DSE212 Exploring Psychology - Chapter 6 Flashcards
General Psychology - What is the process that operates between what is sensed and what is perceived?
Attention
General Psychology - What is perception the end result of?
Processing and modification of sensory information
General Psychology - What is the difference between sensation and perception?
Sensation = detection of stimuli in the world by a sensory organ (eye, ear)
Perception = analysis and processing (integration with prior knowledge/experience of sensory information)
(top down)
General Psychology - Who provided the earliest definition of attention?
William James (1890)
General Psychology - Whose studies were used to demonstrate change blindness?
Simons & Levin (1998)
The door passing between interviewer and interviewee - only 50% of participants noticed
Cognitive Perspective - Which methods have been used to study limited capacity attention?
Kahnemann
Dual task studies of attention study ability to do two things at once and it’s effects on cognitive ability
Cognitive Perspective - Who devised the first dual task study?
Posner & Boies (1971)
Letter recognition/pressing button/auditory beep
Cognitive Perspective - Whose later dual task research obtained different results to Posner & Boies 1971 study?
McLeod (1977)
Changed button press to saying ‘bip’
reaction time not slowed
Cognitive Perspective - Which theory suggests that different pools of resources are available for different types of tasks?
Multiple Resource Theory of Attention
Navon & Gopher (1979)
Cognitive Perspective - What does Posner (1980) liken attention to?
Spotlight
Attentional spotlight illuminates small part of visual field
Cognitive Perspective - When driving and perceptual load is high how does Engel (1971) say we process the information?
Attentional tunnelling
Cognitive Perspective - What is the crucial aspect of stimulus induced attention?
Involuntary
eg attention is drawn to a loud noise
Cognitive Perspective - What is a stimulus induced shift of attention?
Something in the environment draws attention - we have no conscious control over it (exogenous systems)
Cognitive Perspective - Who suggests a ‘bottleneck’ theory of attention?
Broadbent (1954, 1971)
Cognitive Perspective - Where does Broadbent suggest the bottleneck operates?
Very early in the system therefore most sensory information receives no conscious processing
Cognitive Perspective - How did Broadbent test his theory about the bottleneck occurring early in the system?
A split-span procedure using series of digits heard by alternate ears
Cognitive Perspective - What is meant by the term ‘looked but failed to see (LBFS)’?
Do not see what you do not expect to see
Sabey & Staughton
Cognitive Perspective - Limited capacity theories of attention are related to who?
Kahneman (1973)
arousal, repeated journeys = less arousal
Cognitive Perspective - Whose theory is the attentional spotlight?
Posner (1980)
Cognitive Perspective - Who used ‘zoom lens’ as a analogy to describe attentional spotlight?
Erikson & Murphy (1987)
Cognitive Perspective - Who proposed the multiple resource theory of attention?
Navon & Gopher (1979)
Wickens (1992)
(different pools of resources for different types of task)
Cognitive Perspective - Broadbent is associated with which theory?
Bottleneck Theory of Attention
Cognitive Perspective - Lavie (1995) believes in what?
Perceptual load (heavy while driving)
Cognitive Perspective - What did Schneider and Shiffrin (1977) distinguish between controlled and automatic processes?
Controlled process - heavy cognitive demand
Automatic process - less cognitive demand
Two Process Theory
Suggest automatic processing allows cognitive processes to be used elsewhere
Cognitive Perspective - Which study demonstrates some of the costs associated with automatic processing?
The Stroop (1935)
Constructivist Approach - Who is associated with this theory?
Gregory (1966)
Constructivist Approach - What is it?
Perception is built from incomplete sensory data with the aid of stored knowledge
We form a series of perceptual hypotheses
(top-down and bottom-up processing)
Relate to Muller-Lyer illusion
Constructivist Approach - What is the Muller-Lyer illusion?
Similar length lines appear different lengths due directional arrows on top and bottom as we interpret them using our experience and knowledge of the world
(Relates to Gibson’s theory of direct perception?
General Psychology - What is Gibson’s (1950) theory and how does it relate with regard to Gregory and the Three C’s?
Direct Perception
No need for top-down information
Contrasts with Gregory but does not conflict therefore it coexists
General Psychology - What does Gibson’s theory emphasise?
Perception without the need for integration with stored knowledge, emphasise the dynamic nature of perception
(do not perceive as static images but as ever changing scene)
Phenomenological Approach - What is it?
Unique experience of perception of the world by an individual
Phenomenological Approach - Who was the founder of the tradition?
Hussel (1931)
General Psychology - What are used to monitor brain activity whilst a task is being undertaken?
Functional Brain Imaging techniques which monitor DLPFC and ACC areas of the brain
Cognitive Approach - What was the fMRI study of McDonald et al (2000)?
fMRI - functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Brain imaging technique while a participant undertook the Stroop test to assess brain activity when particular tasks are carried out
Cognitive Approach - What is a limitation of fMRI?
Doesn’t provide info as to how a particular part of the brain may be involved
Cognitive Approach - What is Cognitive Neuro Psychology?
Investigates what happens when the brain stops working normally
Cognitive Approach - What happened in the case of Sacks (1985)?
The man who mistook his wife for a hat
Able to sense something but it was impossible to link it to the appropriate knowledge
Cognitive Approach - What is agnosia?
Inability to recognise objects despite normal sensory input
General Psychology - What did Maundsell & McAdam’s (2000) study suggest?
Attention can influence neurons in exactly the same way as changing information from the senses
Note: this type of research is in it’s infancy
What is neuroscience?
Study of how the brain works, physical structure and activity
What is semantic memory?
Concerned with remembering facts eg places and things I pass walking to the station everyday - (non-specific general)
What is episodic memory?
Relates to specific contexts eg who I passed on the way to the station last Tuesday morning (specific)
What is Attention?
Selecting one thing to focus on out of many
Suggests that we filter out the things that we think are irrelevant and only consider interesting or pertinent infomation
What did McLeod’s dual task study conclude?
Different resource pools support the button pressing and saying bip responses and they don’t interfere
What did McLeod’s study propose?
Processing deficiency is in maiking the response and not perceiving the stimuli suggesting multiple resource theory of attention
What is an example of an endogenous system?
Hunger or thirst
What was concluded from Broadbent’s split span procedure?
Switching attention from one ear to the other required more cognitive resources
Physical characteristic of which ear the stimulus came to was used to filter
Who criticised Broadbent’s theory of early processing?
Treisman
Cocktail party effect
What do Deutsch & Deutsch claim about bottleneck theory of attention?
There are no resource limitations on processing and all sensory stimuli is processed - no filtering is involved early or late
How do Broadbent, Treismann and Deutsch & Deutsch fall into the three C’s?
Coexist
What did Cole & Hughes say about cognitive processes in the everyday world?
Sensory conspicuity is an object conspicuous enough to be sensed and attention conspicuity is an object conspicuous enough to grab our atention
What did Wulf et al say about sensory versus attention conspicuity?
High sensory conspicuity may not make an object less likely to be hit if the driver isn’t expecting to see it eg may not perceive highly visible police car parked on the motorway in the same direction as the traffic
What did Langham et al study?
Accidents with Police cars parked on motorways to block lanes (lab experiment using video clips)
What did Langham et al conclude from their study?
Police car orientation was important echelon parked were more noticeable
What did Eberson et al study and conclude with regard to drivers?
Real life and simulator drivers assessing when to cross an intersection and concluded that real life made less errors whereas simulators made errors
What does the Eberson study demonstrate?
Difficulty of studying psychological (cognitive) processes either in real-life or lab and the need to use different techniques to get a clearer picture
What does the Two Process Theory claim?
Controlled and automatic processing happen simultaneously all the time, one or the other dominates depending on context and task in hand
The phenomenological approach provides support for Gibson and Gregory’s theories - how?
Bruce et al (Instinctive behaviour) for example the frog just catches the fly - it’s unlikely to form a series of perceptual hypotheses
What sort of technique do studies using fMRI machines utilise?
Correlational techniques
What did Maundsell & McAdams study of monkeys suggest?
Neurons can be affected by a change in stimuli eg contract/orientation and also by changing attention
Bottom-up and top-down have the same affect at neuronal level
Why are deficits eg agnosia, important to psychology?
Suggest that different processes must be controlled by different parts of the brain (one can fail without affecting the other)
What sort of viewpoint do behavioural and biological data use in neuropsychology?
Analysed from an outsider viewpoint but traditionally insider viewpoint and introspection was used
What causes change blindness?
Produced through routine filtering of information and failure to attend to all sensations received
Why do different people have different perceptions?
Due to top-down processing even though they receive the same sensations
What sort of viewpoint does the Muller-Lyer provide?
Insider data for exploration and ultimate explanation of perceptual phenomena
Theme - What is required for sensation, attention and perception?
Biological structures and experience in the world
What do phenomenological theory and top-down approaches indicate?
That perception is flexible in terms of motivation of perceiver, personal experience and prior knowledge
