Topic 5 (attention) Lecture 1 (Studies on attention)

Question 1

Who quoted that the essence of attention is ‘focalisation, concentration of consciousness’

Answer 1

William James

Question 2

What is the cocktail party effect?

Answer 2

• The question of how do we recognise what one person is saying whilst others are speaking at the same time?
• Introduced by Cherry 1953

Question 3

What did Treismans study find about dichotic listening?

Answer 3

• Participants wear headphones and are asked to listen to the input from one ear whilst ignoring the input from another ear
• She found that Recall of content (shadowing) is almost perfect for the attended channel but almost non existent for the non attended channel
• She also found that, when shadowing a message some participants would say a word found in the unshadowed message, especially if the word was plausible in the context of the shadowed message

Question 4

What is broadbents model of selective attention

Answer 4

• Broadbent argues that selective attention works like a filter
• The filter acts as a buffer on incoming sensory information to select which information gains conscious awareness
• The attended information will pass through the filter whilst unattended information will be blocked and ignored
• The filter is based on the physical characteristics of the stimulus such as location, loudness and pitch

Question 5

What was Rees, Russel, Frith and Drivers study on unattended words?

Answer 5

• This study seeked to find out whether people are unable to report the contents of ignored information due to a failure to percieve it (innatentional blindness) or because it is rapidly forgotten (innatentional amnesia)
• They used fMRI to measure the brain activity for unattended words
• Participants viewed a rapid stream of letters and words superimposed on a rapid stream of pictures
• One group were asked to focus on the letters and words, and the other group were aske to focus on the pictures
• They found that in the group that focussed on the words there was activation in areas of the brain relating to language processing, however in the group that focused on pictures there was no such activation
• This suggests that the brain does not process information that it is not paying attention to

Question 6

What is Treismans Attenuation theory?

Answer 6

• Treisman agreed with broadbent arguing that we filter sensory inputs on the basis of physical characteristics
• However Treisman argues that unnatended sensory inputs are still processed by the filter but to a lesser intensity
• She reffers to this as attenuation, saying its like turning down the volume of certain sounds whilst still being aware of them

Question 7

What is Deutsch and Deutsch’s late selection model?

Answer 7

• Deutsch and Deutsch claim that all information (attended or unattended) is analysed for meaning, and then selected after such analysis

Question 8

What is Morays study and why is it support for the late selection model?

Answer 8

• Moray paired electric shocks with words to condition a Galvanic Skin Response when the word was spoken
• The galvanic skin response refers to changes in sweat gland activity that are reflective of the intensity of our emotional state
• They found that a galvanic skin response was presented even when the word was presented to the unattended ear and the participants were unaware of it
• This suggests that unattended words are still being analysed for meaning

Question 9

Briefly, what 3 theories are there on selective attention and what evidence is there to support them?

Answer 9

1. Broadbents filter model. sounds are filtered according to physical characteristics. Unnatended words are not processed.
   supported by:
   Rees, Russel, Frith and Driver (fMRI)

2.Treismans attenuation model. Sounds are filtered but ignored sounds are still attenuated to a lesser intensity.
supported by:
Treismans dichotic listening study

3. Deutsch and Deutsch’s late selection model. All input is processed and then selected
   supported by:
   Morays electric shock study

Question 10

What is the difference between Exogenous and Endogenous selection

Answer 10

• Exogenous attention is bottom up, meaning a stimulus captures your attention
• Endogenous attention is top down, meaning your attentions and interest direct your attention

Question 11

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 11

• Innatentional blindness is when an individual fails to percieve a stimulus in plain sight due to a lack of attention

Question 12

What is mack and rocks study on innatentional blindness

Answer 12

• They found that when participants were asked to focus attention on a cross on a screen, they often didnt notice when other objects also appeared on the screen

Question 13

What is change blindness?

Answer 13

When a stimulus undergoes a change without it being noticed by its observer

Question 14

What is sustained attention?

Answer 14

• Sustained attention is the maintence of vigilance
• This means the ability to focus on one specific task for a continuous amount of time without being distracted

Question 15

Describe the SART measure

Answer 15

• SART stands for sustained attention to response task
• Participants are presented with a sequence of numbers from 1-9
• They are told to continuosly press a button until the number 3 is presented
• Commision errors are counted when they press a button at number 3
• Ommisioin errors are counted when they do not press the button for other numbers

Question 16

What is a criticism of the SART measure?

Answer 16

• Some argue that SART is not a measure of sustained attention but instead a measure of response inhibition