MODULE 3 UNIT 2: ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS Flashcards
The concentration of mental energy that must be used to process incoming information
Attention
It is selective, limited, and both conscious and preconscious.
Attention
The state of being aware of things and events around us and includes both the feeling of awareness and the content of awareness, some of which may be under the focus of attention.
Consciousness
Four main functions of attention
- Signal detection and vigilance
- Search
- Selective attention
- Divided attention
A function of attention wherein individuals try to detect the appearance of a particular stimulus.
Signal detection and vigilance
A function of attention wherein individuals try to find a signal amidst distracters.
Search
A function of attention wherein individuals choose to attend to some stimuli and ignore others.
Selective attention
A function of attention wherein individuals prudently allocate their available attentional resources to coordinate their performance of more than one task at a time.
Divided attention
A framework that explains how people pick out the few important stimuli when they are embedded in a wealth of irrelevant, distracting stimuli.
Signal Detection
Target stimulus that is to be detected
Signal
The four possible outcomes in detecting signal (dependent on presence/absence of signal; and detection/no detection)
- Hit
- Miss
- False Alarm
- Correct Rejection
An outcome in detecting signal where signal is both present and detected.
Hit
An outcome in detecting signal where signal is present but not detected.
Miss
An outcome in detecting signal where signal is absent but detected.
False Alarm
An outcome in detecting signal where signal is both absent and not detected.
Correct Rejection
Identify if the statement below is an example of Hit, Miss, False Alarm, or Correct Rejection.
A trained security dog signals the presence of explosives in a package.
Hit
Identify if the statement below is an example of Hit, Miss, False Alarm, or Correct Rejection.
A trained security dog was unable to recognize the package where explosives were hidden.
Miss
Identify if the statement below is an example of Hit, Miss, False Alarm, or Correct Rejection.
A trained security dog signaled the presence of explosives in a package, but it turned out that there were none.
False Alarm
Identify if the statement below is an example of Hit, Miss, False Alarm, or Correct Rejection.
A trained security dog walked past a package where there are no explosives contained.
Correct Rejection
Concepts required by Signal Detection Theory (SDT)
- attention—paying enough attention to perceive objects that are there
- perception—perceiving faint signals that may or may not be beyond your perceptual range
- memory—indicating whether you have/have not been exposed to a stimulus before
Attending to a set of stimuli over a length of time in order to detect a target signal.
Vigilance
Decreases rapidly over time (fatigue), thus misses and false alarms increase.
Vigilance