Mental Imagery and Attention Performance

Question 1

When trying to understand what representation format the mind uses, what are the two tasks researchers have used to understand this phenomenon?

Answer 1

The mental representation of visual and verbal information tasks.

1. Geometric condition (visual task)
2. Verbal condition (verbal task)

Question 2

What did the mental representation of visual and verbal information tasks achieve?

Answer 2

The reaction time patterns are different for verbal and visual information. People react faster to verbal information that is written linearly as the computation is familiar. They react slower with visual information that is linear. This suggests, that verbal and visual information is processed differently. Verbal linear, visual-spatial.

Question 3

Why is verbal information processed faster than visual?

Answer 3

In verbal contexts, spatial computation is disregarded in favour of syntax. In visual contexts, spatial information is favoured over linear. Meaning, computation and representation of information in the mind are unique to different types of information.

Question 4

What is change blindness, and how is it related to understanding mental representations?

Answer 4

The inability to notice (salient) changes in a visual scene.

This tells us that our mental representations are much less pictorial than we think. You may think you’re perceiving everything through the eyes subjectively however the mind does not retain all details. We are still asking why.

Question 5

Standing (1973) conducted a visual scene experiment where participants were presented with 10000 images and were asked to recognise as many as they could, what were the results of this study?

Answer 5

On average, people could recognise 8300 images of the 10000, meaning we are accurate 80% of the time. Meaning, our visual representation is quite good.

Question 6

What is boundary extension in visual scene phenomenons, what does this tell us?

Answer 6

When memorising a visual scene we tend to recall a wider-angle view of the scene we have perceived. When perceiving information from the environment we are introducing many biases.

Question 7

In the geography experiment, an image of a teacher in a classroom is presented in a geography class. What were the two conditions and the correct rejection rate of the findings?

Answer 7

Condition 1: The teacher’s pants would change
Condition 2: The Image behind the teacher would change from a map of the world to a stream.

In condition 1: participants would notice this change 64% of the time
In condition 2: participants would notice this change 94% of the time

Question 8

What do the Standing, Intraub and Richardson, and Mandler and Ritchey studies tell us about the nature of mental visual representations?

Answer 8

When we perceive a visual scene, two types of representations seem to be formed. Representations of the meaning of the scene, representations of surface properties of the scene (visual details, colour etc.). The meaning (or gist) of the scene is very well represented, the surface properties are not.

Question 9

What is attention?

Answer 9

In order to use our neural and cognitive resources effectively, it is necessary to select important pieces of information for further processing. This selection mechanism is called “attention”.

Question 10

What is the stream of selectional processing, i.e. the attentional “bottleneck”, what does this mean for parallel processing?

Answer 10

Stimulus -> Sensation -> Perception -> Action

There should be a point in this path where people cannot process all information in parallel.

Question 11

What is the early selection model of attentional processing (Broadbent)?

Answer 11

Stimuli are filtered, or selected to be attended to, at an early stage during processing.

Question 12

What experiment did Broadbent use to test his filter theory of attention?

Answer 12

The Dichotic listening task.

Wearing headphones two messages are presented in either ear. The unattended messages is usually not remembered at the level of perception, consistent with filter theory.

Question 13

What aspect of the dichotic listening task did not support the filter theory of attention?

Answer 13

non-semantic aspects of the message such as the voice being male or female were remembered later, meaning there is some level of processing down outside of attention.

Question 14

In the early-selection theories, what is the attenuation theory?

Answer 14

Salience of unattended stimuli is reduced, but they are not filtered out entirely. The perceptual filter happens before the analysis of the verbal content.

Question 15

What is late-selection theory of attention?

Answer 15

The filter occurs after the perceptual stimulus has undergone analysis for its semantic content.

Question 16

When testing the late v.s early selection model of attention using the dichotic listening task (Treisman and Geffen) what is the hypotheses for both models and the results?

Answer 16

Attenuation theory: The target will be less frequently detected in an unshadowed ear

Late-selection theory: The target will be detected equally well in either ear.

Shadowed ear: 87%
Unshadowed ear: 8%
Supports the attenuation theory

Question 17

What is voluntary attention?

Answer 17

Top-down, goal-driven attention. You think something is important, then you pay attention to it.

Question 18

What is reflexive attention?

Answer 18

Bottom-up, stimulus-driven. When there is a loud bang, you then pay attention. Your intention to pay attention comes later.

Question 19

In Posner’s cueing paradigm, participants view directional arrows and then view a stimulus, what did this experiment show?

Answer 19

That voluntary attention can be controlled, if you see a directional arrow before a stimulus then you will voluntarily pay attention to the stimulus when present in space.

Question 20

How did Posner’s cueing paradigm manipulate reflexive attention?

Answer 20

Using a reflexive cue such as a flash that doesn’t specifically indicate a direction, your attention is captured by it. Therefore, the direction of the target is facilitated, meaning the flash is guiding your attention.

Question 21

In reflexive attention, what is the inhibition of return?

Answer 21

When more time passes between a reflexive cue and a target, response to the target becomes slower. The reflexive attention system has built in mechanisms to prevent reflexivity directed attention from being stuck at a location for too long.

Question 22

What is feature integration theory?

Answer 22

People must focus attention on a stimulus before they can synthesise its features into a pattern. In essence, attention works as a glue with which various features are combined into an object.

Question 23

What is dual-task performance effect?

Answer 23

The observation that performance in the first task is affected by the compatibility between stimulus or response features in the first and second task.