Exam 2 Flashcards
Embodied cognition
Idea that cognition depends not only on the mind but also on the physical constraints of the body
Fovea centralis
Area of extremely high density of photoreceptors in the eye
Portion of retina that light falls onto when you focus your gaze on something
When do we use the fovea
Directed looking, vast majority of Vision is here
Overt attention
Attending to something by looking at it
Play major role in everyday attention
Covert attention
Attending to something without looking at it
Looking out the corner of your eye
Foveated rendering
Changes resolution of the image, depending on where someone is looking at that moment
Saccade
Rapid movement
Fixation
Brief pauses
Bottom-up determinants of our eye movements
Refer to the fact that certain physical properties are more “eye-catching”
High contrast, bright colors, movement
Top-down determinants of our eye movements
Refer to the fact that we have knowledge and goals which affect attention
Mind seems to cause our eyes to focus on specific areas
Goals
Brain regions involved in controlled eye movements
Frontal eye fields, frontal lobe
Brain regions involved in reflexive ones
Superior colliculus, midbrain near thalamus
Controlled eye movements
Endogenous
Reflexive eye movements
Exogenous
What are regressions with respect to eye movements in reading
Right to left movements of the eye ( going back to previously read text)
When do regressions tend to occur?
When we don’t understand something
Which words do our eyes tend to skip over
Highly predictable words
Under what conditions are saccades shorter versus longer
Smaller jumps when material is difficult, words are long, usually, or mis-spelled
Differences in eye movements between skilled readers and poor readers
Good readers make larger jumps
Make fewer regressions
Have shorter fixations
Moving window technique
Certain eye trackers can make a certain distance from the fixation point change to X
Mindless reading
As people become fatigued (or bored) they sometimes engage in mindless reading
Eyes moving across page but nothing really sinking in
What happens if only one letter is colored in the Stroop Task
Much less interference
Important results of Durgin’s modified Stroop Task
Demonstrated a reverse Stroop effect
Attention capture
Diversion of attention by a stimulus so powerful that it compels us to notice it, even when attention is focused elsewhere
Stimuli that tends to capture our attention
Loud noises
Threatening stimuli
Face
Bodies
Results of attention capture
Spider was more likely to be noticed, than the syringe during Attention trials
Idea of attention capture study
Evolutionary important and common stimuli will be more readily noticed
Spider– ancient threat to well being
Syringe– modern,learned threat
Pattern of results for faces, bodies, shapes, guns, cars, phones
80 % likely to notice if it is a human face or body
20% for cars, gun, phones
Exogenous attention —> attention capture
Automatic attraction by something usual or sudden or important stimuli Outside oneself Loud noises Threatening stimuli Faces Bodies
Endogenous attention
Conscious decision to selectively attend to or scan for certain things
From within
Where’s Waldo ?
Most associated with attention capture
Exogenous
Involves more top-down processing
Endogenous
Involves more bottom-up
Exogenous
Type of cue with exogenous
Peripheral
Type of cue endogenous
Central
2 streams orienting attention network
Dorsal
Ventral
Type of stream associated with endogenous
Dorsal
Type of stream associated with ventral
Exogenous
Brain regions involved in dorsal stream
Frontal eye fields
Intraparietal sulcus
Brian regions involved with ventral stream
Ventral frontal cortex
Temporoparietal junction
Function frontal eye fields
Voluntary eye movements
Function intraparietal sulcus
Visually guided action, visual attention
Function ventral frontal cortex
Stimulus characteristics, risk, fear
Function temporoparietal junction
Integrates information from external environment as well as within the body
Endogenous (top-down) attention gives us incredible flexibility in allocating our attention
System helps us tune out distractors, formulate goals
Exogenous (bottom-up) attention gives us incredible flexibility in allocating our attention
Circuit breaking function –> helps us notice other information
E.g. Someone yelling fire, allows flexibility of attention otherwise we’d be stuck in our task
Conclusion about divided attention from this research
People are rapidly switching their focus on their attention
Some people make more rapid switches, so they miss fewer numbers, but still switching
No such thing as multitasking
Processing capacity
Amount of information that a person can handle process at that time
Cognitive load
Amount of cognitive resources required to perform a particular task
low road
Require relatively few cognitive resources
High load
Require greater amounts of our limited cognitive resources
How talking on a cell phone affects our performance
Walk slower
Change direction more often
Weave More
Acknowledge others less
Slightly more likely to be involved in collisions
More than twice as likely to in-attentional blindness
Do smart phones make it easier or harder to resist the urge to multitask
Harder
Multitasking decreases performance in hours
2.1 hours per day
Multitasking IQ
Lowers by 10 points
multitasking marijuana effects
2 x effect
Do students using laptops in class usually use them for school
No 62% of web pages opened by students are unrelated to course content
On average 65 new screen windows per lecture
Task switching
Sometimes the decision you need to make is the same, sometimes its a switch
switch cost
General phenomenon of performance being worse for a period of time immediately after a switch
super-tasker
Person who thinks they are among everyone else not adversely affected my multitasking
Percent of people qualify as super-tasked
2%
Filtering irrelevant distractions
Are 2 rectangles in same position
Working memory (n-back) task
Identity if current item is same as the item “n” items ago
Task switching
If a letter is it a vowel or consonant, number even or odd
implicit
High multitasking rely on shallow implicit memory, gut feeling
explicit
Can actually recall, memory codes
Does talking on phone affect driving performance
20% slower to hit the breaks
Missed 2x as many red lights
