Exam 2 Flashcards
Attention
The ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations.
Selective Attention
Attending to one thing while ignoring others.
During early processing, all stimuli comes in (parallel) and hearing it all, and during later processing, only one stimulus was processed (serial). Doing very little processing on everything you hear initially.
Distraction
One stimulus interfering with the process of another stimulus.
Divided Attention
Paying attention to more than one thing at a time.
Attential Capture
A rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement.
Visual Scanning
Movements of the eye from one location or object to another.
Filter Model of Attention
Model of attention that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli.
Dichotic Listening
Presenting different stimuli to the left and right ears and trying to focus on the stimuli from one of the ears.
Shadowing
Repeating a message out loud as it’s heard. Used in conjunction with dichotic listening experiments.
Cocktail Party Effect
The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli, especially at a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations.
Broadbent’s Filter Model
Early selection model
Broadbent proposed that info passes through sensory memory, filter, and detector.
Filter by physical characteristics (gender, location, pitch), which are processed early.
1) Sensory memory holds all the incoming info for a fraction of a second and then transfers all of it to the filter.
2) The filter identifies the message that is being attended to based on its physical characteristics (things like the speaker’s tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, and accent) and lets only this attended message pass through to the detector.
3) The detector processes the info from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning. Because only the important, attended info had been let through the filter, the detector processes all of the info that enters it. Processes the meaning.
4) The output of the detector is sent to STM and also transfer info into LTM.
Messages->->-> sensory store->->-> filter-> detector-> memory.
Bottleneck Model (Broadbent’s Model of Attention)
Model of attention that proposes that incoming info is restricted at some point in processing, so only a portion of the info gets through to consciousness.
Treisman’s Attenuation Model of Selective Attention
Early selection model.
Messages ->->->-> attenuator –>->->-> dictionary unit -> memory.
This changes the strength of the messages. All messages go through but filtered by physical properties.
Attenuator
Analyzes the incoming message in terms of: 1) its physical characteristics whether it’s high-pitched or low-pitched, fast or slow; 2) its language (how the message groups into syllables or words); 3) its meaning (how sequences of words create meaningful phrases).
Dictionary Unit
Contains words, store in memory, each of which has a threshold for being activated. For example, your name has a low threshold, which means it’s easily detected. It lets the message get through if it’s strong enough.
Late Selection Models of Attention
Proposed that most of the incoming info is processed to the level of meaning before the message to be further processed is selected.
Messages->->-> physical analysis->->-> meaning analysis-> memory.
Meaning is processed later compared to the early selection models.
Processing Capacity
Refers to the amount of info people can handle and sets a limit on their ability to process incoming info.
Perceptual Load
Related to the difficulty of a task.
Low-Load Tasks
Tasks that use few resources, leaving some capacity to handle other tasks (easy tasks).
High-Load Tasks
Tasks that use most or all of a person’s resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks (difficult tasks).
Load Theory of Attention
Proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out. High-load tasks result in less distraction. For low-load tasks, there’s still processing capacity left. So there are still resources available to process task-irrelevant stimulus, which slows down reaction time.
Overt Attention
Shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes. Attending where your eyes are looking.
Covert Attention
Shifting attention from one place to another while keeping the eyes stationary. Attending to where your eyes aren’t looking.
Central Vision
Area you are looking at. Objects here fall on fovea, better detail vision than peripheral retina on which everything else falls.
Peripheral Vision
Everything off to the side.
Fixation
A pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene.
Saccadic Eye Movement
Rapid, jerky movements from one fixation to the next while scanning a scene.
Stimulus-Salience
The physical properties of the stimulus, such as color, contrast, or movement. This is a bottom-up process bc it depends solely on the pattern of light and dark, color and contrast in stimulus.
Saliency Map
Map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the scene. Highlights visually salient info: contrast, color, brightness, movement, and depth.
Precueing
A procedure in which participants are given a cue that will usually help them carry out a subsequent task. Presented with cues that tells them where to direct their attention.
Same-Object Advantage
Occurs when the enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object, so that attention to one place on an object results in a facilitation of processing at other places on the object.
Split-Scan Experiment
Dichotic listening but letters of the alphabet, different letters at the same time in opposite ears, they have difficulty repeating the letters that were presented at the same time in the different ears.
Early Selection Models
Messages->->-> physical analysis-> meaning analysis-> memory.
Broadbent’s filter model and Treisman’s attenuation model.
Automatic Processing
A type of processing that occurs: 1) without intention (it happens automatically without the person intending to do it) and 2) at a cost of only some of a person’s cognitive resources.
Doesn’t require attention (mind does it on its own), unlimited capacity, very difficult to modify, can easily focus on movement, and everything is a benefit of automaticity.
Inattential Blindness
Not noticing something even though it’s in clear view, usually caused by failure to pay attention to the object or the place where the object is located. Ex. paying attention to a cross and not noticing a small square off to the side.
Change Blindness
Difficulty in detecting changes in scenes. Easier when there is no gap between pictures.
Continuity Errors
Changes in some aspect of a scene that should remain the same changes from one shot to the next in films.
Binding
The process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object.
Binding Problem
The question of how an object’s individual features become bound together. How our brain brings together features but binds them to the wrong object.
Feature Integration Theory
An approach to object perception, developed by Anne Treisman, that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object.
Object-> preattentive stage-> focused attention stage-> perception.
Preattentive Stage
The first step in processing an image of an object where objects are analyzed into separate features. Without attention, all features are independent and free-floating.
Illusory Conjunctions
A situation, demonstrated in experiments by Treisman, in which features from different objects are inappropriately combined. This occurs bc in the preattentive stage, each free-floating feature exists independently of the others.
Focused Attentive Stage
The second stage in which attention causes the combination of features into perception of an object. These “free-floating” features get combined.
Balint’s Syndrome
A condition caused by brain damage in which a person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects, which causes more illusory conjunctions like with RM.
Visual Search
Something we do anytime we look for an object among a number of other objects.
Feature Search
Finding something based on one feature.
Conjunction Search
Search for a combination of two or more features.
Topographic Map
Spatial map of visual stimuli on visual cortex.
Cognitive Resources
An individual’s resources for carrying out cognitive processing.
Cognitive Load
The processing demands of a particular cognitive task.
Controlled Processing
Requires attention, limited capacity, and can be used flexibly (conscious control over it).
Endogenous Attention
Consciously choosing where to direct our attention.
Exogenous Attention
Something grabs our attention.
Bottom-Up Determinants
Physical features of the stimulus (stimulus salience).
Top-Down Determinants
Knowledge, expectations, and the meaning of the scene.
Valid Cue
Draws attention to the location of the stimulus.
Invalid Cue
Draws attention to an irrelevant location.
“Spotlight” Model
Attention is like a spotlight and you can move it around to focus your attention on it. Sped and accuracy varies with distance.
Object-Based Selection/Attention
When you’re able to direct your attention to the same object in which the cue was flashed on. You can see the target faster where the cue was flashed bc that’s where your spotlight attention is.
Memory
Process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using info about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original info is no longer present. Memory is active anytime some past experience has an effect on the way you think or behave now or in the future.
Sensory Memory
The retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation. A brief persistence of an image, which is one of the things that makes it possible to perceive movies. Holds almost everything you experience, but very brief.
Short-Term/Working Memory
Information that stays in our memory for brief periods of about 10-15 seconds if we don’t repeat it over and over.
Long-Term Memory
Responsible for storing info for long periods of time, which can extend from minutes to a lifetime.
Mostly not active (at any one time).