Selective Attention Flashcards
What is selective attention?
Process of reacting to certain stimuli selectively when several occur simultaneously (Gross, 2015)
Who created the dichotic listening task?
Cherry (1953)
What was the dichotic listening task?
Participants presented with simultaneous messages in both ears where instructed to attend to one (shadow message)
Participants where unable to recall a word that played 35x in the unattended ear and better understood the shadowed message
Broadbent (1954) introduced what procedure to test selective attention?
The split-span procedure
What was the split-span procedure experiment?
Participants had to listen to two sets of digits within each ear and recall what they remembered
Accuracy was better for ear-by-ear recall than pair- attention can focus to one channel of information at a time
When was Broadbents Filter Model established?
1958
Explain Broadbent (1958) Filter model
This was a selection model that explained attention as a single channel ‘bottleneck’ of information. Input is selected on the basis of physical characteristics, however due to in the limited capacity, input is filtered selectively to limit what is processed further, the short term memory holds unattended information for a short time until it is lost through decay or interference
What are physical characteristics?
Top Down (internal) such as voice intensity Bottom up (external) such as gender
Strengths of this model
Evidence from air traffic control- they can only deal effectively with one message at a time
Testable and Falsifiable
Criticisms of this model
Cocktail phenomena- the model does not explain how attention can shift attention to meaningful stimuli, such as hearing your name in unattended ear whilst engaged in conversation with someone else (suggests some semantic encoding)
Naive participants may of been unaware of what the task was about, so hindered performance due to unfamiliarity rather than competence of attention
When was the attenuation model established
Treisman (1964)
How does the attenuation model differ from Broadbents Filter model?
The filter attenuates (weakens) input rather than eliminates
Does the model of attenuation account for meaningful stimuli?
Yes, for example a stimuli such as your name, permanently reaches a low threshold which means it goes straight though the attention filter, allowing us to switch attention to whenever it is in our environment, this theoretically means information is processed semantically and the significance of a stimuli increases our alertness
Research evaluating dichotic listening task
Mackay (1973) used a speech shadowing task- sentences including a two word meaning, e.g standing near a bank
In unattended ear they presented the word money or river
Factors the influence attenuation
Content, personal significance and level of alertness
Evaluation of the attenuation model
We can’t be sure if participants have switched to unattended ear and it does not explain how attenuation occurs (too complex and not enough capacity)
Neisser (1976) argued that we don’t have a filter or attenuate instead we never acquire it in the first place
Who proposed the late selection model and when?
Deutsh and Deutsh (1963)
Explain the late selection model
All information is analysed/processed for its meaning, and whether it’s selected depends on its ‘pertinence value’ I.e. Its relevance and importance at the time
It requires representations from our LTM
It was found target words where better detected in the shadow message than unattended ear, telling us that not all information is analysed the same in terms of meaning and performance differs considerably (only 8% in unattended ear). Who’s were these findings suggested from?
Triesman and Geffen (1967)
Experimental support for the late selection model
Moray (1969) presented an electrical shock to a certain word, once switched off, a response was produced even when the word appeared in the unattended ear and participants were unaware
Criticism of the late selection model
It seems unlikely that all information should be processed semantically before it’s made aware - lacks flexibility
Attention can’t be fully explained by a single conceptual model
Attention is studied largely in isolation and in laboratory conditions, which lacks ecological validity
Explain the information processing approach
A person is a processor of information complimentary to computer analogy in terms of its input, encoding and storage- it follows a software system to produce an output/response
This serial processing of attention is also limited otherwise it overloads
