Lecture 3 Attention Flashcards
What does capacity / resource theory suggest (kahnemann)
That information processing requires activation of neural structures, but there is limited capacity.
So this results in limited attention a capacity
But there is flexibility of capacity allocation
Reduction of capacity produces deficits in divided attentional tasks - trade offs
What did bonnel and hafter find in terms of capacity theory
Participants were told to detect differences:
Increment in intensity versus blank
Discrimination: is there a dim or bright light
Auditory version: pure tone. Increase intensity for detection, and increase or decrease for discrimination
Mae trade off functions and found that there was a curve fir discrimination - implies limited capacity
Jagged curve for detection - unlimited capacity
What does bottle neck theory suggest
That we have limitations in attention capacity from being only able to process one thing at a time
Early theory - from getting into LTM
Late theory - out of LTM
Pros and cons of capacity theory?
Pro - led to good experiments
Con - vagueness… Can always come up with a capacity explanation
What is attentional orienting?
Shifts of attention, without saccadic eye movement
Bc attention shifts precede eye movements and can occur without them
Eye movements are a confounding variable
What did Posner do with the spotlight of attention
Likened shifts of attention of moving spotlight
Spot light takes time to move around - time cost. The amount of spotlight is also FINITE
Did the spatial cuing paradigm
What was posners spatial cuing paradigm
This was when he calle attention to area ‘A’, with a cue, then would put stimulus at with A or B
Measured RT.
Eye Saccades take about 200ms. Need to monitor eye movements in long SOAs, not necessary at short SOAs - measure light reflection off eye
Shift of spotlight - time cost bc have to disengage
Capacity theory - RT depends on capacity allocated to location.
Faster RT with valid cues.
How many orienting systems are there
2
Endogenous - voluntary - central - requires cognitive effort
Exogenous - reflexive - peripheral - direct and spatial
Evidence for orienting systems
Found that peripheral cuing peaks faster
Central peaks slowly
Voluntary/central also affected by cognitive load while the other is not - jonides 1981
Inhibition of return - found only with peripheral cues
What is covert attention
Attention movement without eye movement
What’d moray find? 1970
3 conditions - selective, exclusive and inclusive trials…
Had to detect beep - dichotic auditory stimuli
Found selective > exclusive
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