Lecture 11 - Sustaining Attention

Question 1

Binding

Answer 1

– The process by which features (shape, color, motion, etc.) are combined to form a coherent object perception.

have to decompose the object in the environment

Question 2

Steps in Binding

Answer 2

• First, focus on (select) the region to be analyzed.

- high acuity attention
- pulling out features 

• Enhance important features.
- different cells firing to diff features

• Bind those features together to
make a perceivable object.

Question 3

sustaining attention

Answer 3

how able you are to remain focused on a task for an extended period of time

== vigilance

practice and automaticity

Question 4

illusory conjunctions

Answer 4

taking features from different objects and combining them

different areas of the brain process features, and during recall mistakes are made

caused by insufficient attention

Question 5

If attention is needed to bind features together,

Answer 5

then this must take some measurable amount of time.

Question 6

Treisman & Schmidt (1982)

Answer 6

asked subjects to report numbers in black (task). They then asked what else was present.

Subjects reported illusory conjunctions,

Question 7

if you’re scanning a scene looking for a single feature it should be….

Answer 7

really fast!

because there’s no binding you just have one highly salient stimulus

no comparison necessary: pop out effect

e.g. If you can identify the object by a single feature, this should be
very fast since no binding would be necessary (e.g. find the
woman with really blonde hair and black dress in a crowd).

Question 8

Treisman & Gelade (1980) proposed Feature Integration

Theory (FIT)

Answer 8

argued that different filters selected for different object features. Attention then integrates them.

when trying to bind all these features, attention acts as glue. less attention = more mistakes or more features you’re looking for the longer it should take

Question 9

conjunction search task

Answer 9

Find the target that combines (binds) multiple features in the visual display. If binding takes attention, then you should take more time as the number of items in the display increases.

One task which tests this is the conjunction search

Question 10

more combined features =

Answer 10

the longer the search task should take

Question 11

The conjunction search task suggests that we must

Answer 11

examine each location in the visual domain for the combination of specific target features.

Question 12

Single feature searches are

Answer 12

easy (little binding).

even if the number of distractions goes up, it doesn’t affect you

Question 13

Conjunction searches require more time as

Answer 13

additional features (including locations) must be processed
and bound. 

number of distractors increases the time

Question 14

pop-out effect

Answer 14

When a single feature can distinguish the target from the

background (distractors), (e.g. the red X was the only red item).

Question 15

spotlight of attention

Answer 15

When searching for a conjunction of features, we are forced to
search by means of a serial process.

It is as though we apply a
spotlight of attention to each location in the visual display.

you have a limited amount of attention you can apply to any one location or object at a time

Question 16

The spotlight starts

Answer 16

in one location (a spatial feature) and then evaluates additional objects in space.

Question 17

Overt Attention

Answer 17

is processing the item or location on which the eyes are focused (a).

you’re consciously aware and intentionally moving that focus of attention

Question 18

The spotlight of attention seems to suggest

Answer 18

that we give maximal processing to the things we look at.

Question 19

covert attention

Answer 19

eyes are focused on one place but you’re attending to something off to the side

use to process an item or location in the periphery without changing gaze

Question 20

The ‘spotlight of attention’ metaphor seems most
consistent with which of the following functions of
attention?

Answer 20

Focusing

it’s selecting something for you to process more

Question 21

Attention can be divided into many functions.

Answer 21

• Focusing – Limiting the number of items being processed
[channel selection].

• Perceptual enhancement – Increasing the processing of some specific channel information.

• Binding – The process by which features (shape, color, motion,
etc.) are combined to form a coherent object perception.

• Sustaining behavior – Maintaining an action in the presence of potential distractors.
• Action selection (central executive)

Question 22

Outside of the laboratory, there are constant streams of
distracting information/stimuli.

How do you maintain
vigilance to your selected task?

Answer 22

attention is a finite capacity

Question 23

Differences in vigilance can cause tremendous differences in

Answer 23

learning and memory.

Question 24

Does attention get used up?
- your ability to maintain vigilance makes a huge difference!

• Ceci & Tishman (1984)

Answer 24

• did a study of learning and retention in kids with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

• memory task: Children with ADHD and without ADHD were asked to study a series of picture cards (targets) in a room. The room also had brightly colored posters on the walls (distractors).
- visual learning task (go through the cards and memorize them)

• Children without ADHD had better recall of the picture cards.
Children with ADHD had better recall of the posters. Overall
memory for items was EQUAL.

• This suggests that the children were equally intelligent and had
similar memory capacities, but the children with ADHD did not
remain focused on the task

- some capacity is being used up

Question 25

Attention can also be portrayed as an allocation of

Answer 25

limited resources.

Question 26

Capacity models

Answer 26

suggest there is a limit to how much information a person can process at any one time.

we have some internally set amount of capacity

Question 27

All tasks have a perceptual load:

Answer 27

− Low-load (easy) tasks use
lower amounts of processing
capacity and don’t conflict
with other low-load tasks.

− High-load (difficult) tasks use
higher amounts of processing
capacity.

Question 28

it matter where you are directing your attention

did something entirely capture your attention?

or did you direct your attention (vision)?

Answer 28

control where you are looking but attended to the side.

always a tug of war between exogenous and endogenous

Question 29

Multiple resource theories

Answer 29

suggest that capacities may exist

for different modalities.

Question 30

sustaining behavior

Answer 30

– Maintaining an action in the presence of potential distractors.

e.g.studying when there’s the t.v. on

hard to study in a controlled environment because in the real world you cannot control for everything

Question 31

ADHD is often portrayed as a deficit of attentional capacity.

What other attentional factors do you think are involved?

Answer 31

more vulnerable to exogenous cues and maybe they can’t disengage

maybe attend more covertly

maybe more susceptible to novelty

there are no simply answers

possible test example example

Question 32

New tasks tend to be demanding
(high load) because….

ex?

Answer 32

…you need to process new information. They also have perceptual salience due to the novelty.

EX:

• When you first learned how to
drive, this was a new task and was very demanding.

• You were also (probably) highly
motivated (motivation = how much you want to attend) to attend and learn the task.

• How did you overcome the
computational complexity?

Question 33

How much does practice reduce the perceptual load of a task?

Answer 33

• In general, practice will reduce the amount of load in a task.
• Enough practice with simple tasks can produce automaticity –

  - you have left over capacity

Question 34

If the perceptual load of a task goes down,

Answer 34

you should have more attention available for other tasks.

Question 35

**Automaticity

Answer 35

things get easier and easier until they require “no effort” (but it’s always going to take up SOME resources)

greatly reduced perceptual load and processing time (but not free).

the degree seems to depend on how well the practice matches the task.

• consistent mapping
• varied mapping

Question 36

consistent mapping

Answer 36

task is always the same: you get better and better and it requires less cognitive load

the task remains the same (e.g. the target always remains the same).

Question 37

varied mapping

Answer 37

the task may change (e.g. a distractor may become a target).

Question 38

Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)

consisting mapping
(become a human "J" detector)

vs.

varied mapping

(become a letter detector)

the more specific the task, it won’t generalize that well
(write your own questions)

Answer 38

found that, under consistent mapping, reaction time decreased and flattened and was true regardless of how large the
memory set or distractor set were.

• The target seemed to ‘pop-out’ and was largely effortless.
- (sounds like perceptual learning)

• However, if switched to a varied mapping (e.g. new target chosen
from the distractors, old target now a distractor), participant
performance dropped 22% (Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977).

• So, target detection wasn’t completely automatic – just better for a specific (consistent) target.

• Schneider & Shiffrin took their results to imply that automaticity
requires a consistent mapping.

Question 39

Does automaticity really require a consistent mapping?

Hirst et al. (1980)

Answer 39

asked participants to performs two complex tasks simultaneously.

(1) Read a short story while… (2) taking dictation.
- no consistent mapping = getting new content continuously

• Both are cognitively demanding and carry a high load. Also, there is no consistent mapping since the story and dictation keep changing.

• With practice, participants could perform both tasks, and recall
what happened in each ==>This suggested that load was reduced
and some the tasks became (somewhat) automatic.
- that both tasks got easier

Question 40

In a review, Pashler (1998)

capacity sharing

Answer 40

suggests that people work in bursts.

The load may stay the same, but people in the above study may
have gotten better at capacity sharing.
- high load task switching to different high load task