Test 1 Flashcards
Abrams, Chasten, Pratt
Saccades: measured in young adults and elderly adults- found no change in speed suggesting the important function of saccades
Saccadic suppression
Visual processing is suppressed during a saccade
Shepard & Metzler
3D Shape Rotation: is mental visualization also suppressed? Showed people two shapes and asked if one could be rotated to match the second
Findings: longer preparation time = shorter time to rotate
Irwin & Carlson-Radvansky (1996)
Does eye movement pause mental rotation?
Same task as previous study (two objects- is it a rotation of the other?) but this time objects are located at a distance from each other (either short or long distance)
Findings: while the farther distance offered more time for mental rotation, the saccade required pauses rotational processing
Overt attention
An obvious shift in attention done with eye movement
Covert attention
Shift of attention that is entirely internal (in the mind)
Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA)
The time between the cue and target appearing in a visual cueing task
Time is needed to react to a cue for it to effect visual attention; if SOA is shorter than reaction time it is not useful
Cueing paradigm: endogenous versus exogenous
To study endogenous shifts (conscious), researchers use a cue in the fixation point
To study exogenous attention (externally directed), researchers use a cue on target box (draws attention peripherally)
Inhibition of Return (IOR)
The overcompensation of inhibitory functions on exogenous cues (peripheral) causes slower reactions to previously attended cueing locations
Posner
Spotlight Theory: the idea that visual attention is like a spotlight; strongest in the centre and weaker as it reaches the edges ; attention sweeps like a spotlight
Information in the centre is clearest to process, but we still take in information of lower quality from periphery
Flanker paradigm
Similar to Posner’s studies but uses letter targets to attempt activation of the linguistic systems
Object attention
Focusing on a particular object rather than a region of space
There is an object to be attended to despite alternative sensory input
Duncan (1984)
Can we selectively attend to one of two objects, even when they share the same location in space?
- Showed two objects, each with two features (orientation, dashed/dotted, size)
- If object attention is an ability, you should be able to report characteristics better for two objects contained in one (compared to two seperate objects)
Finding: hypothesis was correct, same-object (with different features) had quicker responses than different objects
Egly, Rafal, Driver, & Starrveveld (1994)
- Posner’s spatial queing paradigm but with stretched target boxes, meaning tagets can appear at different locations within one box
- An 80% predictive cue appears in a target location (this means endogenous attention is being measured, pre-decision);
- if attention is cued to the left box, object attention chooses the left box (if the target appears in that box it is quickly attended to)
- When cue was in correct box (object) but wrong location, spatial attention is used
- If the cue is in the wrong location and wrong object (box), object-attention is used
FINDINGS: both spatial and object attention are active; when attending an object, the WHOLE object is attended to - When driving, you narrow spatial attention to the road; when a car appears, object attention is activated
Occlusion
The process whereby something is hidden or obscured from prominence or view
- Your brain can fill in objects that are incomplete/blocked
- Object attention spreads past occluders