Exam 2 Flashcards
Selective Attention
the ability to focus on one message and ignore others. - Ex: focusing on studying and being able to filter out distractions.
Dichotic Listening
a task that involves a participant receiving two different messages, one in each ear.
They’re asked to listen to just one message and ignore the other.
Results concluded that people are able to successfully filter out information, but not perfectly.
Divided Attention
debate over whether we’re able to distribute our attention when multitasking.
- We can try, but our performance may suffer because of it. Performance is based on the difficulty of a task & practice.
Automatic Processing
occurred without intention and only uses some of a person’s cognitive resources
- can become automatic through practice.
Controlled Processing
Requires close attention & resources for success. It’s more difficult.
some tasks always require controlled processing.
Ex: Schneider and Shiffrin experiment.
- They made a harder condition in which the rules kept changing. Task never became automatic and required controlled processing.
Attention and the Brain
Brain has certain areas that prefer either faces OR places
Fusiform Face Area (FFA)
- prefers Faces over objects
Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA)
- prefers Places over objects
Central Executive Network
active when you pay attention to your surroundings or complete a cognitively demanding task.
Default Mode Network
active when you direct attention towards yourself or your mind wanders away from the task at hand.
Salience Network
active when you switch between the other two networks (central executive and default).
Inattentional Blindness
failing to see something that is clearly visible because your attention is directed towards something else.
Ex: walking by a tree daily, but didn’t pay attention to the chickens that surround it. Not paying attention to the chickens results in them not being perceived in that scene.
Change Blindness
if you’re shown two versions of a photo, the differences between them aren’t noticeable right away
Mind Wandering
attention can be on task or off task aka distracted. Off task thinking is mind wandering. Mind wandering is a black box, we can’t see it happening in our heads. Research shows that high load tasks result in less mind wandering, whereas low load tasks result in more mind wandering.
Memory
the processes involved in storing, retrieving, and using information after the original information is no longer present.
Sensory Memory
initial stage that holds incoming information for a second or a fraction of a second.
Information decays very quickly.
2 types: iconic and echoic.
Iconic: brief sensory memory of what we SEE.
Echoic: brief sensory memory of what we HEAR.
Sperling’s Measuring the duration of sensory memory: what is it?
chart with three rows of 4 letters is shown for 50 milliseconds.
Participants are asked to report the letters after the chart is no longer shown. Some conditions involved.
Sperling concluded that only about 1 row is able to be memorized
Short-term memory
holds a limited amount of information for about 15 to 20 seconds.
-can last longer than 15-20 seconds but needs to be recalled often
Includes both new information received from the sensory stores as well as information recalled from long-term memory.
Peterson & Peterson’s STM task & conclusions about short-term memory
experiment that involves reading 3 letters and then a number. From that number, count back by 3’s. After the time is up, recall the three letters.
Example: see NUT69.
Count back.. 66, 63, 60 Recall: NUT
Results: 80% accuracy if they counted for 3 seconds and 12% accuracy if they counted for 18 seconds. Memory decay occurred over the period of 18 seconds.
