Lecture 2

Question 1

What does attention involve?

Answer 1

Monitoring a location for a stimulus or objects
Excluding distracting stimuli
Deliberately focusing on something
Response inhibition
Attention refers to both input and central processes.

Question 2

What is a clear definition of attention?

Answer 2

Taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of through. Focalisation, concentration of consciousness are of its essence.

Question 3

What is the main problem with attention in humans?

Answer 3

Humans have a limited cognitive resource:

an overwhelming amount of information enters our sensory system

Question 4

Is attention a single construct?

Answer 4

No, it is an attentional system

Several different modules and processes interact to guide behaviour

Question 5

The modular model of attention

Answer 5

Three components of an attention system:
Alerting/Arousal (central process)
Selection/Orientation (input module)
Executive (central process)

Question 6

Who came up with filter theories of attention?

Answer 6

Colin Cherry

Broadbent

Question 7

Theory of attention - Colin Cherry

Answer 7

The cocktail party effect

The ability to filter out irrelevant noise and focus on important information

Question 8

Theory of attention - explain shadowing

Answer 8

Participant told to listen to one ear and ignore the other
Unable to recall words from the unattended ear
Didnt notice language changes, talking backwards, beeps
Unattended information is not processed

Question 9

Theory of attention - Broadbent

Answer 9

Unattended information is lost
Information enters the sensory system where there is an attention filter
Only attended information enters the limited capacity cognitive system (memory and awareness)

Question 10

Evaluation of filter theories

Answer 10

Not all unattended information is lost - cannot account for analysis of information from unattended ears
Breakthroughs of unattended ears occur: when the word in the unattended ear makes sense in the context of the message in the attended ear, hearing your name

Question 11

Attenuation theory

Answer 11

Triesman & Geffen
Filter limits the amount of stimulus information that can be processed: attended stimuli are analused in detail
Processing attenuated in unattended channel, but not extinguished: much less information gained

Question 12

The spotlight metaphor

Answer 12

Visual selective attention is like a spotlight that moves through space and highlights the importance of stimuli
Developed into the zoom lens metaphor in which the spotlight is flexible with a wide focus but little detail or tightly focused and lots of detail

Question 13

Covert and Overt attention

Answer 13

Overt attention: a movement of the eyes to fixate the location of interest
Covert attention: orienting attention to a location that is not being fixed

Question 14

Posner Cueing task

Answer 14

Cueing task compared central symbolic cues with peripheral spatial cues
Compared different types of additional cues

Question 15

What are the two systems for orienting ?

Answer 15

Exogenous

Endogenous

Question 16

Exogenous system for orienting

Answer 16

Attention moves to something in peripheral vision
Involuntary
Stimulus driven
Fast
Transient
Inferior parietal lobe and ventral frontal regions
Inhibitory after-effect

Question 17

Endogenous system for orienting

Answer 17

Orient to task relevant location 
Voluntary 
Goal-directed
Slow 
sustained 
superior parietal lobe

Question 18

Feature integration theory (FIT)

Answer 18

Integrates attention into information processing model of perception
Object is processed by input modules which is combined into a visual representation. This is the point where attention operates and selects which objects need to be processed.
These are then processed by output modules and stored in memory.
There are two stages of processing:
Preattentice- when objects are define by single, salient feature
Attentive- when features need to be combined

Attention acts like a glue that binds features into objects

Question 19

The binding problem

Answer 19

Visual processing splits objects into component features.
Triesman & Gelade explored this using visual search tasks.
Find a target in a cluttered display.
Set size - the number of items

Question 20

IIllusory conjunctions

Answer 20

Triesman & Schmidt
Participants identify numbers then identify shapes in briefly presented displays
Participants incorrectly report letter/colour combinations that are not present
Attention is needed to bind features into objects