Test 2 Attention Flashcards
Dichotic Listening
Hear one input in the left side, and a different input on the right side. Told to attend one channel and ignore the unattended channel. Instructed to shadow the attended channel (repeat words back to ensure all focus is on that one side). After people could report if the unattended channel was a human voice, orchestra, etc. could notice the gender, pitch, and volume of the voice. And would notice own name, or favorite things. Could tell if it was English or not unless it was Czechian and a similar dialect to English.
Inhibition Distractors
Have skills to block out certain distractors. New distractors require a new skill.
Early theories suggested that it was a filter which blocked uninterested inputs, however it is not whole story. Explains how we ignore stimuli but not how we promote desired stimuli.
Inattentional blindness/deafness
What is it and study?
Fail to see or hear stimuli if not expecting it.
Mack and Rock study: People were told to tell which line in a + was longer. Researchers would add a obvious random shape in the corner of the screen and 90% wouldn’t notice it, unless it was pointed out and told to watch it, then 90% did notice it.
Some people propose you can see the stimuli you just don’t remember it.
Change Blindness
What it is and the study?
Observer’s inability to detect changes they are staring right at. Occurs when you don’t notice changes since you don’t know your supposed to. Why spot the difference games are so effective.
Video where people didn’t know man asking for directions changed, or when everything about the magic trick set changed.
For change blindness to occur you need something to interrupt the current perceptual field. New camera angle, hide behind door, etc.
Problem that change blindness and inattentional blindness brought up to researchers
When does a subject selected the desired input and stop perceiving the unattended input.
Late Selection Hypothesis v. Early
Descriptions and Answer to debate
Late: All inputs receive complete analysis
Selection occurs after inputs arrive but can be unconscious.
Early: Attended input is prioritized from the start, so unattended input receives little analysis and is never perceived.
Its both. People can be unaware of distractors but influenced by them anyway. Unnoticed distractors guide interpretation of stimuli (provides evidence for late)
EEGs show that at the very beginning the attended channel is different from unattended. (early)
Dichotic Experiment (evidence for late)
Attention change activity occurs in LGN, changes signal flow before it reaches the brain (early)
Muller-Lyer Illusion- evidence for late.
Priming and how it explains inattentional blindness and cocktail effect
Expectation of what a stimulus will be. It activates detectors so they are on high alert and ready to fire. Priming takes effort, we can only do so much.
Inattentional Blindness- don’t expect a stimuli to be there so the detectors aren’t primed
Cocktail- Hear name because that detector is encountered so much it is primed
Posner and Snyder Priming Test
repetition v. expectation
Repetition- produced by prior encounter of stimulus (perceptually- stimulus based)
Expectation driven- prime detectors for inputs you think are upcoming (Conceptually- expectation based)
The study showed a pair of letters and participants had to decide if they were the same or different. Each set of letters had a warning slide. They had 3 variations were the warning slide would either be a + (neutral) the upcoming letter (primed) or a random letter (Misled).
Two different groups were tested, one group where the warning signal primed 80% of the time (high validity), and another where the warning signal primed 20% of the time (low validity).
Found that even in low-validity experiments the primed warning signal will produce a faster reaction time. Meaning that priming can be repetition only without stimulus.
Also found that the misled warning signal in low validity experiments had no effect, it was the same a neutral. Showed that priming wrong detector doesn’t take away from other detectors. They all work independently
Priming in high validity produced the fastest reaction times it allowed for the warm-up effect and expectation. However, the misleads were slower than neutral meaning that expectation priming takes something away.
Limited Capacity System
Expectation priming takes away form other detectors. There is a limited budget and so more expectation priming dedicated to one stimulus will take away from others.
Why can’t we listen to 2 messages at once
Perceiving and attention requires work, and to do work we only have a limited number of mental resources.
Cocktail Party
Focus on one convo among all conversations. However, you can always pick out your name
Muller-Lyer Illusion
Which line is longer and surrounded it with random dots, one set created an effect like this <-> and >-<, people found that the second one was larger even though same size. However, people reported that they didn’t consciously see the dots. (asking violated introspection)
William James definition
Everyone knows what attention is. It is the
taking possession by the mind, in clear
and vivid form, of one out of what seem
several simultaneously possible objects or
trains of thought. … It implies withdrawal
from some things in order to deal
First attempt and best attempt at defining attention because it is impossible to define.
Spatial Attention study and relationship to limited capacity
Someone focuses on a particular position in space, Posner and Snyder created test similar to the letters but the warning screen was either arrows pointing left or right and the letters would appear on a random side. It was found that you can be primed for a particular position of space and also you can be misled with expectation.
Limited capacity system- devote more attention to one side and less to other
Spotlight idea
Compared to spotlight beam, marks with inputs inside beam are processed more efficiently. The beam can be widened, narrowly focused and can be moved. It can be covert- look at something but attention is else where, and it can be overt- look at it and pay attention to it, eye movements depends on top-down factors (beliefs and expectations).
Spotlight doesn’t actually exist, is it just a neural mechanism that adjusts sensitivity to certain inputs to prime what you care about and not prime what you don’t.
How do we move attention
NOT WITH EYES! Priming occurs before eyes even move so it cannot be a consequence of eye movements.
We move attention with
Orienting system: Needed to disengage attention from 1 target to the next. Shift attention to new target and engage attention in new target.
Alerting System: Maintain alert state in brain
Executive System- Controls voluntary actions.
Control System is neural connections that carry signals to brain regions to analyze input. Control signals can amplify/inhibit activity of other regions and it can promote input processing of interests and undermine distractions
What do we pay attention to?
Visually prominent inputs. Interesting/ important inputs (changes based on context). Beliefs. We ignore predictable parts since we won’t gain info (inattentional blindness).
Differs from person to person, women more likely to notice clothes, men- physique. Westerners- individuals, Collectivist- relationships, (notice background changes more)`
Ultra-rare item effect
Don’t pay attention to predictable things so we will miss weird things. Don’t see it often, often won’t see it. Visual search for rare items has high-susceptibility to error. You won’t focus on things you don’t expect to be there, explains inattentional blindness.
Endogenous control of attention
We choose what we pay attention to. Voluntary, top down, susceptible to distraction.
Interpret stimuli before action, hear name, realize they said your name, and look. We learn these cues.
Exogenous
Elements of a scene seize your attention
Very important concept, why ambulance sirens sound like that, why products make logos the way they are
Automatic and stimulus driven, resistant to distractors.
Reflexive- teacher hits bored and you look
Do we attend objects or positions
Spatial- Region illuminated by brain is purely spatial and sometimes this spotlight won’t line up with objects.
Objects- We can pay direct attention to one object. Focus on passing balls and ignore gorilla.
Both are true. Unilateral neglect syndrome, dorsal v. ventral.
Multitasking and resources
Deal with multiple tasks/inputs at once. It requires divided attention.
Anyone can walk and talk yet can’t do calculus and talk, some resources are limited. Can preform 2 tasks but must have enough resources.
Things like reasoning, problem solving, remembering all need resources.
Resources are mechanisms like memory and energy.
Allport, Antonis, Reynolds study about resources
Hear and shadow words in one ear and presented with a different set of stimuli.
Groups either heard words and heard words, heard words and saw words, or heard words and saw pictures.
The more different the functions the better the recall. Why we can read and listen to music
Driving and speaking on phone
Language and spatial skills have little overlap, however even with a handsfree phone you are more likely to be in accidents, overlook signs and slower to hit the breaks.
Driving becomes automatic, going straight with a huge gap doesn’t need a lot of focus. But when an unexpected obstacle happens you will be slower.
Not dangerous when talking with a passenger because passengers can slow the conversation when traffic becomes complicated.
“Heavy Loads”
Multiple resources are relevant for multitasking. However different tasks vary in load. The more difficult the tasks the greater the interference with other tasks.
Higher loads= greater chance of inattentional blindness.
Tasks will interfere if combined resource demand is greater than available amount. (demand exceeds supply)
Each resource is more of a tool rather than a energy supply
Executive Control
Mechanism that controls own thoughts, keeps goal in mind, steps organized in right sequence. It either helps you reach a goal or change your steps so you can, or in most efficient way possible.
Allows you to focus on one task at a time
Executive control prioritizes. Why kids can’t rent a car, they prioritize fun over safety. Good grades show how good executive control is. Drinking age varies from country depending how it healthy it’s promoted, because executive control limits drinking.
Doesn’t matter much to habit. Why Phineas Gage could live his life normally.
Perseveration Error
Common in patients with executive control issues. Produce some response repeatedly even when tasks require change in response.
Sort cards based on color # and shape, first do it by shape, tell them to do it by color and they will continue doing it by shape
Goal Neglect
Common in patients with executive control issues. Can’t organize behavior in way that moves them towards their goals.
When asked to copy a drawing they can copy details but lack the overall structure or order or get side-tracked
Successful kid stops going to school and work, had a frontal lobe stroke. Can have a goal but has no way of getting there.
How does practicing effect tasks, can we improve attention.
The more you practice a task the less resources it requires or less frequent use of resources. Executive function plays a limited role and you can rely on habit or routine. New experiences don’t have habits to fall back on, so executive function is need all the time.
Can we improve divided attention with practice?
May be able to gain new mental resources or practice leads to automatic. Some argue you can gain new mental resources, and if this is true (like in Buddhist meditation) than everything learned so far is at risk.
Resource demand of a task relies on
Nature of task (verbal/spatial), novelty, flexibility the task requires, and amount of practice.
Automacity v. Controlled
Automatic Tasks that are well-practiced and involve little to no control. Mental reflex occurs if you like it or not (stroop interference).
If you learn something very young, can stop being automatic when situations change (walking is automatic but walking on an uneven path is not). Simple basic movements. Multitasking gets easier when a part is automatic
Controlled can become automatic with practice. Listening is always controlled unless mindless. Usually just one controlled at a time. Multiple resources is always controlled or when a response is consciously chosen.
Complex tasks are best broken up into smaller parts until automatic than easier to continue
Anticipate stimuli
Anticipation is a mental resource. It allows you to pay attention by expecting what will occur next and filling it in for you through priming. Some things are easy to anticipate like easy conversations, which is why it’s hard to tune them out. Hard to anticipate things like a difficult study will require you to spend all your attention on it, or a convo in a different language won’t be anticipated and it will be harder to ignore.
Limits of Attention
Tasks require resources and you can’t spend more than you have.
Task interference and what it causes
If tasks have competing demands the result is interference. It is difficult to combine tasks of similar stimuli. Lose track of which elements belong to what input (crosstalk)
Stroop Interference
Name aloud color ink but color itself is a word. Word recognition is so practiced that it proceeds automatically and it is hard to overpass that. ADHD is worse at it because they have executive control issues.
Crosstalk
leakage of one bit to another bit, lose track of what elements belong to what input. Did you say this or did he.
Attention
Achievement of performing multiple activities at once or successfully avoiding distractions
2 types of resources
General-needed for almost everything
Specific- needed for 1 certain task
Optimal Arousal Theory
if not aroused at all or over aroused you won’t function well at all
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