chapter 4 (attention) Flashcards
filter model of attention (broadbent)
proposes filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some/all of unattended stimuli.
dichotic listening
procedure of presenting one message to left ear and diff message to right ear.
cocktail party effect
ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli.
filter
broadbent’s filter model. identifies message being attended to and only lets this message pass through to detector.
detector
boradbent’s filter model. processes info from attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of message (meaning).
early selection model
model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering of unattended messages. broadbent.
attenuator
treisman’s attention model. analyzes incoming messages in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning. attended messages pass through at full strength, and unattended are reduced.
attenuation model of attention (treisman)
proposes that selection occurs in two stages. first: attenuator analyzes incoming messages and lets attended message through, as well as unattended at lower strength.
dictionary unit
treisman’s model. processing unit that contains words and thresholds for their activation. explains hearing name in other conversation.
late selection model of attention
model of selective attention that proposes that selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after info in message has been analyzed for meaning.
perceptual load
related to difficulty of a task. low-load tasks use only small amount of person’s processing capacity. high-load tasks use more of processing capacity.
load theory of attention
proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on load of the task that the person is carrying out. high-load tasks = less distraction.
stroop effect
difficulty separating colour of font and colour a word spells because of the automatic process of reading.
fixation
pausing of eyes on places of interest while observing a scene.
saccadic eye movement
eye movements from one fixation point to another. rapid and jerky.
stimulus salience
bottom-up factors that determine attention to elements of a scene. ex: colour, contrast, orientation.
saliency map
map of scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in scene.
covert attention
occurs when attention is shifted without moving the eyes. commonly referred to as seeing something out of the corner of your eye.
precueing
procedure where participants given a cue that will usually help carry out a subsequent task. used in visual tasks telling them where to direct attention.
same-object advantage
occurs when enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object so that attention to one place on object results in facilitation of processing at other places on object.
attentional warping
occurs when the map of categories on the brain changes to make more space for categories that are being searched for as a person attends to a scene.
automatic processing
processing that occurs automatically, without intention, and uses few cognitive resources. associated with easy/well-practiced tasks.
experience sampling
procedure developed to answer the question: “what percentage of the time during the day are people engaged in a certain behaviour?” one way is to have people report when given a signal at random times throughout the day (often hard to recall when asked otherwise).
mind wandering/daydreaming
thoughts that come from within a person often unintentionally. usually decreases performance on tasks.
inattentional blindness
not noticing something even though it is in clear view. usually caused by failure to pay attention to object/place where object is located.
inattentional deafness
occurs when inattention causes a person to miss an auditory stimulus.
change detection
detecting differences between pictures or displays that are presented one after another.
change blindness
difficulty detecting changes in similar but slightly different scenes presented one after another. usually easy to see once attention directed to them.
binding
process by which features are such as colour, form, motion, and location are combined to create perception of a coherent object.
binding problem
problem of explaining how an object’s features become bound together.
feature integration theory
treisman’s 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.
preattentive stage
first stage of treisman’s theory. object is analyzed into features.
focused attention stage
second stage of treisman’s theory. attention causes combination of features into perception of object.
illusory conjunctions
situation demonstrated in experiments by anne treisman in which features from diff objects are inappropriately combined.
balint’s syndrome
condition caused by brain damage in which person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects.
conjunction search
searching amongst distractors for a target that involves two or more features.
ventral attention network
network that controls attention based on stimulus salience.
dorsal attention network
network that controls attention based on top-down processing.
effective connectivity
how easily activity can travel along a particular pathway between two structures.
synchronization
occurs when neural responses become synchronized over time so positive and negative responses occur at same time with similar amplitudes. proposed that it is responsible for enhanced effective connectivity and communications between two areas that accompany shifts of attention.
cognitive control
mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli.
