Lecture 8 Attention

Question 1

Dichotic listening was and early paradigm used to study ____________________. One message is presented to the left ear and another to the right ear and participants are asked to _________________________.

Answer 1

selective attention, shadow one message while ignoring the other

Question 1

What is the cocktail party effect?

Answer 1

Ability to focus on one auditory stimulus while filtering out others

Question 2

What were the results of the dichotic listening task? What idea does this support?

Answer 2

participants were unable to report the content of the message in the unattended ear; they were largely able to filter out contents of one message

Question 3

What is Broadbent’s filter model?

Answer 3

message –> sensory memory –> FILTER (only attended message gets through) –> detector –> to memory

Question 4

What is binding in terms of Anne Treisman’s Feature Integration Theory (FIT)?

Answer 4

process by which features (colour, form, etc.) are combined to create our perception of coherent objects

Question 5

What is the binding problem?

Answer 5

features of objects are processed separately in different areas of the brain, yet somehow get integrated to form coherent representations which we perceive as singular objects…how does this occur?

Question 6

Describe the setup and task of Tresiman and Schmidt’s experiment relating to the FIT.

Answer 6

• four coloured shapes and two numbers flashed onscreen very briefly, followed by a mask
• task was to report NUMBERS first, then COLOUR/SHAPE combinations of other stimuli

Question 7

What are illusory conjunctions?

Answer 7

properties from different objects are erroneously bound together and perceived as being contained within the same object

Question 8

In Treisman’s FIT experiment, what were the illusory conjunctions attributed to?

Answer 8

divided attention & brief display duration –> prevent complete processing of all stimuli

Question 9

What is the feature integration theory (FIT)?

Answer 9

binding occurs in 2 distinct stages: preattentive stage and focused attention stage

Question 10

What is the preattentive stage of FIT?

Answer 10

object features are extracted and processed (and proceeds automatically)

Question 11

What is the focused attention stage?

Answer 11

extracted features are bound together to form coherent perception (attention plays a key role; binding errors typically occur)

Question 12

At which stage of FIT do binding errors typically occur?

Answer 12

focused attention stage

Question 13

TRUE or FALSE: feature search requires binding

Answer 13

FALSE: it does not require binding

Question 14

TRUE or FALSE: conjunction search requires binding

Answer 14

TRUE

Question 15

TRUE or FALSE: the speed of a feature search is typically not sensitive to the number of distractors

Answer 15

TRUE

Question 16

Why is the speed of a feature search not typically sensitive to the number of distractors? (name the effect)

Answer 16

Because no binding has to take place there is a POP-OUT EFFECT, in which the target is almost immediately perceived

Question 17

TRUE or FALSE: the speed of a conjunction search is typically not sensitive to the number of distractors

Answer 17

FALSE: it is affected by number of distractors

Question 18

What did the results of Posner’s Precueing Experiment demonstrate?

Answer 18

information processing is most efficient where attention is directed

Question 19

What is spatial attention?

Answer 19

attention that has been bound to specific locations

Question 20

What is same-object advantage?

Answer 20

enhancement effect that spreads through non-target within the target rectangle

Question 21

What is perceived contrast? (in terms of Carrasco et al. experiment)

Answer 21

how different the light and dark bars APPEAR to be

Question 22

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 22

People can be unaware of clearly visible stimuli, even if looking direct at something, if they aren’t directing focused attention towards it

Question 23

What is inattention deafness?

Answer 23

less likely to notice an auditory tone played during a difficult visual search, as compared to an easier one