Lecture 7 - Attention & Distraction

Question 1

What is attention?

Answer 1

“[Attention] is the taking possession by
the mind, in clear and vivid form, of
one out of what seem several
simultaneously possible objects or
trains of thought”

Question 2

Selective attention

Answer 2

The process of directing our awareness to relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli in the environment

Question 3

Top-down processing

Answer 3

Goal-driven (endogenous cues)

Question 4

Bottom-up processing

Answer 4

Stimulus driven (exogenous cues)

Question 5

Attributes that guide attention

Answer 5

Colour
Motion
Orientation
Size

Question 6

Real-world examples attention guidance

Answer 6

1. Pop-up adds
2. Notifications

Question 7

Fundamental rules of visual salience

Answer 7

Salience of a target increases with:
- Target-distractor heterogeneity
- Distractor-distractor Homogeneity

Question 8

Target-distractor heterogeneity

Answer 8

Search performance is best when there is a boundary in feature space that seperates the distractor features from the target feature

Question 9

Distractor-distractor homogeneity

Answer 9

Increasing the homogeneity of distractors increases search efficiency, because homogeneous elements are being grouped more easily, and grouping reduces the number of perceptual units that have to be searched subsequently

Question 10

Salience maps

Answer 10

Attention is influenced by the salience of the stimuli in the visual field

Lightest place is the place most looked at

Question 11

Results - Van Gogh Experiment

Answer 11

Children used bottom-up (exogeneous cues)

Adults used top-down (endogeneous cue)

Question 12

What items attraction most attention

Answer 12

1. Items relevant to survival
2. Faces
3. Babies

Question 13

Centre bias

Answer 13

We have a tendency to look at the centre of paintings

Question 14

Photographer bias

Answer 14

A natural tendency of photographers to place objects or actors of interest near the centrer of their composition.

Question 15

Viewing strategy

Answer 15

Viewers may reorient at a greater frequency to the center of a scene relative to other locations, if they expect highly salient or interesting objects to be placed there.

Question 16

Solutions to biases

Answer 16

Use a baseline

Question 17

Divided attention

Answer 17

Multitasking

Our brain’s ability to attend to two
different stimuli at the same time

Negatively affects memory and
learning

Tasks compete for limited attentional
resources

Question 18

Central capacity theory

Answer 18

Input –> sensorial organs –> attentional resources –> possible responses (or prerequisite assessment, terug naar attentional resources) –> response selection

Question 19

Multiple resources theory

Answer 19

Input –> sensorial organs –> attentional resources –> possible responses –> response selection

Question 20

What types of attentional resources are there?

Answer 20

1. Visual modality
2. Auditory modality
3. Other modality

Question 21

Critiques to capacity theories

Answer 21

1. Too simple
2. Resources are not observable

Question 22

Predictions of capacity theories

Answer 22

1. we can attend to more than one thing as long as our resources are not exceeded.
2. Performance will decline if the resource pool is depleted.
3. The system is flexible: we can shift our attention based on what our current needs are.

Question 23

Results - experiment Spelke et al.

Answer 23

Reading speed while performing
the dual task increases
throughout the weeks.

Question 24

What affects divided attention

Answer 24

1. Attentional tasks interfere with each other if they involve similar activities.
2. Tasks that share one sensory modality are particularly difficult (e.g.,
   listening to two people at the same time).
3. Other factors affecting divided attention: anxiety, arousal, task
   difficulty, skills.

Question 25

Applications of divided attention

Answer 25

1. Drivin and cell phone use
2. Disracted walking
3. Distracted learning

Question 26

Driving and cell phone use

Answer 26

Using a cell phone while driving
diminishes performance
- This is true even if you are using a
hand free device
- Driver distraction is estimated to be
one of the leading causes of motor
vehicle accidents

Question 27

Distracted walking

Answer 27

• Slower motor performance and reaction time when you engage in
  a secondary task while walking
• People looking at their phone fail to notice a clown riding on a
  unicycle (Hyman et al., 2010)

Question 28

Inattentional blindness

Answer 28

The failure to notice a fully-visible, but unexpected object because
attention was engaged on another task, event, or object

Question 29

Distracted learning

Answer 29

Rapidly switching between tasks
comes with a switching cost

Negative effects:
- Mental fatigue
- Negative performance
- Learning tasks take longer to
complete

Question 30

Improve learning

Answer 30

• Increase cognitive control abilities
• Learn to better manage the distractions around and within you
• Strengthen your goals
• Physical exercise
• Meditation

Question 31

How to manage distractions

Answer 31

• Increase metacognition
• Decrease accessibility
• Decrease boredom

Question 32

Strengthen your goals

Answer 32

• Set clear (and achievable) goals
• Implementation intention: a plan we make beforehand about
  WHAT we are going to do and WHEN we are going to do it

Question 33

Sustained attention

Answer 33

Often referred to as vigilance or alertness

“Vigilance refers to the ability of organisms to maintain their
focus of attention and to remain alert to stimuli over prolonged
periods of time”

Question 34

Applications SA

Answer 34

• Air traffic control
• Military radar operations
• Airport screening
• Automated driving

Question 35

Main factors affecting attention and vigilance

Answer 35

• Time on task
• Rest to activity ratio
• Sleep loss
• Motivation

Question 36

Time on task

Answer 36

Limited ability to maintain vigilance over extended periods of time.

This can be easily seen through the Clock Vigilance Task (Mackworth,
1950).

Question 37

The vigilence decrement

Answer 37

Accuracy of detection declines about 10% after the first half-hour

• The decrement occurs often within 15 minutes
• With high task demands even within 5 minutes
• Both with experienced and naïve observers
• Not just an artificial lab phenomenon

Question 38

Results Greenly et al. - Vigilence decrement

Answer 38

The percentage of correct detections decreased through time

Reaction time: Mean reaction time increased through time

Question 40

Rest to activity ratio

Answer 40

How much rest people get when performing a task can strongly impact
vigilance

Question 41

Sleep loss

Answer 41

• Sleep loss induces lapses (Dinges et al.,
  1997)
• The negative effects of sleep loss
  can often be seen very shortly after
  a task has been started (Gillberg &
  Akerstedt, 1998)
• 1 out of 5 car crashes are caused by
  drivers falling asleep (The Washington Post,
  2014)

Question 42

Noise and sleep loss

Answer 42

Noise can have different effects on participants’ vigilance depending
on how sleep deprived they are