Cog 1-5 Flashcards
Sensory memory
Brief or literal copy of event: iconic memory, echoic memory
Focused/selective attention
A situation in which individuals try to attend to only one source of information while ignoring other stimuli
Divided attention
A situation in which two tasks are performed at the same time (multitasking)
Cocktail party problem
The difficulties involved in attending to one voice when two or more people are speaking at the same time
What is sound segregation?
From a mixture of sounds reaching someone’s ear, the listener has to decide which sounds belong together and which do not
Which is harder: auditory segmentation or visual segmentation?
Auditory segmentation
What is motion induced blindness?
When you focus on one thing and something else in your vision disappears
What is a dichotic listening task?
The listener hears two different messages coming through each headphone and is asked to repeat the ‘shadow’ one of them
How does Cherry explain that we can follow one conversation when everyone is talking at the same time?
We use selection; only crude information from unattended ear is encoded (e.g. sex of speaker); when voices are physically similar they are hard to distinguish; very little complex information is encoded
Define locus of selection
The point at which some material is accepted or selected for further processing, and some material is rejected and no longer processed; ‘your decision point’
What is early locus of selection?
Making your decision based on physical characteristics and filtering things out on this physical basis
What is late locus of selection?
All information in front of you gets processed to a high degree of processing level of meaning, and then important things are further processed from there
What is Broadbent’s filter theory?
Proposes an early locus of selection; multiple inputs are coded in parallel; one is selected on the basis of its physical characteristics; unattended stimuli not processed further
What is the problem with Broadbent’s filter theory?
Some information from the unattended ear is processed beyond the physical level
What did Moray find?
Looked at switching during shadowing experiments; found that people still recognised their name when it was presented in the unattended ear (cocktail part effect); when we direct our attention to a message from one ear and reject a message from the other ear, almost none of the verbal content of the rejected message is able to get through this block (EXCEPT important messages like our name)
Define attenuating
Things with a lower threshold (hearing your name) you are more likely to hear it
What is Treisman’s attenuation theory?
Designed to account for breakthroughs that can occur in Broadbent’s filter theory; words that are expected are more likely to be processed
What theory is evidence against Broadbent?
Treisman’s attenuation theory; because in the dichotic listening task subjects did switch to the unattended channel if the speech made sense, but quickly switched back
Define leaky filter
Explains why some unattended items receive further analysis (you can’t actually focus your attention)
Define slippage
Where attention suddenly shifts (your attention actually moves); attentional shift takes approximately 50ms
What is Lavie’s load account?
We are more likely to be distracted when the task we are doing has a low perceptual load (as if we have spare attentional capacity which can be captured by irrelevant things)
What did Normad, Bouget & Croziet find in relation to evaluative pressure?
Pressure increased distraction caused by task related features, and reduced distraction by irrelevant features
Define Feature Integration Theory
Suggests that when perceiving a stimulus, features are registered early, automatically, and in parallel, while objects are identified separately and at a later stage in processing
Define ‘feature search’
Things stand out well when they are unique in a single element
Define ‘conjunction search’
Found using serial search (having to individually scan through every shape till you find the one you are looking for)
E.g. “Where’s Wally?”
Define ‘texture segregation’
The effortless division of a visual stimulus into distinct segments based on spatial gradients in local feature properties
What are problems with Feature Integration Theory?
There is no clear distinction between parallel and serial searches in data
Conjunction search may be slower because targets are less easy to discriminate (they share features with the distractors)
What is Guided Search Theory?
Suggests that attention is directed to an object or location through a pre-attentive process
Define pre-attentive processes
The subconscious accumulation of information from the environment; the brain filters and processes what is important
Are pre-attentive processes innate? And what is evidence for it
Yes. Pop-out is evidence for pre-attentive processes
Define automatic processes
Does not require us to pay attention, nor do we have to deliberately put in effort to control automatic processes
Logan’s Instance Theory Automaticity
It’s NOT about the connections being strengthened (that’s learning theory)
It’s about every time you do something a MEMORY TRACE IS LAID DOWN (it’s a memory based theory; this is why you can retrieve things faster, because you have more memory traces
What are the 4 features associated with automatic processes?
Fast
Efficient
Goal-unrelated
Unconscious
What does poor dual task performance suggest?
Suggests that both tasks draw from a common pool of ‘resources’
What are the 4 theories of dual-task performance?
Capacity theories
Bottleneck theories
Crosstalk and task similarity
Neutral theories
Pashler’s PRP paradigm is an example of what dual-task performance?
Bottleneck theory
What is Pashler’s Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm?
The slowing of the response to the second of two stimuli when they are presented close together in time
Main finds of Pashler’s PRP paradigm
The ability to switch your attention between tasks; the PRP effect can get smaller but can never fully disappear; not all processes are occurring in parallel, and instead being done one at a time in a series of processes (e.g. driving a car)
Define split attention
Allocation of attention to two (or more) non-adjacent regions of visual space
Define covert attention
Attention to an object or sound in the absence of other movements of the relevant receptors (looking at an object in the periphery of vision)
Define zoom-lens theory
Targets were detected fastest when the attended region was small and slowest when it was large
Define spotlight theory
Shows visual attention to be even more flexible than assumed within the zoom-lens model
Define inhibition of return
A reduced probability of visual attention returning to a previously attended location or object; ‘attention drifts away’
Why do sudden onsets capture attention?
Big perceptual change and new perceptual object which needs to be encoded
Define inattentional blindness
Failure to detect an unexpected object appearing in a visual display; there is no perception without attention
Define change blindness
Failure to detect changes in the visual environment
