Chapter 4: Attention Flashcards
What is the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations called?
Attention
Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring others.
What is defined as attending to one thing while ignoring others?
Selective Attention
Selective attention allows individuals to focus on a specific task or stimulus among multiple distractions.
What term describes a situation where one stimulus interferes with the processing of another stimulus?
Distraction
Distraction can lead to decreased performance and increased errors in tasks requiring concentration.
What is the term for paying attention to more than one thing at a time?
Divided Attention
Divided attention can impact the quality of attention given to each task.
What phenomenon involves a rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement?
Attentional Capture
Attentional capture can occur involuntarily and is often a reflexive response to significant stimuli.
What is the process called that involves movements of the eyes from one location or object to another?
Visual Scanning
Visual scanning is essential for effectively gathering information from the environment.
What is Broadbent’s FILTER MODEL OF ATTENTION?
A model that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli
This model emphasizes the selective nature of attention.
What is DICHOTIC LISTENING?
A method where different stimuli are presented to the left and right ears to study attention
This technique helps in understanding selective attention.
What is SHADOWING in the context of attention studies?
The process where participants repeat aloud the message they are hearing in the attended ear
This technique tests how well participants can focus on one message.
What is the COCKTAIL PARTY EFFECT?
The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli
This effect illustrates selective attention in social settings.
What are the stages of information processing in Broadbent’s model?
- Sensory memory
- Filter
- Detector
- Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
This sequence outlines how information is processed and stored.
What role does the FILTER play in Broadbent’s model?
It identifies the attended message based on physical characteristics and lets it pass through to the detector
This is crucial for selective attention.
What does the DETECTOR do in Broadbent’s model?
Processes the attended message to determine its higher-level characteristics, like meaning
This stage ensures that important information is analyzed.
How long does short-term memory hold information according to Broadbent’s model?
10-15 seconds
This is the duration for which information remains accessible before being transferred to long-term memory.
What is an EARLY SELECTION MODEL?
A model suggesting that the filter eliminates unattended information at the beginning of the information flow
This contrasts with later models of attention.
True or False: According to Broadbent, all unattended messages are completely filtered out.
False
Research by Neville Moray showed some unattended information can be detected.
What did Gray and Wedderburn’s study (1960) reveal about attention?
Participants could decipher a meaningful message when it was mixed between both ears
This demonstrated that meaning can influence attention allocation.
What modification did Anne Treisman make to Broadbent’s model?
Introduced the ATTENUATOR, which analyzes messages and allows both attended and unattended messages through, but at different strengths
This model is known as the ATTENUATION MODEL OF ATTENTION.
In Treisman’s model, what does the DICTIONARY UNIT do?
Contains words stored in memory, each with a threshold for activation
This unit helps determine which words are recognized based on their strength.
What does a low threshold in the DICTIONARY UNIT signify?
A word that can be activated even by a weak signal, often due to its importance
Examples include names and other common words.
What is the key difference between early and late selection models of attention?
Early selection models filter information before meaning is processed; late selection models analyze meaning before selection occurs
This distinction has implications for understanding cognitive processing.
What did Donald MacKay’s study (1973) demonstrate about late selection models?
Participants’ judgments were influenced by biased words in the unattended ear, indicating those words were processed for meaning
This supports the idea that some unattended information can affect decisions.
Fill in the blank: Attention switching between ears to catch important messages in the unattended ear is a characteristic of the _______.
COCKTAIL PARTY EFFECT
This effect highlights the dynamic nature of selective attention.
What conclusion can be drawn from the ongoing research about early and late selection models?
There is no clear answer; both early and late selection can be demonstrated depending on the task and stimuli
This suggests a more complex understanding of attention processes.
What is PROCESSING CAPACITY?
The amount of information people can handle; sets a limit on their ability to process incoming information
Processing capacity influences how much information can be effectively managed during cognitive tasks.
What does PERCEPTUAL LOAD refer to?
The difficulty of a task
Perceptual load affects how distractions are processed during task performance.
What are LOW-LOAD TASKS?
Tasks that only use a small amount of a person’s processing capacity
Examples include simple recognition tasks that require minimal cognitive effort.
What are HIGH-LOAD TASKS?
Tasks that use more of a person’s processing capacity
These tasks demand greater cognitive resources and result in reduced susceptibility to distractions.
What did Forster and Lavie (2008) study?
Participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible when locating a target letter among various distractions
This study examined how distraction affects reaction times based on task load.
How does the presence of different distraction pieces affect reaction times?
The task becomes harder, resulting in slower reaction times
Increased complexity in distractions leads to greater difficulty in task performance.
What is LOAD THEORY OF ATTENTION?
Proposal that the ability to ignore task irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out
High-load tasks lead to less distraction due to limited processing capacity available for irrelevant stimuli.
Why can distractions occur in low-load tasks?
Because there is still processing capacity available
This allows task-irrelevant stimuli to be processed, slowing down response time.
What factors influence distraction besides task load?
The power of the task-irrelevant stimulus
Strong stimuli can capture attention even in high-load situations.
What is an example of a task-irrelevant stimulus that might be ignored?
A quiet conversation happening nearby while studying
This illustrates how context and task load affect distraction.
What is THE STROOP EFFECT?
A phenomenon where a person finds it difficult to respond to one aspect of a stimulus while ignoring another
It demonstrates the challenge of processing conflicting information.
What does the Stroop task involve?
Responding to the color of ink a word is printed in while ignoring the color that the word names
For example, the word ‘RED’ printed in blue ink.
Why are task-irrelevant stimuli in the Stroop Effect powerful?
Reading words is highly practiced and automatic, making it difficult not to attend to them
This highlights the automaticity of certain cognitive processes.
What is necessary for good detail vision?
Scanning
Good detail vision occurs only for things you are looking at directly.
What is central vision?
The area you are looking at
Objects fall on a small area called the fovea, which provides much better detail vision than the peripheral retina.
What is peripheral vision?
Everything off to the side
Peripheral vision allows us to see objects that are not in our direct line of sight.
Define FIXATION in the context of perception.
A pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene
In problem-solving, it refers to focusing on a specific characteristic that hinders arriving at a solution.
What is SACCADIC EYE MOVEMENT?
Rapid, jerky movement from one fixation to the next
This occurs when scanning a photo of many people.
How often do we move our eyes when freely viewing an object?
About 3 times per second
This movement occurs even without searching for something specific.
What is OVERT ATTENTION?
Shifting of attention by moving the eyes
This is how attention is directed toward different stimuli in our visual field.
What are the two factors that determine how people shift their attention by moving their eyes?
- Bottom-up, based on physical characteristics of the stimulus
- Top-down, based on cognitive factors such as knowledge and past experiences
These factors influence where and how attention is directed.
Define STIMULUS SALIENCE.
The physical properties of a stimulus (color, contrast, movement)
It is a bottom-up process that depends solely on the visual characteristics of the stimulus.
What is a SALIENCY MAP?
A map of a scene indicating the stimulus salience of areas and objects
It analyzes characteristics like color, orientation, and intensity at each location in a scene.
What influences scanning after the initial fixations on high-salience areas?
Top-down cognitive processes
These processes depend on the observer’s goals and expectations.
How do individual preferences affect scene scanning?
People may spend more time looking at aspects of a scene that interest them
For example, someone interested in architecture may focus more on buildings.
What is the relationship between scene schemas and attention?
People look longer at items out of place due to their knowledge of what is usually found in a scene
This reflects top-down processing.
What did Shinoda (2001) find regarding stop sign detection?
Observers detected stop signs at intersections more often than those in the middle of blocks
This indicates that learning about environmental regularities influences attention.
What is the ‘just in time’ strategy in eye movement?
Eye movement usually precedes a motor action by a fraction of a second
This strategy helps in interacting with the environment efficiently.
How does task demand influence scanning?
Scanning is influenced by predictions about what is likely to happen next
This involves cognitive factors and the requirements of the task at hand.
What is overt attention?
Overt attention is associated with eye movements, enabling clearer visibility of places of interest
Define covert attention
Shifting attention while keeping the eyes still; the attentional shift can’t be observed physically
Why is studying covert attention important?
It allows researchers to see what is happening in the mind without interference from eye movements
What is precueing in visual attention experiments?
A procedure where participants receive a cue to help them direct their attention for a subsequent task
What did Posner’s 1978 experiment indicate about attention?
Paying attention to a location improves a person’s ability to respond to stimuli presented there
How does attention affect information processing?
Information processing is more effective at the location where attention is directed
What analogy is used to describe attention?
Attention is like a spotlight or zoom lens that enhances processing at a particular location
What is the same-object advantage?
The faster responding that occurs when enhancement spreads within an object
How does attention affect our perception of objects?
Attended objects are perceived to be bigger, faster, more richly colored, and have better contrast
What did William James say about attention?
Attention to objects is ‘taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form’
How does attention influence brain activity?
Attention increases activity in areas of the brain representing the attended location
What did Datta and DeYoe create to study attention?
Attention maps via experimentation to show how directing attention activates specific brain areas
What is attentional warping?
The brain map changes so more space is allotted to categories being searched for
How did Cukur’s 2012 study illustrate attentional warping?
Participants searching for ‘humans’ or ‘vehicles’ showed specific brain responses to their search categories
True or False: Attention can enhance our response to objects.
True
Fill in the blank: Attention changes the representation of objects across the _______.
cortex
What happens to brain response when a participant is on the lookout for a specific category?
The brain becomes tuned to respond best to that category and related objects
What does attention cause in terms of response times?
Attention causes faster responses to locations and objects
What is the main conclusion of Schneider and Shiffrin’s experiment regarding practice and attention?
Practice allows participants to divide attention to deal with all target and test items presented simultaneously
The experiment highlights the relationship between practice and the ability to manage multiple cognitive tasks.
What is AUTOMATIC PROCESSING?
A type of processing that occurs without intention and at a cost of only some of a person’s cognitive resources
This processing allows individuals to perform tasks without consciously focusing on them.
Give an example of automatic processing.
Not being able to recall if we locked the house when we left
This illustrates how some actions become automatic and do not require conscious thought.
How does paying attention to individual keystrokes while typing affect performance?
It usually affects accuracy negatively
Focusing too much on individual actions can hinder overall task performance.
What happens to divided attention when task difficulty increases?
Divided attention becomes more difficult
Increased task difficulty requires more cognitive resources, making it harder to focus on multiple tasks.
What did Schneider and Shiffrin find regarding automatic processing and task difficulty?
If task difficulty is increased, automatic processing is not possible even with practice
This indicates a limit to how much practice can help when tasks become too challenging.
In the example of driving, what can affect the ability to maintain a conversation?
Increased traffic or roadblocks
These conditions require more cognitive resources to drive safely, impacting the ability to multitask.
Fill in the blank: According to Schneider and Shiffrin, practice leads to the ability to divide attention when dealing with _______.
[target and test items]
This refers to the simultaneous processing of multiple stimuli.
What was the main purpose of the 100 Car Naturalistic Driving Study?
To document driver behavior and crashes in real-world driving conditions
How many crashes were documented in the 100 Car Naturalistic Driving Study?
82 crashes
What percentage of crashes involved driver inattention 3 seconds before the incident?
80%
What percentage of near crashes involved cell phone distraction?
More than 22%
In a simulated environment, how much more likely were participants to miss red lights while using a cell phone?
2x as much
What was the effect of talking on the phone on driving performance?
It uses mental resources needed for driving
What percentage of adults report they sometimes text while driving?
27%
How much more likely are truck drivers who text while driving to cause a crash?
23x more likely
What is the most distracting type of activity while driving?
Voice activated activities
What percentage of college students report texting or using social media during class?
92%
On average, how many text messages did college students send per day in 2015?
58 text messages
During a 15-minute study session, how long did students typically stay on task?
Less than 6 minutes
What is the purpose of experience sampling?
To measure specific behaviors during the day
What term describes the phenomenon of constantly switching from one activity to another?
Continuous partial attention
What correlation is noted between texting and academic performance?
People who text more tend to have lower grades
What is considered internet addiction?
When internet use negatively affects various areas of life
What is mind wandering?
Thoughts coming from within a person, often unintentionally
What percentage of the time does mind wandering occur, according to experience sampling?
47%
Which brain network is associated with mind wandering?
Default mode network
What happens to a person’s focus when their mind begins to wander?
They are no longer focusing on a task
What is the primary task of a lifeguard in a pool?
Carrying out a visual scanning task to detect a drowning event
Drowning often occurs quietly, making it difficult to notice amidst distractors.
What is inattentional blindness?
Not noticing something even though it is in clear view
Usually caused by a failure to pay attention to the object or its location.
What can cause a person to miss an auditory stimulus during a visual task?
Inattentional deafness
This occurs when attention is focused on a difficult visual task.
What is visual search?
Scanning a scene to find a specific object
Involves focusing attention to locate an item among distractors.
How does focusing on a difficult visual task affect hearing?
It results in impaired hearing
Detection of auditory stimuli decreases when engaged in challenging visual tasks.
True or False: Inattentional effects can occur only in visual tasks.
False
Inattentional effects can occur across both vision and hearing.
What does the load theory of attention explain?
It explains the effects of inattention
It suggests that higher cognitive load can impair the ability to notice other stimuli.
Fill in the blank: The phenomenon of not noticing an event while focusing on another is known as _______.
Inattentional blindness
What is the term for the difficulty in detecting changes in similar scenes presented one after another?
CHANGE BLINDNESS
Change blindness refers to the phenomenon where changes are often easy to see once attention is directed to them, but are usually undetected in the absence of appropriate attention.
What must typically happen before a difference in pictures is detected?
The sequence of pictures has to be repeated a number of times
This repetition allows viewers to eventually notice the differences.
What are continuity errors?
Changes that occur from one scene to another that do not match
An example includes the inconsistency in the length of a character’s hair from shot to shot.
In what contexts does change blindness commonly occur?
In popular films during the editing and cutting together process
Irregularities can often be found from scene to scene as different shots are cut together.
Why does change blindness occur?
Our attention is often not directed at the place where the change occurs
This lack of attention leads to an inability to notice changes in the scene.
True or False: Change blindness only occurs in still images and not in moving pictures.
False
Change blindness can occur in both still images and moving pictures, especially in film editing.
Fill in the blank: CHANGE BLINDNESS is the difficulty in detecting changes in similar scenes that are presented one after another, often due to a lack of _______.
appropriate attention
Directing attention to the change can help in detecting it.
What is inattentional deafness and blindness?
The phenomenon where individuals fail to perceive stimuli due to focusing on a limited portion of their environment.
This concept highlights the limitations of human attention in the presence of numerous stimuli.
Why is our perceptual system’s focus on a small portion of the environment considered adaptive?
It allows for optimal use of limited processing resources by concentrating on what is important.
This adaptive feature helps us manage cognitive load effectively.
What triggers the warning system in our perceptual system?
Motion or intense stimuli.
This system prompts rapid shifts of attention towards potential dangers.
What is the role of attention after shifting focus to a new stimulus?
To evaluate what is happening and decide whether action is needed.
This reflects our ability to assess threats and respond appropriately.
How well-adapted are our perceptual systems to take in necessary information?
They are generally well-adapted, allowing us to survive despite only processing a small proportion of available information.
This adaptation is crucial for navigating complex environments.
What challenges do new phenomena like texting and driving present to our perceptual system?
Our perceptual system hasn’t fully adapted to these relatively new situations.
This indicates potential gaps in our attention capabilities in modern contexts.
What is BINDING in the context of perception?
The process of combining features such as colour, form, motion, and location to perceive a coherent object.
This process is essential for our understanding of objects in our environment.
What does the BINDING PROBLEM refer to?
The challenge of explaining how an object’s individual features are integrated into a unified perception.
This problem is central to understanding perceptual organization.
Fill in the blank: The perceptual system allows us to pay attention to only a _______ of stimuli present in the environment.
small fraction.
This limitation is a key factor in inattentional deafness and blindness.
What is the first step in Anne Treisman’s approach to object perception?
PREATTENTIVE STAGE
Occurs before we focus attention on an object, and is automatic, unconscious, and effortless
What occurs during the preattentive stage?
Features of objects are analyzed independently in separate areas of the brain
Not yet associated with a specific object
Provide an example of the preattentive stage.
Visual system processes qualities of a rolling red ball: red (colour), round (form), rightward movement (motion)
Each quality is processed separately
What is the next step after the preattentive stage?
FOCUSED ATTENTION STAGE
Attention is focused on an object and independent features are combined
What is the purpose of the focused attention stage?
To become consciously aware of an object
Example: recognizing a red ball rolling to the right
What are visual features considered to be?
Components of a ‘visual alphabet’
Similar to letters combining to create words
What are illusory conjunctions?
Features from different objects are inappropriately combined
Example: reporting a green triangle when seeing a green circle and a red triangle
What can cause illusory conjunctions during a task?
Dividing attention across tasks
Example: reporting numbers while remembering shapes
What is Balint’s Syndrome?
A condition caused by parietal lobe brain damage leading to difficulty focusing attention on individual objects
Results in high rates of illusory conjunctions
What is bottom-up processing?
Processing that does not involve prior knowledge
Example: recognizing features without contextual cues
What role does top-down processing play in perception?
It can influence the ability to combine features correctly based on knowledge
Example: recognizing an orange triangle as a ‘carrot’
What is conjunction search?
Searching for a target among distractors involving 2 or more features
Example: looking for a ‘horizontal’ and ‘green’ target
What is feature search?
Searching for a target item involving detecting one feature
Example: looking for a ‘horizontal’ target
How does attention relate to feature and conjunction searches?
Attention-at-a-location is not required for a feature search, but is essential for conjunction search
Evidence from visual scanning experiments supports this
What does visual scanning evidence suggest?
Attention is an essential component of the mechanism that creates our perception of objects
Involves combining different features
What are the two types of attention networks revealed by neuroimaging research?
Ventral Attention Network and Dorsal Attention Network
The Ventral Attention Network controls attention based on salience, while the Dorsal Attention Network controls attention based on top-down processes.
How does the flow in attention systems change?
Flow changes depending on whether attention is controlled by stimulus salience or top-down processes
More flow occurs in the ventral network for control by salience and in the dorsal network for control by top-down processes.
What happens during difficult tasks in relation to attention pathways?
Activity shifts and changes in effective connectivity
Effective connectivity refers to how easily activity can travel along a particular pathway between different areas in a network.
What is synchronization in the context of neural responses?
When neural responses become synchronized in time
This means positive and negative responses occur at the same time and with similar amplitudes.
What is the proposed additional network to ventral and dorsal attention networks?
Executive Attention Network
This network is extremely complex and may involve two separate networks.
Define executive functions.
A range of processes that involve controlling attention and dealing with conflicting responses
An example is the Stroop Test, which illustrates conflict between different possible courses of action.
What mechanism is involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli?
Cognitive Control
Other mechanisms include Inhibitory Control and Willpower.
Fill in the blank: __________ is a mechanism involved with managing temptations.
Willpower
What role do perception and attention play in our interaction with the environment?
They support our ability to know about our environment and act within it
This includes the ability to store experiences for later recall.
