problem 1 - attention

Question 1

what is the cocktail party phenomenon?

Answer 1

the process of tracking one conversation in the face of distraction from other conversation

• studied by shadowing

Question 2

what is shadowing? what did Cherry (1953) find using this method?

Answer 2

listening to 2 different messages (dichotic presentation) but only repeating one back

Cherry:
- P’s were successful in doing this, although it requires a lot of concentration
- P’s also noticed physical/sensory changes in the unattended message (e.g. speaker changing from male to female)
- Did not notice semantic changes (e.g. when messages switched from English to German or was played backwards)

Question 3

what are 3 factors that help to selectively attend to only one message?

Answer 3

1. Distinctive sensory characteristics of the target’s speech (e.g. high vs low pitch, pacing & rhythmicity)
2. Sound intensity (loudness)
3. Location of the sound source

Question 4

filter vs bottleneck theories of attention

Answer 4

Filter = blocks some of the info going though = selects only a part of the total info to pass onto next stage

Bottleneck = slows down info passing though
- only the attenuation model (Treisman)

Question 5

Broadbent’s model of attention

Answer 5

we filter info right after we notice it at the sensory level

• Multiple channels of sensory input reach an attentional filter - channels can be distinguished by characteristics
• Filter permits only 1 channel to proceed & reach the processes of perception
• Other stimuli are filtered out at the sensory level = may never reach level of perception

Question 6

Selective filter model of attention (Moray)

Answer 6

the selective attention filter blocks out most info at the sensory level but some personally imp messages break through

• Moray found that even when ignoring most high-level aspects of an unattended message, p’s still frequently recognize their names in an unattended ear
• Suggested that this is bcuz messages that are of high importance to a person break through the filter

Question 7

Attenuation model of attention (Treisman)

Answer 7

selective attention involves a later filtering mechanism - instead of blocking stimuli out, the filter weakens the strength of other stimuli

• When the stimuli reach us, we analyze them at a low level for target properties - if the stimuli possess those target properties, its passed to the next stage, if not a weakened version is passed
• Next we perceptually analyze the meaning & relevance of the stimuli - so even a message from the unattended ear can come into consciousness & influence our subsequent actions if its meaningful

Question 8

Late-filter model of attention (Deutsch & Deutsch)

Answer 8

Suggested that stimuli are only filtered out after their physical & semantic properties have been analyzed

Later filtering = allows people to recognize the sound of their own name or a translation of attended input (bilinguals)

Question 9

A synthesis of early-filter & late-filter models of attention (Neisser)

Answer 9

Neisser synthesized the early & late filter models & proposed there are 2 processes governing attention:

Pre-attentive processes: automatic processes that are rapid & occur in parallel - can be used to notice only the physical sensory characteristics of the unattended message

Attentive, controlled processes: occur later - are excited serially & consume time & attentional resources (like working memory)

Question 10

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 10

the failure to notice fully visible, but unexpected events when attention is focused elsewhere

effectively filter other info from awareness - we perceive only what receives the focus of our cog efforts

Question 11

Neisser’s attentional blindness experiments

Answer 11

Og experiment:
- P’s watched a video of 2 distinct but partially transparent & overlapping events
- P’s asked to monitor 1 of the events by counting number of times the actors performed the action
- Often failed to notice unexpected events in the ignored video

Variation:
- P’s watched a video of 2 teams of players (white shirts & black shirts)
- Asked to press a key whenever the white played successfully passed a ball, but ignore black players
- Halfway through the video a person wearing a raincoat & umbrella walked past
- P’s often missed this

Question 12

Factors that effect noticing

Answer 12

• The greater the demands on attention, the less likely we are to notice objects falling outside our attention
• The more like the ignored elements of a scene, the less likely we are to notice
• The more distracted we are, the less likely we are to be aware of our surroundings - under conditions of distraction, we develop tunnel vision

Question 13

How does WM effect noticing?

Answer 13

Some studies suggest people who have a greater working WM capacity = more likely to notice unexpected objects - other studies find no such relationship

Theoretical explanations for both:
- People w greater WM capacity = more resources available = should be more likely to notice
- But people w greater WM capacity = tend to be better at maintaining focus on 1 task = should be less likely to notice

Question 14

What is the attentional blink?

Answer 14

the impaired ability to identify the second of 2 visual targets presented in close succession

Question 15

what is change blindness?

Answer 15

failure to see something different in a display - undergoes change without being noticed

e.g. curtain changing from yellow to orange

Question 16

attentional blink experiment - method
(olivers & nieuwenhuis, 2005)

Answer 16

• 66 randomly assigned subjects
• Series of letters presented rapidly on display, including 2 target digits (T1-T2)
• Must report this at the end of the trial

Question 17

attentional blink experiment - conditions
(olivers & nieuwenhuis, 2005)

Answer 17

• Standard condition: instructed to concentrate on the task & report as many digits as possible
• Free association condition: asked to think about their holiday or their shopping plans while doing the task
• Listen-to-music condition: presented w a continuous rhythmic tune. One group asked to just listen to the beat, other group asked to listen for a yell
• Reward condition: paid according to performance

Question 18

attentional blink experiment - results
(olivers & nieuwenhuis, 2005)

Answer 18

Detection of T1 was poor for lag 1 in all groups bcuz lags were in close temporal proximity & p’s would enter T2 first
- Music group performed the best

Standard & reward group: T2 suffered considerably at most lags, except lag 1 (lag 1 sparing)
Free association group: T2 detection was sig better
Music group: T2 detection very high = attentional blink disappeared

Question 19

attentional blink experiment - conclusion
(olivers & nieuwenhuis, 2005)

Answer 19

• perf on an attentionally demanding visual detection task may improve when the task is accompanied by task-irrelevant mental activity
• under conditions of rapid visual presentation target detection may benefit from a diffusion of attention

Question 20

what is selective attention?

Answer 20

processes that allow an individual to select & focus on particular input for further processing while suppressing irrelevant or distracting info

Question 21

what is inattentional deafness?

Answer 21

people fail to notice an unexpected sound or voice when attention is devoted to other aspects of a scene