Lecture 6a & 6b, Attention II

Question 1

What are the 3 Characteristics of Attention?

Answer 1

1. limited capacity (and selective)
   how do we know this?
   - because we see interference
   (secondary task or probes) -> with practice/increased skill and for easier tasks we have more capacity “free” (so less limited)
2. attention is intentional or unintentional
   how do we know this?
   - your attention can be grabbed unintentionally or you can choose to attend (do not need to monitor our movements as much as we become more skilled)
3. attention is directionally focused
   how do we know this?
   - you can attend to your own bodily movements (internal), or to effects of your movement on environment (external)
   -> novices show a more conscious moment-to-moment control of movement (internal)
   -> more skilled performers show shift in focus from internal (body/proximal) to external (end-effector/distal)

Question 2

Directional Focus: Internal

Answer 2

factors related to the body and movement:
- focus on the arm swing “lay back your wrist”, “turn your shoulders”

Question 3

Directional Focus: External

Answer 3

factors outside the body, movement effects
- focus on the racquet (ex. swing path), the ball (height/spin) or where to land the ball (target area) “slice through the ball”

Question 4

Skilled - Secondary Task Results

Answer 4

• generally skilled performers have more attention capacity to direct to secondary tasks (low interference)
• but, when need to change focus of attention (onto body not ball/pylons), they show interference

Question 5

Novice - Secondary Task Results

Answer 5

• generally novices show interference from secondary tasks
• but, when need to maintain focus of attention (onto foot; relevant body cue); no interference

Question 6

Focusing on the control condition who (skilled/novice) showed LESS interference (more attentional capacity)?

Answer 6

skilled people showed less interference than novice

Question 7

Who was LESS affected by directed attention internally, on a skill-related component?

Answer 7

novice (because they are focusing on internal already) whereas with skilled players there attention is not directed there (different way of performing for them, focus of attention has switched)

Question 8

Who was LESS affected by directing attention internally to a non-skill related factor?

Answer 8

skilled group showed less interference then novice (but both showed interference)

Question 9

Choking under Pressure

Answer 9

thought to be in part a direction of attention issue
- occurs when performers change normal routine, attention shifts from external to internal focus

Question 10

Theories of Selective Attention

Answer 10

• major question in theories of attention is WHEN does information get selected/blocked (what stage)?
• if we select information for processing (ATTEND), does all other information get blocked?

info processed in parallel -> -> – once selected, only serial processing (one thing at a time) ->
◦ lots of things vs. one thing

Question 11

Evidence that selective attention blocks information at stimulus identification stage

Answer 11

• once information is selected for processing, other information gets blocked…
• intentional selective processing (ATTENDING) blocks sensory processing of other information
  evidence: change blindness/inattention blindness

Question 12

What is happening in terms of selective attention? (evidence against this idea of a block at stimulus identification stage)

Answer 12

non-selected (irrelevant) information is processed unintentionally
- the typed colour name is incidentally/ automatically capturing attention
- information can be processed (attended to) in parallel at stimulus identification stage

Question 13

What is happening to cause this interference / the “Stroop effect”?

Answer 13

• task irrelevant information is processed at SI stage and it interferes with response selection (saying the colour), so response time ↑ RED, GREEN
  SO…information can be processed (attended to) in parallel at stimulus identification stage
  The typed name incidentally captures attention (reading)
• things are unintentionally getting attention even though you are trying to do something else

Question 14

Cocktail Party Effect

Answer 14

another example of parallel processing of stimuli (not all is blocked)
- while attending to one stream of information ~33% can detect their own name in the “unattended” stream
- task-irrelevant information processed unintentionally
- meaningful information gets through some sort of filter

Question 15

What does Dichotic Listening show?

Answer 15

it shows that parallel processing at stimulus identification stage: semantic processing before filter
- only select/meaningful information makes it through the filter

Question 16

Leaky Filter: rather than a block, more like a leaky filter at stimulus identification stage

Answer 16

“leaky filter”: some information always gets through but strength modulated based on context
attenuation model of attention
- how meaningful it is to the individual in that context
- unattended information is processed seeing that it is meaningful to the context (could be river bank or money bank)

Question 17

What is the Effect called at the Movement Programming stage?

Answer 17

bottleneck effect

Question 17

Psychological Refractory Period (PRP): attentional limitations in movement programming

Answer 17

• while some tasks can be processed in parallel; attention required to initiate movements cannot
• attending to a stimulus and programming a response introduces a cost that shows up in response time (RT) to a following stimulus
  ◦ high attention cost
• suggests that we can only attend to some information in serial fashion

Question 17

Psychological Refractory Period: A delay in processing a 2nd (closely spaced) stimulus

Answer 17

• motor system processes 1st stimulus of two closely spaced stimuli and programs 1st response
• if 2nd stimulus presented during the time the system is processing the 1st stimulus and programming the response, the onset of the second response can be delayed considerably
  ◦ S1 S2, stimuli that follow
  each other
  ◦ R1 R2, responses to the
  individual stimuli
  *this is an information processing delay, before movement begins. fakes/unexpected events often also lead to movement correction delays