Lecture 7: Determinants of selective attention

Question 1

What is the difference between top-down and bottom-up attention?

Answer 1

Top-down attention is goal-driven and voluntary, focusing on tasks or objectives. Bottom-up attention is stimulus-driven and reflexive, capturing attention based on salience.

Question 2

What types of stimuli can capture attention?

Answer 2

• High salience stimuli.
• Movement or abrupt onsets.
• Stimuli relevant to goals or values.

Question 2

What is Biased Competition Theory (Desimone & Duncan, 1995)?

Answer 2

A theory suggesting that top-down control and bottom-up sensory mechanisms interact, with multiple stimuli competing for representation. The output is directed to response and memory systems.

Question 3

What is the main debate regarding stimulus-driven attention?

Answer 3

Whether attentional capture is purely stimulus-driven or influenced by top-down goals.

Question 4

Theeuwes’ Singleton Attentional Capture Task

What was Theeuwes’ (1992) task and result?

Answer 4

• Task: Find a circle among shapes, with irrelevant color distractors.
• Result: Irrelevant color distractors increased reaction times, suggesting stimulus salience can override top-down mechanisms.

Question 5

What are the two stages of the Saliency Map Model?

Answer 5

• Initial bottom-up sweep to locate the most salient item.
• Evaluating if the salient item is the target; if not, attention shifts to the next salient item.

Question 5

How did Bacon & Egeth (1994) critique Theeuwes’ findings?

Answer 5

They argued that participants used a “singleton detection” strategy. When the targets were no longer singletons, the distractor effect disappeared, showing relevance to top-down goals.

Question 6

What is the Saliency Map Model (Koch & Ullman, 1985)?

Answer 6

A model where the visual field is processed for local salience, such as contrasts in color, shape, or luminance.

Question 7

What is contingent attention capture?

Answer 7

Attention is captured by stimuli relevant to task goals, as shown by Folk & Remington (1992).

Question 8

What evidence supports contingent attention capture?

Answer 8

• Invalid cues slowed reaction times.
• Attention was captured only if the cue matched the task-relevant feature (e.g., onset or color).

Question 9

How do abrupt onsets influence attention?

Answer 9

Abrupt onsets (e.g., new objects appearing) capture attention effectively, as shown by Yantis & Jonides (1988).

Question 10

What is the attentional window?

Answer 10

A spatial area within which stimulus-driven selection occurs. Spatial cues can adjust the size of this window (Theeuwes, 1991).

Question 10

What are display-wide settings, according to Gibson & Kelsey (1998)?

Answer 10

General settings for dynamic changes in a display, such as onsets or offsets, which can influence attentional tasks.

Question 10

What role does movement play in capturing attention?

Answer 10

Moving or looming stimuli capture attention, while receding stimuli do not (Franconeri & Simons, 2003).

Question 11

What happens to singletons outside the attentional window?

Answer 11

Singletons outside the attentional window do not capture attention (Theeuwes, 1991)

Question 12

What stimuli can attract attention beyond physical salience?

Answer 12

• Threat: Emotionally relevant stimuli, e.g., spiders for phobics (Purkis, Lester & Field, 2011).
• Familiarity and Expertise:
  Football players notice football-related changes faster (Werner & Thies, 2010).
  Musicians are more distracted by musical instruments (Ro, Friggel & Lavie, 2009).
• Value and Reward Associations:
  Stimuli associated with value capture attention (Anderson, 2013).

Question 13

How does personal relevance influence attention?

Answer 13

Stimuli personally relevant to an individual, such as a spider for a phobic person or a favorite TV character, can capture attention.

Question 14

Theoretical Perspectives on Attention

What are the three key determinants of attention?

Answer 14

1. Top-down goals.
2. Bottom-up stimulus properties.
3. Value/Selection history.

Question 15

What are the competing theoretical viewpoints on attention?

Answer 15

1. Initial selection is entirely bottom-up.
2. Only abrupt onsets produce bottom-up attentional capture.
3. Attentional capture is contingent on top-down settings.

Question 16

What is the role of salience in attention?

Answer 16

Items with higher salience, such as bright colors or unique shapes, are more likely to capture attention.

Question 17

Why might abrupt onsets be important?

Answer 17

Abrupt onsets signal new, potentially important information in the environment, such as a looming threat.

Question 18

How can the size of the attentional window vary?

Answer 18

Spatial cues can make the window smaller (focusing on specific locations) or larger (broadening the scope of attention).

Question 19

What are some experimental limitations in studying attention?

Answer 19

Most tasks involve changes in the display (onsets/offsets), which can unintentionally bias results toward detecting dynamic stimuli.