Module 13: Attention Flashcards
Sustained Attention
vigilance, such as that required when watching for a rare event (TSA watching for carryon items not allowed)
Divided Attention
allow us to determine how well indiv can attend to many sources of info at once
Spatial Attention
how we focus on one part of our environment and how we move attention to other locations in the environment
Selective Attention
some information is attended to while other information is intentionally blocked out
Dichotic Listening Studies
Refers to the situtaion in which 2 messages are presented simultaneously to an individual, with 1 message in each ear
- Individual is aksed to shador one of the messages as he hears it
- Typically people can tell physical characteristics of ignored message, but not he language of the message
Boardbents Filter Model
People select information on the basis of physical features: sensory channel that message comes in, pitch of voice, color/font of visual message
Tresiman’s Attentuation Model
We do monitor the unattended information to some degress on the basis of its meaning
- Selection starts at the physical or perceptual level, the unattended information is not blocked completely, just weakened or attenuated
- Highly meaningful/pertinent information in unattended ear will get through the filler for further processing
Late Selection Models
Al information in the unattended ear is processed on the basis of meaning, not just the selected or highly pertinent information
- You don’t have to be aware of or attending a message for it to be fully processed for meaning
Multimode Model
The stage at which selection occurs can change depending on the task
- Under the right conditions we can select what to attend to on the basis of the meaning of the messages
Divided Attention Tasks
each task is evaluated separately, in order to determine baseline performance when the individual can allocate as many cognitive resources as necessary to one task at a time.
- evaluated when the two tasks are performed simultaneously
- A decrease in performance for either task would suggest that even if attention can be divided or switched between the tasks, the cognitive demands are too great to avoid disruption of performance
Inattentional Blindness
failure to notice unexpected objects or events when attention is focused elsewhere
- Gorilla Experiment
Inattentional Deafness
The auditory analog of in-attentional blindness. People fail to notice an unexpected sound or voice when attention is devoted to other aspects of a scene
How are we able to survive as a species then?
- Our ability to focus attention intently might have been more evolutionarily useful than the ability to notice unexpected events
- Most events don’t require our immediate attention
