Cognitive (CONTEMPORARY) - attention - SIMONS & CHABRIS Flashcards
divided attention
condition of paying attention to more than one stimulus
focused visual attention
the cluttered scenes of everyday life present more objects than an individual can respond towards simultaneously and often more than can be fully perceived at any one time
background
studies have been conducted to investigate inattentional blindness using a selective looking technique. In these studies observers had to engage in continuous task that required them to focus on one aspect of a dynamic visual scene (selectively looking) whilst ignoring others
we cannot pay attention to everything so we have to decide on what to focus on - if we are not focusing on something then we will not notice if it changes which is known as change blindness
aim
aims to examine the inattentional blindness for complex objects and events in dynamic scenes (active scenes)
sample
228 undergraduate students which either volunteered without compensation, received a large candy bar or was paid a single fee for participating in a larger testing session including another unrelated experiment
data from 36 participants were discarded so results were used from 192
research method
lab experiment using independent measures
IVs
whether participant took part in
1. transparent/umbrella woman condition
2. transparent/gorilla condition
3. opaque/umbrella woman condition
4. opaque/gorilla condition
each of four displays there were four tasks
1. white/easy
2. white/hard
3. black/easy
4.black/hard
DV
number of participants in each of the 16 conditions who noticed the unexpected event (umbrella or gorilla)
describe the tapes
four video tapes each 75 secs long
each tape showed two teams of three players one wearing white and the other black
players moved round in random fashion in front of three elevator doors
members of each team passed a orange basketball to one another in a standardized order - player 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3…
passes were either bounce or aerial
describe how the two unexpected events occurred
after 44-48 secs of action either a woman holding an umbrella walked from off cameral o one side to the other left to right
in the gorilla condition a shorter woman wearing a gorilla costume walked on the same way
in either case the unexpected event lasted 5 secs
transparent condition
white team, black team and expected event were all filmed separately and the three video steams were rendered partially transparent and then superimposed by using digital video editing software
opaque condition
all seven actors were filmed simultaneously and thus could block out - occlude- one another and the basketballs.
this required some rehearsing before filming to eliminate collisions and other accidents and to achieve natural looking patterns of movement
procedure
ensure standardization between the experimenters a written protocol was devised and reviewed with the experimenters before data collection was begun
all participants tested individually and gave informed consent in advance
before watching participants told they should either pay attention to the white team or the black team depending on which condition they were in
what participants had to do
keep either a silent mental count of the total number of passes made by the attended team (easy condition)
or
separate silent mental counts of the number of bounce passes and aerial passes made by the attended team (hard condition)
what participants did after watching the tape
immediately asked to write down their counts on paper and asked the following
1. while you were doing the counting did you notice anything unsealing the video?
2. did you notice anything other than the six players?
3. did you see a gorilla/ woman carrying an umbrella walk across the screen?
if any questions were answered yes participants were asked to provide details and the remaining questions were skipped
participants were asked if they had taken partin a similar experiment and if they said yes they were replaced and their data was discarded
participants were debriefed and replayed the video
