Chapter 4: Attention Flashcards
Attention
The focusing of mental effort on selected
aspects of the environment or mental activities and the blocking out of other (selected/limited/direct)
Auditory attention
early experiments held to study attention by using auditory testing (dichotic litsening)
“cocktail party problem”
People’s ability to listen to one message while ignoring other messages
Dichotic Listening
listening to different sounds simultaneously to each ear; used to study how people selectively attend to one sound while ignoring another
what point in processing does selection occur?
early, intermediate or late selection
Broadbent’s Filter Model (Early)
model that explains how people process sensory information; attention acts like a filter, allowing some information to pass through while blocking out irrelevant stimuli
Early Selection Models
Unattended information is filtered out before it can be sent to brain areas responsible for analyzing the
meaning of the message
Filter and Detector
- first identifies messages based on physical characteristics
- then processes information to determine meaning; memory and consciousness
Tresiman’s Attenuation Theory
explains how we selectively process information in our environment, particularly when exposed to multiple stimuli simultaneously
Attenuator
both messages are analyzed; attended message is passed on at full strength while unattended message is passed on at a reduced strength
Late Selection Models
Selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur
until after information has been fully analyzed for
meaning
McKay (Dichotic listening experiment)
explains how unattended information can influence our interpretation of attended material, even when we are not consciously aware of it (context to object)
Cognitive Resources
processing capacity that can be allocated to perform cognitive tasks
Task Load (Cognitive Load)
Amount of cognitive resources are used to accomplish a task (High-load vs Low-load tasks)
Flanker-Compatibility Task
experiment that measures how well people can focus on a central target while ignoring other stimuli (target/distractors)
Overt and Covert Attention
The are many mechanisms that aid in focusing attention on a stimulus
Overt Attention
Body movements to align our sense organs to better detect the stimulus (physiological) - Eyes move toward what you’re focusing on
Covert Attention
Internal processes such as changes in neural responses to the stimulus (psychological) - Eyes stay still, but your mind shifts focus
Visual Overt Orienting
Body, head & eye movements that position the image of the attended stimulus on the appropriate region of the retina (saccades and fixation)
exogenous attention (bottom-up)
involuntary, stimulus-driven attention, meaning your focus is automatically captured by a salient sensory cue in your environment ; You hear a loud bang, and your attention immediately shifts to the noise
endogenous attention (top-down)
voluntary, goal-driven attention where you deliberately direct your focus to a specific location or object based on your own intentions and goals; You’re reading a book, focusing on the words despite background noise
“spotlight of attention”
a region of the visual field that is selected for enhanced processing
Precueing
A cue given before an event to help you focus your attention; A light flashes on the left side of a screen before a target appears on the left, so you’re ready to focus on that side
predictive cues
Cues that suggest where something is most likely to happen, guiding your attention; A basketball player moves toward one side of the court, and you’re ready to predict they will pass the ball to that side
Divided Attention
the ability to focus on two or more tasks simultaneously; multitasking
Schneider & Shiffrin (Divided Attention)
experiment that explained “controlled” and “automatic” processing, demonstrating how practice and consistent stimulus-response mappings can lead to automatic attention, explaining simultaneous tasks (divided attention) in certain situations
Consistant Mapping Condition
a specific stimulus is always associated with the same response, allowing for automatic processing to develop
Variant Mapping Condition
stimuli can be associated with different responses on different trials, requiring more controlled processing and making it harder to achieve automaticity
Controlled Processing
having to pay close attention to the objects causes consumption of a lot of cognitive resources and its slow and effortful
Strayer and Johnston
conducted one of the earliest studies on the effect of cellphone use while driving, using a simulated driving task
Inattentional blindness
Failing to notice something because you’re not paying attention to it; While focusing on a basketball game, you don’t notice a person in a gorilla costume walking through the scene
Feature Integration Theory (FIT)
proposes that attention is necessary to integrate the
separately analyzed features into coherent objects
(Binding);
- Objects are analyzed into their features in the preattentive stage
- then the features are combined later with
the aid of attention
Change blindness
Failing to notice a change in something, even when you’re looking directly at it; You don’t notice when someone’s shirt changes color during a conversation because your attention is elsewhere
Preattentive stage
Object analyzed into features; automatic, no effort or attention and usually unaware of process - noticing one object is different from the rest
Focused attention stage
Features are combined if attention is directed to the
location of the objects - further focus on the object to analyze it
Treisman and Schmidt
study on (FIT), investigated how visual features are processed and combined into coherent objects and how attention plays a critical role in this process
conjunction searches
Searches for targets that are defined by
having combination (conjunction of
features) e.g. find a green horizontal line
illusionary conjunctions
A search for an object that requires focusing on multiple features (like color and shape) together to find it; You are asked to find a red square among many different shapes and colors. You need to search for both the color (red) and shape (square) at the same time
Ventral, Dorsal & Executive Attention Networks
controls attention based on:
- bottom-up salience (exogenous) - Automatic shifts in attention to unexpected or important
- top-down information (enogenous) - Controlled focus on tasks or goals you’re consciously working on
- information needed for current goals/habits - Higher-level control of thoughts, actions, and multitasking
