Chapter 4 Attention Quiz 1

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

Focusing on specific features, objects, or locations or on certain thoughts or activities.

Question 2

Attentional capture

Answer 2

A rapid shifting of attention, usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement.

Question 3

Attenuation model of attention

Answer 3

• Anne Treisman’s model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages.
• In the first stage, an attenuator analyzes the incoming message and lets through the attended message—and also the unattended message, but at a lower (attenuated) strength.

Question 4

Attentional warping

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Attenuator

Answer 5

• In Treisman’s model of selective attention,
• the attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning.
• Attended messages pass through the attenuator at full strength,
• and unattended messages pass through with reduced strength.

Question 6

Automatic processing

Answer 6

• Processing that occurs automatically,
• without the person’s intending to do it,
• and that also uses few cognitive resources.
• Automatic processing is associated with easy or well-practiced tasks.

Question 7

Balint’s syndrome

Answer 7

A condition caused by brain damage in which a person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects.

Question 8

Binding problem

Answer 8

The problem of explaining how an object’s individual features become bound together.

Question 9

Binding

Answer 9

Process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create perception of a coherent object.

Question 10

Change blindness

Answer 10

• Difficulty in detecting changes in similar, but slightly different, scenes that are presented one after another. -The changes are often easy to see once attention is directed to them
• but are usually undetected in the absence of appropriate attention.

Question 11

Change detection

Answer 11

Detecting differences between pictures or displays that are presented one after another.

Question 12

Cocktail party effect

Answer 12

• The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli,
• especially at a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations.

Question 13

Cognitive control

Answer 13

-A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli. -Related to executive function, inhibitory control, and willpower.

Question 14

Conjunction search

Answer 14

• Searching among distractors for a target that involves two or more features,
• such as “horizontal” and “g r e e n .”

Question 15

Continuity errors

Answer 15

• In film, changes that occur from one scene to another that do not match,
• such as when a character reaches for a croissant in one shot, which turns into a pancake in the next shot.

Question 16

Covert attention

Answer 16

• Occurs when attention is shifted without moving the eyes, commonly referred to as seeing something “out of the corner of one’s eye.”
• Contrasts with Overt attention.

Question 17

Detector

Answer 17

• In Broadbent’s model of attention,
• the detector processes the information from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning.

Question 18

Dichotic listening

Answer 18

The procedure of presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear.

Question 19

Dictionary unit

Answer 19

• A component of Treisman’s attenuation model of attention.
• This processing unit contains stored words and thresholds for activating the words.
• The dictionary unit helps explain why we can sometimes hear a familiar word, such as our name, in an unattended message.
• See also Attenuation model of attention.

Question 20

Distraction

Answer 20

Occurs when one stimulus interferes with attention to or the processing of another stimulus.

Question 21

Divided attention

Answer 21

The ability to pay attention to, or carry out, two or more different tasks simultaneously.

Question 22

Dorsal attention network

Answer 22

A network that controls attention based on top-down processing.

Question 23

Early selection model

Answer 23

• Model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering out of the unattended message.
• In Broadbent’s early selection model, the filtering step occurs before the message is analyzed to determine its meaning.

Question 24

Effective connectivity

Answer 24

How easily activity can travel along a particular pathway between two structures.

Question 25

Executive action network

Answer 25

A complex network that is involved in controlling executive functions.

Question 26

Executive attention network

Answer 26

The executive attention network is responsible for executive functions.

Question 27

Executive functions

Answer 27

A number of processes that involve controlling attention and dealing with conflicting responses.

Question 28

Experience sampling

Answer 28

• A procedure that was developed to answer the question, “what percentage of the time during the day are people engaged in a specific behavior?”
• One way this has been achieved is by having people report what they are doing when they receive signals at random times during the day.

Question 29

Feature integration theory

Answer 29

• An approach to object perception,
• developed by Anne Treisman,
• that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object.

Question 30

Feature search

Answer 30

Searching among distractors for a target item that involves detecting one feature, such as “horizontal.”

Question 31

Filter

Answer 31

-In Broadbent’s model of attention,
-the filter identifies the message that is being attended to based on its physical characteristics—
things like the speaker’s tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, and accent—
and lets only this attended message pass through to the detector in the next stage.

Question 32

Filter model of attention

Answer 32

Model of attention that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli.

Question 33

Fixation

Answer 33

In perception and attention, a pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene.

Question 34

Focused attention stage

Answer 34

The second stage of Treisman’s feature integration theory. According to the theory, attention causes the combination of features into perception of an object.

Question 35

High-load task

Answer 35

A task that uses most or all of a person’s resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks.

Question 36

Illusory conjunctions

Answer 36

A situation, demonstrated in experiments by Anne Treisman, in which features from different objects are inappropriately combined.

Question 37

Inattentional blindness

Answer 37

Not noticing something even though it is in clear view, usually caused by failure to pay attention to the object or the place where the object is located. See also Change blindness.

Question 38

Inattentional deafness

Answer 38

Occurs when inattention causes a person to miss an auditory stimulus. For example, experiments have shown that it is more difficult to detect a tone when engaged in a difficult visual search task.

Question 39

Inhibitory control

Answer 39

A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli. Related to executive function, cognitive control and willpower.

Question 40

Late selection model of attention

Answer 40

A model of selective attention that proposes that selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning.

Question 41

Load theory of attention

Answer 41

Proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out. High-load tasks result in less distraction.

Question 42

Low-load task

Answer 42

A task that uses few resources, leaving some capacity to handle other tasks.

Question 43

Mind wandering

Answer 43

Thoughts that come from within a person, often unintentionally. In early research this was called daydreaming.

Question 44

Operant conditioning

Answer 44

• Type of conditioning championed by B. F. Skinner, -which focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers,
• such as food or social approval,
• or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection.

Question 45

Overt attention

Answer 45

Shifting of attention by moving the eyes. Contrasts with Covert attention.

Question 46

Perceptual load

Answer 46

Related to the difficulty of a task. Low-load tasks use only a small amount of a person’s processing capacity. High-load tasks use more of the processing capacity.

Question 47

Preattentive stage

Answer 47

The first stage of Treisman’s feature integration theory, in which an object is analyzed into its features.

Question 48

Precueing

Answer 48

• A procedure in which participants are given a cue that will usually help them carry out a subsequent task.
• This procedure has been used in visual attention experiments in which participants are presented with a cue that tells them where to direct their attention.

Question 49

Processing capacity

Answer 49

The amount of information input that a person can handle. This sets a limit on the person’s ability to process information.

Question 50

Saccadic eye movement

Answer 50

Eye movements from one fixation point to another.

Question 51

Saliency map

Answer 51

Map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the scene.