L15 - Attention

Question 1

attention

Answer 1

the ability to select perceptual info that. is. salient or relevant to our goals and intentions to guide coherent behaviour

Question 2

what did Titchener (1908) suggest?

Answer 2

attention increases the clarity of perceptual events

Question 3

when did cognitive theories about attention develop + what experiments were used?

Answer 3

Emergence: During the cognitive revolution of the 1950s (Pashler, 1998).

Information-Processing Perspective: Brain represents sensory input at various descriptive levels.

Early Experiments: Dichotic listening task (Cherry, 1953) involved participants shadowing one of two messages presented to each ear.

Question 4

What were the findings from dichotic listening task

Answer 4

Participants could accurately shadow the message in the right ear but had limited awareness of the unattended ear’s message.

Noticed gross changes in pitch but not language changes or reversals.

Conclusion: Unattended message processed at early perceptual but not at later phonological or semantic levels.

Question 5

What was Broadbent’s Filter Model (1958)

Answer 5

Early attentional filter protects limited central processing resources by filtering perceptual input based on low-level properties (e.g., location, pitch)

Question 6

what’s early selection?

Answer 6

Filtering occurs at the perceptual level

Question 7

what’s late selection?

Answer 7

(Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963): Filtering occurs after semantic analysis to protect limited control capacity

Question 8

what’s Triesman’s Attenuation Model (1964)

Answer 8

Responses to target words in the unattended channel are reduced but not abolished. Selection is flexible and determined by stimulus properties, relevance, and cognitive load

Question 9

what’s human information processing

Answer 9

Limited central processing resource

Question 10

what are control processes?

Answer 10

Manage attention allocation and filter triggers

Question 11

what are the 2 types of attention

Answer 11

exogneous + endogenous

Question 12

What’s exogenous attention?

Answer 12

reflexive + fast acting

produces biphasic modualtion of target processing at the cued location

Question 13

What’s endogenous attention?

Answer 13

Voluntary, slower-acting, and requires effort.

Does not lead to inhibition of return.

Enhances the neural response to targets at the cued location.

Question 14

What was the Stroop task

Answer 14

Used to illustrate inhibitory control during selective attention.

Participants name the font color of words, which can be congruent (color matches the word) or incongruent (color does not match the word)

Question 15

what are exogenous cues?

Answer 15

biphasic response - facilitation followed by inhibition

Question 16

what are endogenous cues?

Answer 16

facilitation without reversal

Question 17

what are the attention + neural mechanisms?

Answer 17

Electroencephalography (EEG):

Measures neural response to targets at the cued location.

Subcortical vs. Cortical Mechanisms:

Reflexive attention (subcortical) focuses on salient stimuli for fast responses.

Endogenous attention (cortical) focuses on goal-relevant stimuli.

Question 18

what’s hemispatial neglect

Answer 18

Definition: Inattention following left-hemisphere lesions, leading to neglect of the opposite visual field.

Symptoms: Difficulty in attending to stimuli in the neglected field.