Lecture 5: Attention and consciousness Flashcards
Aims of cognitive psychology
- What are the mental processes that underlie our living experience?
- How do we perceive, learn, remember and think?
- What aspects of cognition are specific to humans?
- What is the relationship between brain and mind?
Research methods in cognitive psychology
- controlled laboratory experiments
- Psychobiological research
- Self-reports
- Case studies
- Naturalistic observations
- Computer simulations and AI
The key foci of cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology focuses on study of higher mental functions with particular emphasis on the ways in which people accquire knowledge and use it to shape and understand their experience in the world
Attention
Attention relates to our ability to actively process aspects of our enviroment by means of our senses and also our memories
Consciousness
Consiousness: includes both the feeling of awareness and the content of awareness, some of which may overlap with attention
Attention and consciousness form partly overlapping processes
Actively processing limited amounts of infomation
Feeling and content of awareness but not necessarily active
Consider writing your name (consious) and writing a word you have seen or used before (attention)
What are the benefits of attention
- Monitor our interaction with enviroment and adapt to situations
- Help link our past (memories) with the present (sensations)
- Maintain a sense of continuity of experience in terms of personal identity
- Helps to control and plan our future actions
Dissociation between consiousness and attention
Preconscious processing
- Even though certain infomation is not the focus of our consious awareness it can still be processed
- able to shift infomation from preconsious to consious awareness
The role of priming studies
- Used to investiagte our ability to process preconsious infomation
- Presentation of stimuli that affects the preception of subsquent stimuli
- Priming is recognised conducted at a preconsious level
Dyad of triad (Bower et al. 1990)
Group A: is coherent if you add the word ‘card’
Playing
Credit
Report
Group B: Is incoherent
Still
pages
Music
Preconsciousness and memory
- Demonstrated in the tip-of-the-tounge phenomena eg Brown and McNeill (1966)
Specific word is ‘stored’ in memory but remains at preconscious level:
- Can’t recall the actual word
- Can answer questions on the word eg, first letter, number of syllables
Level of consciousness : automatic and controlled processes
Automatic processes:
- not avaliable at conscious level
- Require minimal attentional resources
- quick and effortless
Controlled processes:
- require a heightened level of consiousness and attention
- Slow and deliberate
Automatisation
Widely held view is that automatization occurs through integration of smaller steps or units of activity or information processing until the whole practice becomes more efficient, becomes less effortful and eventually initiated as a single (unconscious) process
- cognitive process shifts from being controlled to automatic
- in most cases automatisation is a positive process essential for everyday life
- However, can lead to slips and errors ie. mindlessness
- frequency of ‘slips’ and ‘errors’ can be reduced by enviromental feedback
what are the 4 main functions of consicous attention?
- signal detection
- Selective attention
- Divided attention
- Search
Signal detection
Identification or target stimuli i the enviroment
Signal detection theory (SDT) divides responses into four categories
- Hits (true positives)
- False alarms (false positivies)
- misses (false negatives)
- Correct rejections (true negatives)
One example of his is baggage scanners
Role of viligance
- Refers to a person’s ability to attend a field of stimulation over a period of time eg. detecting differences or target stimuli
- Participants were asked to watch a visual display of a clock and record anomalies (Macworth, 1948)
- Performance detoriated substantially after half an hour
Attentional processes appear to be strongly influenced by expectations
- Neurological studies show that signal detection is greatest at the point where a signal is expected to appear
- Accuracy of detection falls off sharply when stimulus appears further from locus of attention (LaBerge and Brown 1989)
Search
Unlike villigance (passive) search activelu seeks out the target stimulus
- Can be hampered by distractors which slow down the process
- Number of targets and also the type distractors affect the effectiveness of the search process
Some searches are said to be preattentive since detection precedes focused attention –> simuliar to detecting angry faces, sems to occur preattentively
The visual system identifies the target through a difference of curvature
The number of targets and distracters affect the difficulty of the search process
A target made up of a combination of non-unique features cannot be detected preattentively
Feature integration theory (Treisman, 1986)
- Aims to account for ease of feature searches as compared to conjuction searches
- Mind contains feature maps of each stimulus
- During feature searches we scan maps directly
- However, during conjunction searches we conjoin features which involves an additional level of attention
- Can only attend to one object at a time
- Feature integration theory combines preattentive and attentional processing
Preattentive because ‘colour map’ and ‘orientation map’ at the feature level are processed in parallel. Conscious attention is dedicated to the master map of conjoining features, i.e. green and shape
Support for feature-integration model
Neuropsychological support:
- Evidence of specific neural feature detectors (Hubel and Wiesel, 1979)
- More recent research suggests that brain activation is not increased during feature searches, but specific neurons can distinguish between target and distractors (see Sternberg, 2014)
–> note how cognitive findings seek biological support to confirm and build theories ie. finding of mental processing seek material explainations
Guided search theory (Cave and Wolfe, 1990)
All feature searches involve two stages:
- parallel stage resulting in a subset of activated ‘potential targets’
- following this is a serial stage in which all activated potential targets are subjected to another search process
Predicts that searches in which more items have shared feature with target will be easier
The cocktail party effect
Cherry (1953)
- Dichotic listening experiement
- Shadowing task
- Attended message and unattended message
Moray (1959)
- Participants were aware of their own names but unaware of other semantic content
Shadowing task: listening to two different messages but repeating one message out loud
Attended vs. unattended ear/message.
While attending to one message, people were able to notice physical, sensory changes in the the unattended message (e.g. tone, voice, gender) but not semantic changes
They even failed to notice if the unattended message shifted from English to German or played backwards
A third of participants responded to the unattended message if their name was mentioned/presented
Why do certain semantic cues breach the unattended channel?
- Why do certain semantic cues breach the unattended channel?
- Dualities of attention: conscious vs. unconscious, bottom up vs top down processing
- Do we have limited capacity or do we ‘filter’ infomation
- Dominant metaphors of the mind ie. infomation processing
Early-selection theories
Donald Broadbent (1958) devised a model to explain Cherry’s results
- Broadbent proposed a filter metaphor to explain Cherry’s results
- Broadbent’s model is regarded a bottleneck model…
- We have a limited capacity to process information
Inputs remain initially and briefly in the sensory buffer store - The filter, which selects one channel for attention, does this only on the basis of physical characteristics (e.g. pitch, loudness, accent)
- According to Broadbent, the meaning of any of the messages is not taken into account at all by the filter (hence the notion of ‘bottleneck’)
- All semantic processing (decoding the meaning to understand what is said) is carried out after the filter has selected the channel to pay attention to
So whatever message is sent to the unattended ear is not understood
Broadbent’s model of selective attention
- Filtering occurs before infomation processing
- Consistent with the shadowing task data
- But unable to explain the cocktail party effect
- Assumes that perceptual analysis is preconscious and semantic anakysis is preconcious and semantic analysis is conscious
- Perceptual analysis can be processed information about these physical features before we pay attention to them.
Semantic analysis must be conscious: if semantic analysis is performed after information has passed through the attentional bottleneck, then it cannot be performed unconsciously.
Anne Treisman (1964) propsed an attenuation model
Treisman’s model has been called a ‘leaky filter’ model – because some information gets through the attenuator
Triesman’s attenuation model of selective attention
- Filtering ‘attenuates’ (weakens) rather than eliminates infomation
- We attenuate infomation which is less revevant
- Explains the cocktail party effect and Moray’s result
- Treisman found evidence of processing unattended content
If unattended message is identical to the attended message everyone notices it, they notice even if the message was slightly out of synchronisation
- Bilinguals noticed if the unattended message was a translation of the attended message
Tresiman’s attenuation model of selective attention
- overcomes some of the problems associated with Broadbent’s Filter Model
- Does not explain how exactly semanic anaylsis works
- The nature of the attenuation process has never been precisely specified
- A problem with all dichotic listening experiements is that you never be sure that the participants have not actually switched attention to the so called unattended channel
Deutch and Deutch (1963) and Norman (1976)
Developed a model where filtering occurs later
All sensory input channels are analysed fully, simultaneously and in parallel
- Parallel processing
- Attention is deployed after infomation is analysed
- Selection occurs according to relevance
- Attention is required for the selection of a response not the selection of input
- In early-selection theories, attention is required for the selection of input
- In late-selection theories, attention is required for the selection of a response. For this reason, late-selection theories are also sometimes called response-selection theories
Ulric Nesisser (1967) proposed a synthesis of early-selection and later-selection theories
- Preattentive processes: automatic, rapid and occur in parallel
- Attentive, controlled processes: executed serially, effortful and consume attentional resources
Dual-task paradigms require individuals to perform two tasks simultaneously
- Watching a basketball game superimposed on a hand-slapping game (Neisser and Becklen 1975)
- Reading a story and taking dictation (Spelke, Hirst and Neisser 1976)
- Watching two groups of people pass a basketball (Simon and Chabris 1999)
Spelke, Hirst, & Neisser, 1976
Task A: read a short story silently
Task B: take dictation
Task C: task A and B simultaneously
Repeated over 85 sessions across many weeks
- Performance improved over time and eventually participants could perform both tasks together at the same rate as each task separately prior to study
- Simultaneous reading and dictating became automatized
Uses up less of that limited capacity
- Inability to detect changes in objects or scenes to which we are attending.
- So the more attention to put into one task, the less that you have left for the other
- Counting task is quite hard because they are moving around
So not much attention left for anything else - And the gorilla doesn’t have the physical characteristics or the semantic characteristics to make him pop out
Dual-task paradigm show that human processing resources are limited and shareable
- Attention is based on ‘mental effort’ (Kahenman 1973)
- Participants have difficulty monitoring both tasks, but performance improvew with practice (Neisser and Becklen 1975)
- When two tasks involve the same modality it becomes more difficult to concentrate (Navon and Gopher 1979)
- Divided attention causes ‘inattentional blindness’ (Mack and Rock 1998)
Tasks involving the same modality, e.g. listening to a chat show and writing an essay, are more difficult
Listening to music and writing involve different modalities
Multi-tasking and attention
- some claim that multitasking is a ‘mythical activity (Hallowell 2007)
- Many studies reveal severe interference even when very simple tasks are performed simultaneously (Pashler)
In terms of gender, women may be involved in more multitasking than men there are no gender differences with regard to ability (Floro 1999)
Hembrooke and Gay (2003) conducted a simple study confirming that laptops in lectures affect memory recall of lecture content. They interpret their results using Lang’s Limited Process Capacity model.
As far as listening to music is concerned, even small sounds can reduce learning.
‘Driven to distraction’ (Strayer and Johnston 2001)
Dual-task study of simulated driving
- control conditions
- dual task radio condition
- Dual task= hands free mobile phone condition
Green light: ignore it and carry on driving
Red light: hit the brakes
Just drive
Talk and listen
It is illegal to use a hand-held mobile
- Though it is legal to use a hands-free mobile, it is much much safer if you do not
- Thelawcurrently says drivers canuse hands-free phones, sat navs and two-way radios, but if the police think thedriveris distracted and not in control of the vehicle, they could get penalised
Results:
- significantly greater probability of a miss in the mobile phone condition
- No difference between the radio and the control condition
Divided attention is automatied
- Attentional processes are resource -limited
- Resources are allocated to two kinds of processing
–> controlled (consious and deliberate)
–> Automatic (unconcious and innate) - Controlled processes became automatised with practice
- Automatisation reduces cognitive demands on attention
Two different aspects of how our minds attend to stimuli:
Bottom up processing:
- Attention is stimulus-driven, driven by the properties of the object themselves; can be volitional or non-volitional
Top-down processing:
- Attention is also goal-driven, purposive, consious and deliberate; related to executive functions of working memory
Factors which impact attention
- Anxiety (state and trait): Eysenck and Byrne (1992)
- Physiological arousal: Yerkes Dodson (1908)
- Task difficulty and skills: Spelke, Hirst and Neisser (1976)
What is ADHD: Attention Defiict Hyperactivity Disorder
Predomiantly inattentive ADHD
Main characteristics of ADHD: inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness
The causes of ADHD are complex, multifactorial and predominantly unclear
Maternal smoking and drinking alcohol during pregnancy; lead exposure; brain injury; food additives (esp. sugar and certain dyes)
The dual pathway model of ADHD links inattention and deficits in executive functions to impairments in the prefrontal-striatal circuits whereas hyperactivity is linked to dysfunctions of reward response and motivation related to the frontal-limbic system (i.e. amygdala, nucleus accumbens, dopamine signalling)
Several kinds of ADHD
Conclusion
- people use selective attention to track one message and simultaneously ignore others, eg. cocktail party effect
- Attentional processes are also involved during divided attention when people attempt to process mutiple tasks
- Performance improves when one task is automatised while another is controlled
- Theories of attention employ filter/bottleneck metaphors to explain selective attention
- Attentional-resource theories suggest that people have fixed resources
- Resources theories and bottleneck theories may be complementary
