Limits of Attention Flashcards
What does attention do?
It decides which information - and how much - the brain processes.
Prevents an information overload by determining what we perceive.
What is change blindness?
The failure to detect a change, movement or disappearance of an object.
What is the opposite of change blindness?
Change detection.
What is inattentional blindness?
The failure to notice an unexpected, but fully visible object or stimulus when attention is diverted elsewhere.
What is the attentional blink?
The failure to identify the second of two visual targets, if it is shown soon enough after the first.
Name 4 ways to induce change blindness (/prevent motion detection)
- Occlusion-contingent change
- Gap-contingent change
- Saccade-contingent change
- Blink-contingent change
What is an occlusion-contingent change?
The target/changing item is covered very briefly before the change occurs.
What is a gap-contingent change?
A blank screen is shown in-between the two different versions of the scene.
What is a saccade-contingent change?
(saccade = rapid eye movement)
A change that occurs during a saccade away from the object
What is a blink-contingent change?
A change occurring during the blink of the participants’ eye.
What are the two types of changes?
- Type changes
- Token changes
What are type changes?
A different kind of object replaces the target. (chair replaced by a TV).
What are token changes?
A different version of the same object replaces the target. (blue chair replaced by red chair)
Which two theories attempt to explain change blindness?
- Coherence Theory (Rensink, 2000, 2002)
- Scene Perception Theory (Hollingworth & Henderson, 2002)
How many stages are there in change blindness according to Rensink’s (2000, 2002) Coherence Theory?
3
What is stage 1 of Rensink’s (2000, 2002) Coherence Theory?
Early parallel processing.
Leads to unstable representations of objects.
What is stage 2 of Rensink’s (2000, 2002) Coherence Theory?
Focused attention.
Leads to detailed and long-lasting representations of one object.
What is stage 3 of Rensink’s (2000, 2002) Coherence Theory?
When focused attention is removed from the object, it’s representation disintegrates and returns to the unstable state it began with.
What does Hollingworth and Henderson’s (2002) Scene Perception Theory suggest?
Detailed visual representations of objects are formed if they are the focus of attention.
The representations are incorporated into a mental map coding the spatial layout of the scene and is stored in long term memory.
According to Hollingworth and Henderson’s (2002) experiment, are type changes or token changes easier to detect?
Type changes were easier to detect than token changes.
According to Hollingworth and Henderson’s (2002) experiment, does the time after fixation of an object significantly affect detection rate?
No. The time after fixation did not significantly affect detection rates.
Which theory of change blindness is supported by the results of Hollingworth and Henderson’s (2002) study?
Scene perception theory.
True or false: Attention is necessary to detect changes but doesn’t have to be focused on the target at the time that the change occurs.
True.
