Chapter 4 - Attention and Consciousness

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

The means by which we actively select and process a limited amount of information from all of the information captured by our senses, our stored memories, and our other cognitive processes. Includes both conscious and unconscious processes.

Question 2

Consciousness

Answer 2

Includes both the feeling of awareness and the content of awareness, some of which may be under the focus of attention. Helps us monitor our environment, link past memories with present sensations, and plan for future actions.

Question 3

Signal detection

Answer 3

We try to detect the appearance of a particular stimulus.

Question 4

Search

Answer 4

We engage our attentional resources in an active and skilful search for particular stimuli.

Question 5

Selective attention

Answer 5

We choose to attend to some stimuli and ignore others. This helps us execute other cognitive processes.

Question 6

Divided attention

Answer 6

We engange in more than one task at a time, and shift our attentional resources to allocate them as needed.

Question 7

Vigilance

Answer 7

A person’s ability to attend to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period, during which the person seeks to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus.

Question 8

Signal-detection theory (SDT)

Answer 8

A framework to explain how people stick out the important stimuli from the wealth of irrelevant stimuli. Can be discussed in terms of attention, perception, and memory.

Question 9

Feature searches

Answer 9

We look for just one feature that makes our target different from all others.

Question 10

Conjunction searches

Answer 10

we combine two or more features to find the target. These are thus more difficult than feature searches, and the difficulty varies with the number of targets and distractors.

Question 11

Treisman’s feature-integration theory

Answer 11

In stage 1 (feature search) we analyze individual features of an object preattentively, and then in stage 2 (conjunction search) we integrate the features into the object by using attentional resources. Stage 1 can work in parallel, while stage 2 works serially.

Question 12

Similarity theory

Answer 12

The more similar target and distracters are, the more difficult it is to find the target. Search difficulty depends on how different distracters are from each other, but it does not depend on the number of features to be integrated.

Question 13

The cocktail party problem

Answer 13

The process of tracking one conversation while distracted by other conversations.

Question 14

Dichotic presentation

Answer 14

Each ear is presented a separate message.

Question 15

Broadbent’s early filter model of selective attention

Answer 15

We filter information right after we notice it at the sensory level - prior to perception.

Question 16

Selective filter model

Answer 16

A modification of the early filter model: messages of high importance break through the filter of selective attention

Question 17

Treisman’s attenuation model

Answer 17

At least some information about unattended signals is being analyzed. Instead of blocking out stimuli, the filter/attenuator merely weakens the strength of all stimuli other than the target stimuli.

Question 18

Late filter model

Answer 18

Stimuli are filtered out only after they have been analyzed for both their physical properties and their meaning, allowing people to recognize information entering the unattended ear.

Question 19

Neisser’s two-step model

Answer 19

Ulric Neisser proposed a synthesis of early- and late-stage models, where preattentive processes occur automatically and rapidly, but they only notice physical sensory characteristics of the message, not meaning or relationships. Attentive processes also exist, and occur later, consuming time and attentional resources to process information in a more detailed manner. This model does not explain the continuum of processes from fully automatic ones to fully controlled ones.

Question 20

Single-pool model of divided attention

Answer 20

One single pool of attentional resources can be divided freely, across modalities.

Question 21

Multiple-pool model of divided attention

Answer 21

Multiple sources of attentional resources are available, one for each modality (verbal, visual, etc).

Question 22

Three functions of attention found in neuroscientific research

Answer 22

1. Alerting (being prepared to attend some incoming event and maintaining the attention)
2. Orienting (the selection of stimuli to attend to)
3. Executive attention (processes for monitoring and resolving conflicts that arise among internal processes).

Question 23

Change blindness

Answer 23

An inability to detect changes in objects or scenes.

Question 24

Inattentional blindness

Answer 24

An inability to see things that are actually there.

Question 25

Spatial neglect

Answer 25

An attentional dysfunction that cause participants to ignore the half of their visual field that is contralateral to the side of the brain with the lesion.

Question 26

Automatic processes

Answer 26

Processes that involve no conscious control, but you may still be aware that you are performing them. Multiple processes can take place at the same time (in parallel).

Question 27

Controlled processes

Answer 27

Processes that require conscious control, and are performed serially.

Question 28

Automatization

Answer 28

When controlled processes gradually become automated due to practice.

Question 29

Instance theory of automatization

Answer 29

Automatization occurs because we gradually accumulate knowledge about specific responses to specific stimuli.

Question 30

Practice theory of automatization

Answer 30

In automatization, a person gradually combines individual effortful steps into integrated components (chunks) that are further integrated until the whole process is one single operation.

Question 31

Priming

Answer 31

The presentation of a stimulus may, even if you are not conscious of the stimulus, activate related concepts in memory that are then more easily accessible.

Question 32

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Answer 32

Trying to remember something that is stored in memory, but can not be readily retrieved. This is seen in many different languages, and bi-lingual speakers experience the phenomenon more than monolingual speakers, maybe because bi-linguals use one of their languages less. Taken as evidence of unconscious processing.

Question 33

Blindsight

Answer 33

Traces of visual perceptual ability in blind areas. Some visual activity seems to occur even when the person is not conscious of them. Taken as evidence of unconscious processing.

Question 34

The Stroop effect

Answer 34

The Stroop effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. When the name of a color is printed in a color which is not denoted by the name, naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color.

Question 35

Forcing functions

Answer 35

Physical constraints that make it difficult or impossible to carry out an automatic behavior that may lead to a slip.