PSYC week 10 Flashcards
Describe how sensation and perception work together through sensory interaction, selective attention, sensory adaptation, and perceptual constancy.
-sensory interaction: working together of different senses, shown in the McGurk effect
-synesthesia: one sense creates experiences in another
-selective attention: ability to tune out some sensory inputs while focusing on others
-sensory adaptation: prolonged exposure to a stimulus decreases sensitivity, allows receptors to detect when important information changes in our environment (key for survival)
-perceptual constancy: ability to perceive a stimulus as constant despite its changes
Give examples of how our expectations may influence our perception, resulting in illusions and potentially inaccurate judgments.
-perception of the world may be influenced by prior knowledge
-Mueller-Lyer illusion: the top line segment looks smaller even though they are both actually the same length
-Moon illusion: moon appears 50% bigger when over the horizon
-illusions can be created in a lab but less likely in the real world because humans are so in touch with their environment (embodied: environment is linked and built in with our cognition)
Learn about different models of when and how selection can occur:
-Broadbent: select information based on physical features like the ear the message was coming in, the pitch, the colour or font, selection occurs very early with no processing for unselected information
-Treisman: suggest that we do monitor unattended information based on its meaning, suggest that selection starts at the physical level but unattended information is not blocked completely
-Alate/Response: suggests that all information in the unattended ear is processed on the basis of meaning, however only information relevant for the task response is gets into conscious awareness
Understand how divided attention or multitasking is studied, and implications of multitasking in situations such as distracted driving:
-some research suggests that one cannot multitask but are just rapidly switching their attention back and forth
-multitasking could require practice and only be specific to tasks
-cognitive distractions like cellphones can cause inattentional blindness and lack of awareness, the cognitive demands of our limited capacity system can impair driving performanc
Donald Broadbent
-One of the first to try the characterize the selection process.
- Created the Broadbent’s Filter Model
-People select information based on physical features like sensory channel, voice pitch, and visual font, but are vaguely aware of the meaning of unattended information.
Anne Treisman (1960)
Did dichotic listening experiments in which she presented two different stories to the two ears.
individuals spontaneously followed the story, or the content of the message, when it shifted from the left ear to the right ear. Then they realized they were shadowing the wrong ear and switched back.
Treisman suggested that selection starts at the physical or perceptual level, but that the unattended information is not blocked completely, it is just weakened or attenuated.
As a result, highly meaningful or pertinent information in the unattended ear will get through the filter for further processing at the level of meaning.
Deutsch and Deutsch (1963)
suggests that all information in the unattended ear is processed on the basis of meaning, not just the selected or highly pertinent information.
Johnston and Heinz, 1978)
We can either filter or late,
Selection is dynamic and depends on the tasks
Learn about inattentional blindness and why it occurs.
-inattentional blindess: the failure to notice a fully visible unexpected object/event when focused on something else
-the more effort being put into the attention-demanding task, the less likely one is to notice an unexpected visual event
-capacity of attention: we have to be somewhat paying attention to the event to be aware of it
Identify ways in which failures of awareness are counterintuitive.
A
-even minor delays in noticing something can cause accidents like car crashes
Better understand the link between focused attention and failures of awareness.
-explicit memory: knowledge or experiences that can be consciously remembered
-episodic: first-hand experiences
-semantic: knowledge and facts
-implicit memory: influence of experience on behaviour, even if one is unaware of those influences
-procedural memory: unexplainable knowledge of how to do things
-priming: changes in behaviour as a result of experiences that happen frequently
Dichotic listening
A task in which different audio streams are presented to each ear. Typically, people are asked to monitor one stream while ignoring the other.
Inattentional deafness
The auditory analog of inattentional blindness. People fail to notice an unexpected sound or voice when attention is devoted to other aspects of a scene.
Selective listening
A method for studying selective attention in which people focus attention on one auditory stream of information while deliberately ignoring other auditory information
Compare and contrast explicit and implicit memory, identifying the features that define each
-explicit memory: knowledge or experiences that can be consciously remembered
-episodic: first hand experiences
-semantic: knowledge and facts
-implicit memory: influence of experience on behaviour, even if one is unaware of those influences
-procedural memory: unexplainable knowledge of how to do things
-priming: changes in behaviour as a result of experiences that happen frequently
