Cognitive Psychology: Attention Flashcards
What are 8 things attention can be?with examples
- Attention is goal-directed – attention is deployed to achieve something (e.g. finding someone in a crowd)
- Attention varies in effort – deploying attention can be very easy, or it can be more difficult (e.g. during visual search)
- Attention can be shifted – in visual search attention and eye movements are often coupled (e.g. scanning from left to right)
- Attention can be zoomed – the zoom lens metaphor
- Attention is selective – metaphor: attention as a filter (e.g. decide to focus on one conversation at a party, while ignoring another
- Attention is limited – metaphor: attention as a resource. You have a limited ‘amount of attention” and you can “run out of” attention (e.g. trying to listen to two people at the same time)
- Attention can be captured – you control your attention, but only to a degree (e.g. search for you friend with red hair, who never sits in first row, research has shown that attention still captured by other red-haired students in first row
- Attention can be divided – (e.g. between modalities)
Classic studies: Modern attention research
- started in the 1950s
- follows a paradigm shift from behaviourism to cognitivism (cognitive revolution)
- One of the founding fathers is Donald Broadbent (1926-1993)
Classic studies: Broadbent (1952)
- Stimuli: grid with 5 locations, with different symbols in some locations
- Task: pp’s heard 2 recordings played simultaneously with various conditions
- Results: only about 50% of the questions were answered correctly. The task was very difficult, even with a limited number if possible alternatives
Classic studies: Cherry (1953)
- Condition 1: two messages by the same speaker played to both ears and the instruction is to repeat one message and ignore the other
- Condition 2: two messages by the same simultaneously played to different ears (dichotic listening) pp’s are instructed to shadow one speaker
- Results: showed that its much easier to be able to attend to one ear It is very hard to attend to two messages that are not separable by physical cues (i.e., same speaker, same ear)
With physical cues (e.g., location of the speaker) it is much easier
We can attend to one message and know very little about the other one
Broadbent’s filter theory (1958)
- The short-term memory store – information from multiple sensory inputs enter (sensory buffer, immediate memory, iconic memory) Simple physical stimulus properties are processed in parallel
- The selective filter – identifies information for further processing. The filter uses stimulus properties as the basis for selection
- The limited capacity channel – is a serial processor and can only process one thing at a time. Current term is the focus of attention in working memory
(easy selection theory)
- Selective filtering takes place before full meaning analysis can occur in the limited capacity channel.
Evidence against early selection
- Own-name effect – about 1/3 of pp’s noticed own name when it was presented to irrelevant ear (Moray 1959)
- Message switching – pp’s report info from irrelevant ear when the message switches from one ear to the other (Treisman 1960)
Alternatives to filter theory
- Attenuation theory – filter not completely selective and concepts in ‘mental dictionary’ more readily available
- Late selection – meaning is analysed before input is filtered (automatic and not capacity-limited)
Leakage: Treisman (1960,1964)
- Filter does not block information from the irrelevant channel, but it does attenuate it
- Information from irrelevant channel ‘leaks’ through the filter
- Attenuated information can activate concepts in long-term memory which leads to identification of stimuli
Slippage
If attention Is not properly, then attention will slip to the irrelevant channel
Spillover
If the relevant channel needs less attention than that available, attention will ‘spill over’ to the irrelevant channel
Evidence for slippage: Lachter et al (2004)
There is a need to reinterpret old experiments and conduct new experiments
Evidence of ‘channel switching’ where pp’s report words from irrelevant ear when message switches to that ear
Evidence of subconscious processing
Lachter argued that none of these experiments had controlled from slippage, or involuntary attention to the irrelevant channel
Evidence for slippage: Conway et al (2001)
Tested a group with high working memory capacity and a group with LMC
The results showed that the own name-effect depended on working-memory capacity
Pp’s with LWM noticed their name most frequently and experienced difficulties focusing their attention
Pp’s with high WMC are better able to control their attention. In the High WMC group 20% noticed their own name
In the Low WMC group (dark bar) 65% noticed their own name
Replicating electric shock conditioning study:
(Dawson & Schell 1982)
- They did skin conductance changes, but in subjects who; failed to shadow relevant channel, recalled material from irrelevant channel. This suggests that there might be slippage of attentional resources and some participants do attend the irrelevant channel
Repetition priming: Lachter et al
- An irrelevant prime word is presented shortly before the target word
- Pp’s make a button press to indicate in upper case is an actual word or a pseudo-word
- If a prime word is the same as the target word, this can speed up responses to the target word (seeing the prime activated the concept in memory)
Repetition priming in different locations
- (Same location)
Faster when the prime and target were the same
Slower when the prime and the target were different - (Different location)
The same prime in different locations does no affect RTs
Reaction times are the same - Kouider et al (2014) – pp’s prepared a responses in their sleep so they must have understood the meaning of the words (there is identification without attention)
