Selective Attention

Question 1

What is attention
Harold Pashler (1998)

Answer 1

• No one knows what attention is

Question 2

Cherry (1953)
Dichotic listening

Answer 2

• Ps Shadow messages is one ear and ignore messages to the other ear.
• Ps were asked about the semantic content of the ‘unattended’ message.
• They didn’t notice a language change or reversed speech
• They could report the gender of the speaker

Question 3

Cherry (1953)
Conclusions

Answer 3

• People process ‘unattended’ info only to level of physical features
• No semantic info is available from ‘unattended’ message
• However, unattended message does get drowned out by shadowing task
• If word is participants is own name they report hearing it

Question 4

Early Selection model
Broadbent (1958)

Answer 4

• Based on cherry finding
• Filtering happens at early before meaning
• Brain filters info without appropriate physical characteristics
• We have limited capacity = has to be selective

Question 5

Gray & Wedderburn

Answer 5

• “Split-Span’ experiment
• The unattended message was processed for content (60% of people)

Question 6

Late Selection Model
Deutsch & Deutsch (1963)

Answer 6

• All inputs encoded and analysed in parallel to a semantic level
• Selective filtering only happens at conscious awareness stage.

Question 7

Corteen & Dunn (1974)

Answer 7

• Training, city name paired with electric shock = sweating
• Test, shadow one ear ignore other. Press button if you hear city name.
• Measures, sweat from hans and button press to city names
• 42% of city names in “unattended ear’ cause hand sweating
• Only 2% of trials they pressed button

Question 8

Attenuator Model
Treisman (1964)

Answer 8

• Unattended information is ‘attenuated’ not completely filtered out
• All inputs are analysed for meaning but some signals are weaker than others
• Different words have different trigger thresholds
• Information relevant to us has lower thresholds

Question 9

Neisser & Becklen (1975)

Answer 9

• People monitor one video for targets leading them to be unaware of events in unmonitored video

Question 10

Simons and Chabris (1999)

Answer 10

• Participants more likely to notice gorilla when attending to team with black t shirts on

Question 11

Dalton & Fraenkel (2012)

Answer 11

• 70% of ps fail to notice gorilla when attending to the women’s conversation
• 90% notice gorilla when attending to mens conversation
• All but one notice in gull attention control

Question 12

Rock & Gutman (1981)

Answer 12

• Hard to recognise shapes in ‘unattended’ colour (the colour they marked as unpleasant)

Question 13

Negative Priming (Tipper, 1985)

Answer 13

• See superimposed red and green images
• Reaction time measured for none superimposed image
• Primes were the task they did where they named objects
• Probes was their second task
• Primes influences the reaction time in the following trial

Question 14

Defence of Broadbent

Answer 14

Lachter, Forster & Ruthruff (2004)
- Maybe attention is sometimes, allocated to the supposedly unattended stream this is called a process slippage

Question 15

Perceptual Load (Lavie, 1995)

Answer 15

• Different perceptual load tasks used
• Tasks response competition increase perceptual load
• Can’t be selective until capacity reached
• Perceptual system has limited capacity
• Low perceptual load leaves space for ‘spilling over’ and processing task irrelevant stimuli

Question 16

Rees, Frith & Lavie (1997)

Answer 16

• fMRI study on perceptual load
• low load - respond to uppercase words
• responds to bisyllabic words
• ignore, irrelevant motion in background
• more activity in cortical area v5 under low load

Question 17

Summary

Answer 17

• Long standing debate between early and late selection theorists
• Perceptual load theory provides possible solution, though other factors are important