Module 3 Flashcards
Attention
Concentrating mental effort to facilitate processing; goal driven selection of what to process and what to ignore
Exogenous attention
Attention is controlled by salient external stimuli
Endogenous attention
Goal driven, internal focus on important info and/or previous knowledge
Overt attention
Paying attention by looking at something; visibly attending from another person’s POV
Covert attention
Attending something without being obvious about it, other POVs would not notice you paying attention
Automatic attention
Little attention is needed to complete a task, fast, parallel, once it starts it cannot be changed
Controlled attention
Lots of attention is needed to complete a task, slow, serial, can be altered once started
Factors that drive attention
Salience (something that stands out or is novel) and goal attainment
Change blindness
Not perceiving a change in a scene or environment due to lack of attention/distraction
Inattentional blindness
Not conscious of something we are not actively attending
Consciousness and attention
If we are not attending something, it is not passed to the consciousness and not percieved
Selective attention theory
Attention acts as a filter/funnel that only lets some stimulus through to the consciousness
Broadbent’s Early Selection Filter Model
Theory: input -> sensory memory -> attentional filter (selects goal oriented stimulus) -> detector (cognitive system) -> long term memory; only basic sensory input is processed without attention
Issues: Cannot explain cocktail party effect or results of Triesman’s dichotic listening task
Late selection filter model
Proposes that basic meaning of unattended stimulus is processed alongside attended stimulus
Cherry’s Dichotic Listening Task
Different audio is played to each ear, participants focus on one ear only and shadow repeat what they hear. Could not remember meaning of stimulus to unattended ear
Triesman’s Dichotic Listening Task
Stimulus message switches ears, but participants are only paying attention to one ear. Participants can follow the meaning of the message, proved they can process unattended stimuli
Triesman’s Attentional Model
Theory: input -> attenuator (dampens non-goal related input) -> dictionary unit (if input passes set threshold it moves past unit) -> memory
Pros: can account for unattended stimuli passing into memory, can explain cocktail party effect (thresholds can change and info important to you will always have a high level to pass it)
Divided/capacity attention theory
There is a set pool of attention that we can divide among tasks. Must balance resource with cognitive load to successfully complete tasks. Argues capacity is 4 (+/- 1) items
Cognitive Load
The amount of attentional resources used to complete a task
Flanker Compatibility task
Press button when stimulus is located; high and low cognitive load conditions. Flanker only acts as a distraction in low cognitive load conditions. Suggests that there is attention left to ‘spill over’ to other tasks
Attentional spotlight theory
We can shift our attention to covertly select a location and attend to it
Issues: Impossible to separate object from place; people can attend btw two stimuli in the same location
Stroop task
Read ink color instead of word. Slow response time. Caused by pitting automatic and controlled attention against each other
Posner task
With eyes fixated on a cross, press a button corresponding to location of stimulus. Location cues flash, either correct or incorrectly cue the participant. Done with single stimuli and object-related stimuli. Supports location and object basis for attention
Binding problem
How do we bring separate features into a whole object? How do brain structures create phenomenological experience?
Triesman’s feature integration theory
Theory: the job of attention is to bind features together; object sensation -> preattentive stage (analyze features) -> focused attention stage (combines features) -> perception
Support: feature searches and conjunction searches
Feature search vs conjunction search
Feature searches are fast because you can scan one feature and use less attention. Conjunction searches take more time because they require binding features of each item.
Multitasking theory
Quickly switching attention between tasks rather than dividing it
Vigilance
Maintaining attention while waiting for a stimulus
