Lecture 7

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

a cognitive process which selects small but useful amounts of incoming information from our environment to be processed, while excluding other concurrently occurring information

Question 2

a lot of information is out there that lands on our senses

Answer 2

we pay attention to a lot of this information but there is lots of distractions so often you miss information that is right there in front of you

Question 3

selective attention

Answer 3

presented with two or more stimuli, but we attend to or respond to only one of them

Question 4

divided attention

Answer 4

“multi-tasking’
when we are presented with multiple stimuli and attend to or respond to all of them

Question 5

active attention

Answer 5

top down
purposeful, deployment of attention e.g. paying attention in lectures

Question 6

passive attention

Answer 6

bottom up
attention is deployed because of external stimuli e.g a loud noise

Question 7

you’ll miss it

Answer 7

if changes take place when you aren’t paying attention you will fail to notice these changes

Question 8

sensory buffer

Answer 8

holds information coming from the senses
has a large capacity, but decays fast
blocks incoming information long enough for attention to select the relevant information

Question 9

too much information

Answer 9

you cannot perceive it all

Question 10

we can’t notice everything

Answer 10

it doesn’t matter where something is in our visual field if we don’t expect if we won’t see it

Question 11

unilateral neglect after right parietal lobe damage

Answer 11

unable to attend to the left side of their visual field
left side doesn’t exist unless you purposefully attract their attention

Question 12

optical illusions

Answer 12

attending to different parts of the images means you may perceive different things

Question 13

low level information

Answer 13

basic, concrete and often sensory information
involves direct experiences or immediate data that can be easily measured

Question 14

high level information

Answer 14

more abstract, complex, and conceptual understanding
involves reasoning, problem-solving and the integration of information across different domains

Question 15

how was selective auditory attention studied?

Answer 15

Dichotic listening task
participants are presented with an auditory message in each ear
participants hear the same voice at the same intensity to both ears, but with different messages
participants asked to repeat one of the messages

Question 16

shadowing methodology

Answer 16

used in dichotic listening task ensures participants conform to instructions and repeat the message from one ear and ignore the message in the other ear

Question 17

Cherry 1953

Answer 17

used dichotic listening task to examine how much information is retained from the unattended ear
participants shadowed a message from one ear and a different message was played in the other ear
then asked questions about the message played both in the attended and unattended ear

Question 18

Cherry results

Answer 18

participants recalled information in the shadowed ear very well
in the unattended message they noticed the switch from voice to tone and switch from male to female voice
they missed a switch to new language and forwards vs backwards speech
much of the information in the unattended message was very poorly remembered
only basic physical characteristics were encoded and remembered

Question 19

Replications of these results

Answer 19

Moray, 1959
presented in the unattended ear the same word 35 times, yet participants still failed to notice it

Dutch, 1986
low-level shadowing a melody in the attended ear, meant that participants struggled to have any knowledge of the melody playing in the unattended ear

Question 20

cocktail party effect

Answer 20

we can follow one conversation in a cocktail party situation, as long as we pay attention to the person speaking
attention to our conversant allows us to block all other conversations out and have little knowledge of them

Question 21

attention is a filter system

Answer 21

right before attending to stimuli you select one to attend to

Question 22

Broadbent

Answer 22

incoming information form multiple channels is initially processed in parallel and placed in a sensory buffer
information in one of those channels is selected to be allowed to pass through a filter based on its physical characteristics
while the selected information is passed on for further processing, the message in the unattended channel is blocked by the filter and remains in the sensory buffer, during which time it is decaying

Question 23

issues with broadbents filter theory

Answer 23

access to information presented in the unattended ear was analysed beyond the purely physical
model doesn’t allow for any of the unattended information to ‘leak through’

Question 24

Treisman attenuation theory

Answer 24

the filter is more flexible
all stimuli is processed at low level
then if there is enough capacity in the processing system the stimuli are processed at the level of meaning

Question 25

Support for Treisman

Answer 25

Gray and Weddeburn (1960)
participants shadowed the left ear
participants should report Dear 7 Jane
but participants actually reported Dear Aunt Jane
this suggests that participants were aware of some information from the unattended ear

Question 26

Similarities to Broadbent’s theory

Answer 26

attention acts as a filter
this filter prevents the unattended input interfering with the attended input channel
which information is selected depends on physical characteristics

Question 27

Differences to Broadbent’s theory

Answer 27

the unattended channel is attenuated
top-down processes are important - sometimes listeners report words from the unattended ear. such breakthroughs occur when the word is expected int he context of the attended message

Question 28

Deutsch and Deutsch response selection theory

Answer 28

the filter operates after extensive perceptual and semantic analysis
the role of attention is not to aid perception but to aid action by selecting certain stimuli to respond over others
almost all incoming information from the senses are sent o for further processing with final section happening only just before a response

Question 29

Support for Deutsch and Deutsch theory

Answer 29

Corteen and Wood (1972)
presented participants with lusts of words some of which were paired with mild electric shocks
then asked participants to shadow a message played on one ear, whilst in the other ear words from the [revious list were presented
during shadowing the attended ear, they recorded the participants galvanic skin response
there was a GSR on 38% of the words associated with he shock, despite participants denying having heard the words in the unattended ear

Question 30

evaluation of late section evidence

Answer 30

some attention switching goingg om, which meant that the supposed unattended ear would receive some attention - supported by Dawson and Shell (1982)