Perception and attention (Chapter 8) Flashcards
What is perception?
The process by which we give meaning to sensory information
What is attention?
Process of focusing on specific stimuli or aspects of environment while excluding others.
Focus on specific stimuli whilst ignoring others
Focusing mental resources on certain information, while blocking irrelevant info.
Attention
How do we become aware of things?
By attending to sensory experiences
What is not attended to cannot be percieved.
What are the 3 different types of attention?
- Sustained
- Divided
- Selective
What is sustained attention?
Maintaining attention on something specific over an extended period of time without distraction.
Interchangeable with viligance
What are the factors affecting ability to sustain attention?
- Not everyone can do it for same interval
- Difficult when boring or monotonous task
What is divided attention?
Distribute information so two or more activities can be perfomed simultaneously.
Multi-tasking
Abilitity to do so depends on how much conscious effort is required for the tasks
What are the factors affecting divided attention?
- Works well when processing simple stimuli or completing well-learned, simple tasks
- Errors and slower if used for complex tasks
- Better if mixture of verbal and visual tasks
What is selective attention?
Concentrating or attending to one stimuli at the exclusion of others
Good for new, complex stimuli and completing difficult or unfamiliar tasks
What is the cocktail party effect?
Suggests we tend to direct attention to stimuli we deem personaly relevant.
Ability to selectively attend to a speaker, percieve in context.
What influences selective attention?
- Physiological state (hungry, tired)
- Motives (interest)
- Past experience (personal interest)
What attracts attention?
- Movement
- Contrast
- Intensity
- Size
- Duration or repetition
What happens if something is too constant or too repeated?
Can become accustomed (habituation), can pay less attention and ignore it.
What is sensation?
Process of capturing stimuli from environment by sense organs.
is the same for everyone without damage
e.g detection of light by photoreceptos
What influences perception?
It is compex and subjective, perceptions do not always reflect reality
