Lecture 5: Attention Capture by New Objects

Question 1

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 1

● Inattentional blindness is when you focus on something and don’t attend to it ­ you
become blind to it. Thus you are blind to things you do not attend to.
● A study was conducted where people were asked to focus on a screen for 4 trials.
First 2 required you to see a rapid cross flash on screen and determine what line is longer. Then in the 3rd trial, a confederate added a dot near the cross after the cross and asked subjects if they noticed the dot, however no one did ­ it wasn’t until the trial was repeated that any subjects did notice the dot.
● 75% noticed it if there was color, a flicker or motion
● Inattention blindness could be increased by moving the cross away (and having the
dot flash at the center). Subjects were also more likely to see their own name, like “Jack”, but miss “Jeck” if it was there

Question 2

What is change blindness?

Answer 2

● Change blindness is when a change in a visual stimulus is introduced and subjects
do not notice it.

STUDY: 2 images were flashed with a grey screen and between them there’s a subtle difference ­ this difference is not noticed unless a serial search is conducted ­ once this difference is seen, it cannot be unseen though. The blank screen between images masks the change, usually signalled by motion or transients.
Regarding change blindness, we remember what the world looks like as it is generally stable and when it changes, there is typically motion to catch our attention
All of attention stems from the fact that we have limited resources and therefore we need to delegate and prioritise. We select because we don’t have enough resources ­ attention is all about action and that’s why it makes sense that it’s object based.

Question 3

Limitations to attention research.

Answer 3

Limitations to attention research.
● We are always reflecting on our own thoughts but they are hard to test in a lab
setting
● Not easy to run real world experiments on attention

Question 4

Limited attention resources means

Answer 4

Limited attention resources means there are real world implications ­ e.g. how are security personnel surveying 8+ cameras on 16hr shifts.