Chapter 5: Attention Flashcards
Attention
the process by which the brain decides which information to further process and which information to ignore
William James, 1980
attention can be willfully directed and is selective
is most information consciously processed?
no
inattentional blindness
the inability to perceive information outside of the attentional spotlight
change blindness
the inability to detect changes to a scene
inattentional deafness
a phenomenon in which auditory information is not perceived when a different high-load task is being performed
selective attention
when someone pays attention to one thing at the expense of all others
the cocktail party effect is an example of
selective attention
cocktail party effect
the ability to pay attention to one person you are talking to in a crowded environment while filtering out the rest of the conversations
dichotic listening task
participants listen to recordings of people speaking while wearing headphones. Cherry (1953) tested the ability of attention to selectively filter information by playing different streams of information into the right and the left headphones at the same time. The participant had to repeat the words spoken in the attended ear and Cherry tested if they remembered the information coming in the unattended ear.
attended message
the stimulus the subject is listening to
unattended message
the stimulus that is supposed to be ignored by the subjects
shadowing tasks
Participants are given two messages through headphones, one in the right ear and one in the left ear. They are asked to repeat the message from one ear and to ignore the other. People cannot remember content from the unattended ear, but they can tell you about a new noise and the gender of the speaker
what was the conclusion of Cherry’s dichotic listening experiments
unless something changes that made the new message physically distinct, the attention filter would block its contents
early selection models
selective attention acts as a filter and unattended information only gets through if physically distinct (louder)
detector
the mechanism that processes the meaning of information
Broadbent’s filter model
type of early selection model, where information is filtered prior to detection
late filter theory
selective attention acts as a filter that blocks most unattended information from further processing but personally relevant and meaningful information can also be processed
attenuator theory
Some aspects of unattended material to be processed for meaning. The filter is not “all-or-none”; some information can pass through the filter
mackay, 1973
modified the dichotic listening task by having participants focus on sentences with a potentially ambiguous meaning, while the unattended channel a word was repeatedly played that would provide context to the attended sentence. Found that even if participants were unable to explicitly recognize an ignored word, it influence their conscious perception of the sentence they were attending to
what attention theory did mackay’s experiment find evidence for
late filter theory
attentional load
A measure of how many processing resources are needed to perform a task
Eriksen Flanker task
when trying to search for a target letter among distractors, the difficulty varies by what is distracting for the target item; participants can’t help but process the distractors
low-load task
a task where it is easy to spot the target
high-load task
a task where it is more difficult to spot the target among the other conditions
Flanker task and distractors study
in the low-load condition, a distractor caused an increased reaction time because there are processing resources left over. In the high-load condition, reaction time was not increased because there are few processing resources leftover
automatic task
when a certain task is so familiar that we do not need to pay attention to do it (type of low-load task)
controlled task
a non-automatic task (type of high-load task) that requires voluntary top-down attention
stroop effect
reading the colour of words printed in contrasting ink colours takes longer than naming the colour of ink patches because the brain can’t help but process the word spelled out by the letters, even if it interferes with the task. This is likely because reading becomes an automatic task
what part of the stroop effect is automatic vs. controlled
Reading colour names= automatic
Naming the colour of the ink= controlled
divided attention
When people attend to multiple objects at the same time
effect of divided attention on performance
When we divide our attention among two tasks, performance on the individual task tends to suffer
do people think they are good multitaskers?
People often assume they are better multitaskers than they really are
divided attention often involves ____
switched attention rapidly between tasks
task-switching and frequent multitaskers
People who multitask most often show the greatest deficits in task switching
how many objects can people keep track of concurrently?
4-5
what is the most commonly thought of purpose of attention?
Pre-activating or readying the processing needed for specific stimuli that are present or about to be present
Posner 1980
participants are faster and more accurate at responding to a target stimulus on trials with valid directional cues, compared to invalid cues
feature-integration theory (Triesman)
attention is necessary to bind together discrete features of an object into a unified whole
conjunction error
a failure to accurately bind together discrete features of an object, caused by a lack of attention
attention might help guide what type of processing?
bottom-up
visual search
an experimental task in which participants must search for a target object among distractors
feature search
a version of the visual search task in which the target is distinguished from the distractors based on a single feature
conjunction search
Search for an object that is different from the distractors across many features
results of visual search studies
As the amount of distractors increases, the amount of time it takes people to find the target increases linearly because it is necessary to attend to each stimulus in the array
exogenous attentional control
control of attention that is driven by factors outside of the individual
endogenous attentional control
control of attention that is driven by factors internal to the individual
overt attention
selective attention of a location that is accompanied by eye fixation of the same region
covert attention
attentional selection and processing of a location while eye fixation is maintained elsewhere
where does the neural mechanism behind attention occur?
happens in several locations across the brain depending on what type of stimulus the brain is anticipating
what part of the brain is involved in the perception of motion
medial temporal lobes
what part of the brain controls which portions of the brain are paying attention
the parietal lobe
Frontal eye fields
a portion of the frontal lobes associated with the allocation of overt & covert attention via eye movements
retinotopic map
the spatial layout of the retina
what brain areas have a retinotopic map?
in the frontal lobe & primary visual cortex (V1)
adhd
associated with an inability to stay focused on a central task
how is adhd treated
with behavioural management strategies & in some cases, stimulants
adhd is due to failures in which brain regions
the frontoparietal networks to control attention and suppress impulses
go/no-go task
an experimental procedure used to test cognitive control and the subject’s ability to control impulsive responses
adhd participants in go/no-go tasks
Children with ADHD completed more errors by responding to the no-go stimulus more often. Control participants had increased activity in the frontoparietal regions when suppressing the no-go stimulus, but those with ADHD didn’t
balint syndrome
a neurological disorder typically resulting from damage to both parietal lobes that carriers several attention deficits including oculomotor apraxia and simultanagnosia
oculomotor apraxia
the inability to execute visually guided movements
simultagnosia
the inability to identify or use more than one object or property in a scene at a time
visual/spatial neglect
a deficit of attention in which the individual fails to notice or process a particular location in space across all sensory modalities, typically the left visual field due to right parietal lobe damage
drawings in patients with visual neglect
will often leave out significant details of the left side of objects
moray, 1959
participants would switch the ears they were listening with if the unattended stream played their name, providing evidence for a late-filter theory
what happens when we don’t have attention
Spatial (unilateral) neglect
Damage to the parietal lobes
Results in an inability to attend to information in space contralateral to brain damage
top-down attention
observer guided controlled attention
what parts of the brain are responsible for top-down attention?
frontoparietal brain regions including the intraparietal sulcus + Frontal eye fields (FEF)
bottom-up attention
stimuli guided automatic attention
what parts of the brain are responsible for bottom-up attention?
temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and Ventral frontal cortex (VFC)
arousal
alertness and awakeness
what parts of the brain are responsible for arousal?
reticular activating system
sustained attention
maintain focus on one input for a long period of time
why do we have selective attention
Required because of limited resources
We must prioritize what to process to act effectively
What you attend to will depend on a given goal
congruent trials
the stimulus and the cue are the same
incongruent trials
the stimulus and the cue are different
how to measure change blindness?
flicker technique paradigm
flicker technique paradigm
Two highly similar visual images are presented with an interstimulus mask (grey screen). Sometimes, there are small changes in the images. When asked if the two images are the same or what changed, people are often inaccurate
sensory buffer
short-term area that holds sensory inputs
dichotic listening tasks provide evidence for what type of attention model?
early selection
shadowing tasks provide evidence for what type of attention model?
early selection
electric shock and unattended messages experiment
Participants presented with a word paired with an electric shock. Next, they did the shadowing task with the shocked word in the unattended ear. Participants had increased skin conductance when the shocked word was presented in the unattended ear
the stroop effect provides evidence for what type of attention model?
late filter
stroop effect and hypnotized participants
Hypnotized English participants to think colour names were meaningless and found that the Stroop effect was gone
load theory
Filter placement will depend on how much of your resources are required for your currently attended-to task. If low resource load, we process non-attended information to a later stage in the pipeline (late filter). If high resource load, we process non-attended information only to an early stage of the pipeline (early filter)
Central resource capacity view
one resource pool from which all attention resources are allocated
Multiple resource capacity view
multiple sources from which attention resources are allocated; Attentional load depends on the match between the relevant and irrelevant information
central resource capacity example
driving similar task under two conditions (low–driving with no radio & high–driving with radio) and found that people were more likely to see the elephant with a low load
how can spatial neglect be treated?
with prism glasses
what brain areas are involved in attention?
A distributed network of PFC and parietal cortical regions
3 main types of attention
top-down, bottom-up, arousal
types of top-down attention
sustained attention, divided attention, selective attention
spatial attention
focusing on a specific point in space
feature-based attention
focusing on a specific object
measuring spatial and feature attention
Give people a cue that would orient their attention toward a particular point, then give them a fixation cross. Next, present them with either a congruent or incongruent stimulus and measure their reaction time to detect the stimulus
william james’ account of attention
attention is the opposite of distraction; it allows us to focus on something
example of change blindness
continuity errors in film
cell phones and attention study
Drivers make more driving errors when talking on a cell phone compared to when talking to a passenger, regardless of whether they are holding the phone or using a hands-free device.
Paintings by Guiseppe Arcimboldo are sometimes used to test ____
Simultagnosia
measuring inattentional blindness
participants focus on a task in a space and an unexpected target is presented in that space.
cross experiment
Crosses with vertical and horizontal “arms” of different lengths are presented very quickly. Participants determine which cross arm is longer. In critical trials, a small black square is included as a “mask”. Participants were later asked if they saw this black square and many said no
does inattentional blindness still affect behaviour?
yes! Participants were more likely to complete the word stem with what was presented during a period of inattentional blindness, suggesting that they aren’t conscious that they’re processing it, but it’s still affecting behaviour
posner’s attentional spotlight theory
attention is about focusing on space and ignoring what is located outside of the focused space
what is the function of attention according to Posner
pre-activating processing shifts
posner cueing task
Fixation display: fixate on the centre of a screen
Cue display: a space cue directs attention to an area
Target display: reaction time to detect the target is measured
Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA)
Duration between the cue and target
what is a short vs. long SOA
Short time interval (SOA) < 200 ms
Long time interval (SOA) ~ 300 ms
Inhibition of return (IOR)
“Been there, done that” effect: attention is inhibited from going to a recently attended space after a long duration between space cue and target (SOA)
results of the Posner cueing task
People were slower to respond to invalid cues with a short SOA because of the effect of attention. People were slower to respond to valid cues with a long SOA because of the IOR
pre-attention phase
Object features are separately coded, automatically
what kind of processes guide pre-attention
bottom-up
focused attention phase
Object features are integrated together to guide a search
what kinds of processes guide focused attention?
top-down processing
what kind of processes guide feature searches?
bottom-up processing
does the number of distractors change reaction time in a feature search?
no
what kind of processes guide conjunction searches
top-down
does the number of distractors change reaction time in a conjunction search?
More distractors= longer reaction time
where’s waldo is an example of a
conjunction search
pop-out effect
The time needed to find a target that is different by one feature from distractors is independent of the number of distractors (set size)
what type of features does the pop-out effect exist for?
for features processed automatically in the visual cortex
embodied attention
links mental activities to our physical bodies
cultural differences in visual attention study
Found that east Asian people were relatively more fixated on the background and Western people were relatively more fixated on the object
Vigilance decrement
a decrease in sustained attention over time
sustained attention in lectures study
Students mind-wandered more in the second half of the lecture. When they were tested on the lecture material, students did more poorly on the second half
two explanations for mind-wandering in the second half of a lecture
overload & underload theory
overload theory
increase attentional demands with time
underload theory
boredom -> mind-wandering -> divided attention
what type of processes are involved in task-switching
top-down processes
mental set
a method of organizing information based on the goals of a task
switch cost
decline in performance after switching tasks
reaction time in switch vs. non-switch trials
slower reaction times during switch trials compared to non-switch trials
mind-wandering
A shift in mental resources away from the primary task and toward external thoughts
action slips
mental thoughts bleeding into external tasks
what type of processing is involved in endogenous attention?
top-down processing
what brain area is responsible for endogenous attention?
Intraparietal sulcus (IPS)
what type of processing is responsible for exogenous attention?
bottom-up
what brain area is responsible for exogenous attention?
temporo-parietal junction (TPJ)
attentional capture
Bottom-up cues that are automatically processed
what things do we pay the most attention to?
- Information that is important for survival is automatically processed
- Personally relevant stimuli (ex. name)
- Addictive stimuli (ex. Cigarettes capture the attention of smokers)
- Fearful stimuli
task design of a go/no-go trial
a signal is superimposed on different types of visual stimuli (faces, objects, nothing)
go vs. no-go trial
Go trial: when the signal is green, indicate if the vertical line is on the left or right
No-go trial: when the signal is red, press a task neutral button
results of the go/no-go experiment
The presence of human faces slowed down attentional processes for the go/no-go task because they capture the attention
semantic analysis
processing information for meaning
what senses is spatial neglect present for?
present across all sensory modalities
