M8, T1, What is attention

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

We use attention to direct our limited cognitive resources to relevant information in the environment

“When we pay attention, we concentrate - shutting out other activities or information to devote more mental resources to the object on which you want to focus” (Galotti, 2008)

Attention is not a unitary concept

Question 2

Visual attention

Answer 2

The ability to selectively process incoming visual sensory information for enhanced processing, while filtering out irrelevant visual noise

1. Space based attention (attend to particular locations, acts like a spotlight)
2. Feature based attention (used when we direct cog resources to individual features of a visual scene, such as colour and texture)
3. Object based attention (when we attend to an object, all the parts of that object can be selected for processing)

Question 3

Deploying space based attention

Answer 3

1. Eye movements: covert (w/out eye movements) v overt (w/ eye movements)
2. Shifting (orienting attentional resources across visual field), scaling/attentional breadth (changing the spatial region over which attentional resources are focused), splitting (attending at two + spatially separate locations simultaneously), annulus (shaping attention as a doughnut)
3. Endogenous (voluntary, top down. Internally directing attention to relevant visual stimuli based on our current goals), exogenous (involuntary, bottom up. Externally driven by properties in the visual environment)

Question 4

Task and individual factors of attention

Answer 4

Task factors
- perceptual load (complexity of visual information to be processed in a scene)
- cognitive load (mental effort/working memory)
-> high perceptual load = narrow attention, high cog load = broad attention

Individual factors
- age
- clinical conditions
- personality