...Chapter 6: Attention Flashcards
What is the difference between exogenous and endogenous attention?
endogenous (volentarty…following a cue), exogenous (reflexive)
Describe Hermann von Helmholtz’s study of attention. What did he demonstrate?
Helmholtz (1894) performed the first covert attention experiment. The screen full of letters was larger than his field of view, so he had to select an area to attend to. Even without moving his eyes, he could still attend to particular locations. Unattended locations were just a blur.
What is covert attention?
Overt Attention (Directing one’s gaze towards an object or location of interest.) Covert Attention (When the direction of one’s gaze is different from the location to which one is paying attention. )
What is the cocktail party effect? What method did Cherry (1953) use to test it? What did Moray’s (1959) finding suggest about how we filter attention?
In the cocktail party effect, a person is able to ignore a large number of voices in order to focus on a single voice. Cherry Dichotic-listening study. (people shadowed one ear not other, but if it’s meaningful stimulus from unshadowed ear we’ll suddenly pay attention) Example hearing your name (Moray) will make you automatically start attending to that
What is early-selection theory? What is late-selection theory? Describe evidence in favour of each theory.
EARLY: can quickly filter out the unimportant so allocate more resources to whats important. (we only have so much capacity and this explain why we don’t use it all up looking at things) (LATE: all info is thoroughly and semantically processed only after is it filtered out (the cocktail party hearing your name Moray)
What is an attentional bottleneck?
have limited capacity can only do so much so things , competition for processing resources so get bottlenecked and we process info one thing at a time.
What is the flanker effect? What do interference tasks tell us about attention?
Flanker effect: noticed that is was more difficult to attend to a stimulus when meaningful distracters were nearby . We can both control and not control our attention, but we are not multitasks. Interference can easily interfere with attention
What is spatial attention? What are its two types?
The direction of attention to a particular location while ignoring (or paying less attention to) others. Exogenous/Endrogenou
Why are conjunction searches difficult? Is “Where’s Waldo” a conjunction search?
In conjunction searches (when a target must possess two or more specific characteristics), attention is required. The larger the number of distracters, the longer attention is engaged. Yes where’s Waldo is conjunction search because you’re looking for a person, with the red/white, and the shape of the hat. You’re looking at multiple things
What is the “popout” effect?
The poppet effect is when your looking for something and the one thing your looking for is more bold and stands out more than all the others. One green two in a pile of red two’s
What is the auditory N1 potential? How was it discovered?
It’s the first dip in the negative of a waveform from at about 90ms post stimulus. waveform associated with attention. The attention effect highlights the first or initial object which is shown to a participant in an ERP. This is the full blow detection of the stimulus
What are brainstem-evoked responses? Are they sensitive to attention or not?
brainstem invoked response are automatic like pupil dilations. Not sensitive to attention.
What does the P20-50 effect tell us about attention?
=‘s time it takes for auditory inputs to reach the cortex . In sylvan fissure, with very specific test when really paying attention (attention influences auditory cortex and influences its firing)
Which brain regions are related to the N1 and the P20-50 waveforms?
M20-50 effect in primary auditory cortex (sylvian fissure). N1 (180ms) seconday aud cortex
According to MEG studies, how early in the perceptual process does attention influence auditory perception?
20-50ms?
