Simons & Wang

Question 1

Attentional capture

Answer 1

• Attentional selection disturbed by distractors of high perceptual salience (bottom-up grabbing your attention)
• When focused on a task, you get distracted by objects that are task irrelevant

Question 2

Attention is influenced by…

Answer 2

1. Perceptual salience
2. Value-driven attentional capture
   - Objects with perceived value are more likely to capture attention
3. Mindset and task focus
   - Attention is influenced by the context or perceptual set, meaning what we expect to see or prioritize affects what we notice
4. Distracters and emotional impact
   - Distracters associated with physical pain are more effective at diverting attention

Question 3

Attentional blindness

Answer 3

• Innattentional blindness: too much attentional focus on a task which makes irrelevant events unnoticed
• Change blindness: you fail to see changes to objects or scenes

Question 4

Conditions under which they can occur

Answer 4

1. Duration and salience: doesn’t matter
2. Display: the more transparent the display, the more inattentional blindess
3. Visual similarity task and event: the more similarity between task and event are, the more likely people will notice the event
4. Difficulty of the task: the harder the task, the less people notice the event and more blindness
5. Focus: When engaged in another tassk, the less people notice the event and more blindness

Question 5

Value salience

Answer 5

How much value the stimulus has to the individual

Question 6

Perceptual salience

Answer 6

The degree to which a stimulus stands out and captures attention due to its contrast with surrounding features. This can include differences in color, shape, brightness, size, or motion that make the stimulus more noticeable in its environment

Question 7

Perceptual set/mindset

Answer 7

The psychological factors that determine how you perceive your environment