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
