CHP. 5 - Paying Attention Flashcards
Selective attention
skill involvinf focus on 1 input task while ignoring other stimuli
Dichotic listening tasks
different audio inputs presented to each ear
* attended channel vs. unattended channel
Inattentional blindness
failure to see a prominent stimulus, even if you’re staring right at it
can include inattentional deafness & numbness too!
ex. Gorilla experiment
Change blindness
inability to detect changes in a scene despite looking at it directly
ex. “wood carrying on sidewalk” experiment
Differences in change blindness
Cultural and class differences
* ex. East Asian, lower social class, minority status
Early selection hypothesis
Only attended input is analysed & perceived
Unattended info receives little/no analysis
Never perceived
ex. dichotic listening tasks
Late selection hypothesis
All inputs are analyzed
Selection occurs after analysis
* Selection may occur before consciousness or later
Unattended info might be perceived, but is then forgotten
Repetition priming
priming produced by a prior encounter with the stimulus
* stimulus driven
* requires no effort/mental resources
Expectation-driven priming
detectors for inputs you think are upcoming are deliberately primed
* effortful
* not done for unexpected/uninteresting inputs
Biased competition theory
attention created a temporary bias in neuron sensitivity
more responsive to input with desired properties
“neurons are clicky”
Reaction time (RT)
measure of the time of stimulus onset to a response
Cue
a stimulus that might indicate where/what a subsequent stimulus will be
* Valid (correct)
* Invalid (incorrect)
* Neutral (uninformative)
Posner Cueing Paradigm results
- RTs are shorter on valid cue trials
- RTs are longer on invalid cue trials
some cues, like eyes & arrows, lead to faster RTs
“Spotlight” Model of attention
attention is restricted in space & moves from 1 point to the next
* areas within “spotlight” receive extra processing
“Zoom Lens” Model of attention
attended region can grow or shrink depending on size of the area to be processed
Control system of attention system
List them out
- Orienting system
- Alerting system
- Executive system
Orienting system
(steps)
disengage -> shift -> engage
Alerting system
maintain alert state in the brain
* what we should pay attention to
ex. phone notifs
Executive system
frontal lobe-type activities, controls voluntary actions
Endogenous vs. exogenous control of attention
Internal: voluntary & directed by mind
* ex.”I’m hungry”
External: stimulated from environment
* ex. restaurant ads
Feature Integration Theory
- Preattentive stage
* paralle processing of stimulus, efficient - Focused attention stage
* expectation-based priming creates advantages, slower
Divided attention
skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously
* generally easier if tasks are different from each other
ex. cleaning & listening to music is easier than texting & driving
Preservation error
tendency to produce same response over & over when the task clearly requires a change in response
ex. keep checking under the mat for keys when they’re clearly not there
Automacity
describes tasks that are well-practiced & require little/no executive control
ex. Stroop interference (letters & colors)
