractory Period (PRP)
Proposes one fixed pool of attentional resources that can be divided freely between tasks.
Single-Pool Model
Suggests that different modalities (e.g., visual and auditory) have separate pools of attentional resources.
Multiple-Pool Model
The process of preparing to attend to incoming events and maintaining this readiness.
Alerting:
Selecting specific stimuli to attend to, such as during visual search.
Orienting:
Monitoring and resolving conflicts among internal thoughts, feelings, and responses.
Executive Attention:
Inability to detect changes in objects or scenes, even when actively viewing them.
Change Blindness:
Failure to notice fully visible but unexpected objects because attention is focused elsewhere.
Inattentional Blindness:
Attentional dysfunction where individuals ignore one half of their visual field (usually the left side).
Spatial Neglect (Hemineglect)
Processes that occur without conscious control or effort
Automatic Processes
Processes that require conscious control and intentional focus.
Controlled Processes
Practice leads to increased efficiency, where individual steps are gradually integrated into a single automatic operation.
Skill Efficiency Model
Automatization results from accumulating knowledge of specific responses to specific stimuli.
Instance Theory
: Errors in intentional, controlled processes (e.g., deciding not to study for an exam).
Mistakes
Errors in automatic processes (e.g., forgetting your textbook when you intended to bring it).
Slips:
A technique used to study preconscious processing by presenting a first stimulus (the prime) and observing its effect on the response to a second stimulus.
Priming
The experience of trying to recall a word or piece of information that feels just out of reach
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon
A condition in which individuals with damage to their visual cortex can respond to visual stimuli they are not consciously aware of.
Blindsight
