Topic 5- Visual Attention Flashcards
What is attention?
1pt
The process which results in certain sensory information being selectively processed over other sensory information
What is overt visual attention?
1pt
Attention that involves moving your eyes from one place to another to directly look at the attended object/location
What is covert visual attention?
2pts
- Shifting attention, without directly moving our eyes
- Seeing something “out of the corner of my eye”
Finish the sentence:
One of the first modern experiments looking at attention involved hearing, and used a technique called
What did the experiment consist of?
What type of procedure was it?
3pts
- Dichotic listening
- A shadowing procedure
- Participants are asked to repeat back (shadow) one of the two messages presented to their ears. This forces them to selectively attend to one message while ignoring the other
What is the cocktail party effect?
Give an example
- The ability to focus on one stimuli while filtering out other stimuli
Ex- parties with multiple conversations
Fill in the blank:
Suggests attention operates like a BLANK that improves our BLANK when directed towards a specific object or location
Spotlight, processing
Overt attention is really a conscious attempt to aim the BLANK
fovea
When do we use overt attention?
2pts
- When trying to scan a scene
-While scanning a scene we make brief pauses, called fixations
Complete the sentence:
While overt attention dictates our fixations, covert attention tends to ….
determine where we will look next.
We haven’t yet considered a problem that occurs when we move our eyes.
Complete the sentence:
As you shift from place to place, the image…
sweeps across the retina and changes
What is visual salience ?
Basically when some things draw our attention more because they stand out against their background
What is attentional capture?
When does it happen?
3pts
- Occurs when stimulus salience causes involuntary shift of attention
- Higher the salience = greater the capture
- Happens quite often when rapid, unexpected movements or loud sounds occur in the environment
What do we gain by paying attention?
What is the role of covert attention/what can it affect?
2pts
- Place things of interest “front and center”
- Covert attention can affect how quickly we respond to objects and locations
What is same-object advantage, a benefit of attention?
When attention is directed to one part of an object, the enhancing effect of that attention spreads to other parts of the same object
What is inattentional blindness?
When you miss something directly in front of you because you’re focused on something else.
