Module 04: Attention

Question 1

selective attention

Answer 1

focus attention on one or more events at a given time

Question 2

what does attention involve

Answer 2

selecting relevant info and ignoring irrelevant info

Question 3

divided attention

Answer 3

attention freed up to do another task simultaneously with the automatic task

Question 4

spatial attention

Answer 4

attention focused on objects and events of interest in environment to aid in ability to recognize them amongst other objects

Question 5

what is the diachotic listening task and the findings from it

Answer 5

listen to recording using headphones

different messages simultaneously in each ear

person shadows one of them

CAN REPORT ON SOUND, TONE, AND PITCH OF UNATTENDED MATERIAL

Question 6

what is Broadbent’s filter theory

Answer 6

people have attentional filters: some info goes through, rest is blocked

the filter is based on the physical aspect – location pitch, loudness, etc

selection is early (before meaning)
should not be possible to recall ANY meaning from unattended message

Question 7

what is the cocktail party effect

Answer 7

shadowing performance disrupted when one’s own name in attended OR unattended message

this contradicts filter theory

33% of people noticed their own names

people who detect their names have a lower WM span (conway)

Question 8

what is Treisman’s attenuation theory

Answer 8

volume is turned down for unattended message

message subjected to 3 analyses:
- physical properties
- linguistic (syllables and words)
- semantic

process for meaning more effortful, only done when necessary

Question 9

what did Treisman find in her experiment that led to attenuation theory

Answer 9

2 distinct messages in each ear, but switch ears halfway through

immediately after switch, people reported a couple words from the “unattended ear”

attenuation theory explains why people switched ears

primed: ready to be recognized

Question 10

late selection theory/ deutch norman model of attention

Answer 10

all messages processed for at least some aspects of meaning

attentional selection occurs after routine processing

bottleneck occurs later in processing

info judged as important (depends on context, personal significance, observer’s alertness) is elaborated more fully

Question 11

what is the bottleneck metaphor

Answer 11

the wider the bottleneck, the more info that spills through for processing

Question 12

how did daniel kahneman describe attention

Answer 12

attention as a set of cognitive processes for categorizing and recognizing stimuli

more complex => harder processing => more attentional resources required

Question 13

what affects how much attention we are using at a given time

Answer 13

availability of mental resources: depends on state of alertness

allocation policy: affected by one’s dispositions, intentions, evaluation of demands of capacity

mental effort: the greater the mental effort, the more attention we are using

quality of data

Question 14

what affects the capacity that a task requires

Answer 14

difficulty

familiarity

Question 15

what is the stroop effect

Answer 15

colours in words

say the colour

response automatic, hard to inhibit (in this case reading the actual word was automatic for adults)

Question 16

what are the 3 criteria for automatic processing proposed by posner and snyder

Answer 16

• occur without intention
• occur without conscious awareness
• does not interfere with other mental activity

Question 17

what were the 2 conditions (and results) from the study where you searched for targets in an array of the same or different type

Answer 17

varied mapping: targets in one trial can become a distraction in another, more capacity required – performance depended on all variables

consistent mapping: targets in one trial were never distractors in another, less capacity required – performance varied only with frame time

Question 18

describe controlled processing

Answer 18

• used for difficult tasks and ones that involve unfamiliar processes
• operates serially
• requires attention
• capacity limited
• under conscious control

Question 19

what are the possible theories that explain the dual task performance study

Answer 19

• alternating attention
  (note that a later study indicated that people did not alternate attention between the two tasks)
• one task was performed automatically
• learn to combine two different tasks with practice

Question 20

what is the psychology refractory period

Answer 20

waiting time

slowed response time to 2nd stimulus

ATM analogy: bottleneck limiting factor in speed in which the 2nd task processed

Question 21

what is the attention hypothesis of automation

Answer 21

attention needed during practice phase of a task determines what gets learned during practice

attention determines what will be remembered from the practice

STUDY:
2 word displays, detect target words

participants in consistent pairing condition were unlikely to learn which words were paired if they had no reason to pay attention to the distractor words

Question 22

what did strayer and johnson find with cell phone use while driving

Answer 22

talking on the cell phone distracts a driver, while radio or talking to a passenger does not

Question 23

what is it called when something directs a person’s attention to a particular area in space

Answer 23

spatial cue

Question 24

what does the spotlight metaphor say

Answer 24

affects ease with which stimuli can be brought into system for processing

characterizes input attention

Question 25

what did anne triesman find in her visual search study

Answer 25

the detection of individual features are automatic

(told participants to search for a particular object, found that if item differed from background then item popped out regardless of the # of background items)

Question 26

feature integration theory

Answer 26

perceive objects in 2 stages

1) automatic – register features of object (colour, shape, etc) and identify on a basis of single feature

2) attention glues features into unified object – integration of features requires mental capacity

Question 27

illusory conjunctions

Answer 27

‘glueing’ errors that occur when one’s attention is diverted or overloaded

Question 28

inattentional blindness

Answer 28

not perceiving a stimulus right in front of you unless you pay attention to it

Question 29

how was inattentional blindness shown in a study

Answer 29

basketball where person in gorilla costume walked through the frame

daniel simons showed that 46% of people failed to notice gorilla person

Question 30

what is it called when someone ignores or neglects sensory info in visual field opposite damaged hemisphere

Answer 30

hemispatial or sensory neglect
(ATTENTIONAL)

Question 31

what happens when someone engages in a cuing task

Answer 31

• disengage attention from wherever it was previously (activity in posterior parietal lobe)
• attention refocused on spacial location of new stimulus (superior colliculus)
• neural processing of new location enhanced (thalamus)

Question 32

describe the three attentional networks

Answer 32

alerting network – achieving and maintaining an alert state (frontal and parietal regions of right hemisphere)

orientating network – selects info from sensory input (parietal and frontal lobes)

executive control network – resolves conflicts among different responses (frontal lobes)

Question 33

what operation is the inability to inhibit an ongoing response a part of

Answer 33

enhance operation

Question 34

amplitude of waveforms are —– for attended than for unattended stimulus

Answer 34

larger