Lecture 9

Question 1

perfomance

Answer 1

the efficiency and effectiveness of behaviour

Question 2

attention is selective

Answer 2

acts like a filter
acts like a spotlight

Question 3

focused attention

Answer 3

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

Question 4

attention is a mental resource

Answer 4

is a single limited resource
is multiple resources

Question 5

divided attention

Answer 5

multi-tasking, when we are presented with multiple stimuli we attend and respond to all of them, as long as we don’t exceed our available resources

Question 6

resource theories

Answer 6

attention is a mental resource, we divide our energy to attend to different stimuli in the environment

Question 7

multi-tasking

Answer 7

responding to all presented stimuli
e.g. driving a car, listening to the radio, changing gears, drinking a coffee and talking on the phone

Question 8

controlled processing

Answer 8

tasks that require mental effort
such as reading

Question 9

automatic processing

Answer 9

tasks don’t require much energy
such as eating

Question 10

dual-tasks have costs

Answer 10

when doing more than one task, our mental resources are split
fewer resources are available meaning the tasks are performed slower and less efficiently

Question 11

failure to allocate appropriate amounts of resources to a task can have serious consequences

Answer 11

80% of all crashes and 65% of all near crashes involved the driver looking away from the forward roadway

Question 12

dual-tasks has benefits

Answer 12

allows us to get things done in a fairly coherent and uninterrupted way

Question 13

studying dual-tasks in the lab

Answer 13

first participants perform a single task and they are measured on how well they do at it
then participants will perform a second task and they are measured on how well they perform
finally, participants perform both tasks at the same time and are measured on how well they do at it

Question 14

typical findings of dual-task studies

Answer 14

decrease in performance between participants when they do the single task vs the dual task
this is known as dual-task cost

Question 15

spoon theory

Answer 15

wake up with 12 spoons, each activity you complete you spend a spoon
you cant complete 2 tasks if mental resources have been exceeded
as a result the tasks will performed much slower

Question 16

attention as a pool of capacity

Answer 16

we can do two things at once successfully, if the demands of the two tasks don’t exceed the capacity of the resource
if the two tasks are within the capacity limits, there is no performance decrease when doing the tasks at the same time
if the demands of the two tasks exceed the available capacity, interference between the tasks will occur as they battle for resources, leading to slower responding

Question 17

central resource capacity theory

Answer 17

Kahneman 1973
there’s a single resource of attention with flexible capacity limits that all tasks compete for
arousal and motivation determine our capacity limits
difficult tasks use more of the attentional capacity that easy task, and create more interference
therefore difficulty effects dual-task performance

Question 18

Bourke et al 1996 Method

Answer 18

participant undertook 4 tasks in different combinations, either as single or dual tasks
- tone discrimination
- random letter generation
- motor task
- visual recognition taks

Question 19

Bourke et al 1996 Results

Answer 19

the tasks interfered with each other in differing degrees
- greatest interference was with the letter generation
- least interference was with the tone discrimination task

Question 20

Multiple resource theory

Answer 20

Wickens 1992
there are many different resource pool, each having their own resource capacity
dual task performance is determined by similarity of the two tasks at different levels
- input modality similarity
- output modality similarity
- processing stage similarity

Question 21

input modality similarity

Answer 21

both tasks require vision, or hearing

Question 22

output modality similarity

Answer 22

both tasks require verbal response

Question 23

processing stage similarity

Answer 23

both tasks require comprehension

Question 24

evidence support for MRT
input modality similarity

Answer 24

Treinman and Davies 1973
participants monitored information coming from visual and/or auditory modalities
- a single stream
- two visual streams
- two auditory streams
- one visual and one auditory system

performance was best in single stream information and worse when information was monitored from the same input channels

Question 25

evidence support for MRT
processing stage similarity

Answer 25

Brooks 1968
participants memorised a sentence
at the same time, they had to say whether a word heard from headphones was a noun, either by verbally responding or manually pointing

verbal responses were much harder, because holding a sentence in memory and making a verbal response both use verbal attention and tax the same task-specific resource

Question 26

evidence support for MRT
output modality similarity

Answer 26

Mcleod 1977
participants carried out two task concurrently, a tracking and tone identification task
in one conditions the tasks requited manual responses and the other condition one task required manual and the other verbal response

performance was worse in the first condition, suggesting interferences only occur when the tasks share the same resource pools

Question 27

evidence against MRT
cross-modal interference

Answer 27

different pools of attention aren’t completely separate
cross modal studies ask people to do two things at once, such as watching the road and following a conversation

Question 28

Strayer and Johnston 2001
cross-modal interference

Answer 28

simulated a driving task with or without a mobile phone
difficult driving conditions with high density traffic
easy driving conditions with low density traffic
they measured the number of red lights missed and the breaking speed

participants missed more red lights when engaged in a mobile phone conversation
participants were slower to press the brake button when engaged in mobile phone conversations

Question 29

Driver and Spence 1994

Answer 29

shadow words from one of the speakers
and
observe a person uttering the words
if in the same location performance was better
in different locations perforce was worse

even of there is some devision between modalities these results show that different pools of attention are not completely independent

Question 30

central capacity theory evaluation

Answer 30

task difficulty influences dual task performance
there is a central resource that different tasks use and as long as they don’t exceed the capacity there will be no interference
but it cannot account for the effects of task similarity
some tasks can be done together and other cannot

Question 31

multiple resource theory evaluation

Answer 31

accounts for many dual task findings
monitoring two visual inputs is more difficult that monitoring a visual and auditory input
however, cannot account of evidence that shows interference between tow task requiring different pools of resources

Question 32

criticisms of he resource theories

Answer 32

theories of dual task performance not necessarily attention
poor control over timing of the tasks raises possibility that people switched their attention
possibility of too man and too specific resources
don’t explain the why, how and what of attentional selection
theories of performance rather than attention

Question 33

attention is determined by

Answer 33

difficulty of one or both of the tasks
similarity between the two tasks at the level of input modality, output modality, processing style

Question 34

the reason attention is difficult

Answer 34

we have a single limited pool of mental resources
or we have mulitoppe pools of mental resources that aren’t entirely independent but correspond to our senses

Question 35

early theories

Answer 35

central resource pool
performance determined by task difficulty
attention is a single limited capacity resource
it can be divided and assigned arbitrarily to different task, depending on how much one needs

Question 36

later theories

Answer 36

multiple resource pool
dual task performance is determined by task similarity
there are multiple task specific attentional capacities

Question 37

latest theories

Answer 37

different resource pools not entirely independent
based of studies that looks at driving

Question 38

perfomance in dual task codlins is determined by

Answer 38

task difficulty
task similarity
practise
and the type of processing