Chapter 5: Paying Attention

Question 1

Selective attention

Answer 1

Skill through which we focus on 1 input/task while ignoring other stimuli

Question 2

Dichotic listening

Answer 2

Tasks in which participants hear one audio input through the right headphone and another through the left

Question 3

Attended channel

Answer 3

Stimulus (or group of stimuli) that a person is trying to perceive

Information is typically well understood/remembered

Question 4

Unattended channel

Answer 4

Stimuli the person is trying not to perceive

Information is typically not well understood/remembered

Question 5

Shadowing

Answer 5

Participant is asked to repeat what they hear in the attended channel word-for-word to ensure they are listening

Question 6

Filter

Answer 6

Hypothetical mechanism for blocking potential distractors from being further processed

Question 7

Fixation target

Answer 7

Visual marker a participant is asked to focus on to control eye movement in research studies

Question 8

Inattentional blindness

Answer 8

Pattern in which perceivers fail to see stimuli right in front of them due to a focus on other stimuli

Question 9

Change blindness

Answer 9

Pattern in which perceivers do not see a large-scale change in a visual stimulus

Reveals how little we perceive if we fail to attend to target information

Question 10

Early selection vs Late selection hypothesis

Answer 10

Early selection states that selective attention operates at an early stage of processing, so unattended inputs receive little analysis

Late selection states that selective attention operates at a late stage of processing, so unattended inputs receive significant analysis

Question 11

Biased competition theory

Answer 11

A proposal that attention functions by shifting neurons’ priorities so that neurons are more responsive to inputs that have properties associated with the desired input

Question 12

Spatial attention

Answer 12

Mechanism through which people allocate processing resources to particular positions in space so that they more efficiently process any inputs from that region

Question 13

Limited-capacity system

Answer 13

Group of processes in which mental resources are limited, so that extra resources supplied to one process must be balanced by a withdrawal of resources elsewhere

We can’t exceed the limit (of resources available)

Question 14

Mental resources

Answer 14

Processes/capacity needed for performance but limited in supply

Question 15

Endogenous control of attention

Answer 15

Mechanism through which a person chooses where to focus attention

Question 16

Exogenous control

Answer 16

Mechanism through which the decision of where to focus attention is automatically controlled

Question 17

Feature integration theory

Answer 17

Proposal about the function of attention as the glue between elements and features that are in view

Question 18

Divided attention

Answer 18

Skill of multitasking

Question 19

Perseveration error

Answer 19

Pattern of responding in which a person produces the same responce over and over, even though the task requires a change

Question 20

Goal neglect

Answer 20

A person fails to remember their goal and relies instead on irrelevant, habitual responses

Question 21

Automaticity

Answer 21

State achieved by some tasks and some forms of processing, in which the task can be performed with little or no attention

Mental reflexes

Question 22

Stroop interference

Answer 22

Stroop task!

BLACK written in blue is confusing