Unit 8; Attention

Question 1

James’ definition of attention

Answer 1

“Withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, as opposed to several objects / trains of thought and a dazed state.”

Question 2

Attention

Answer 2

Our ability to selectively focus on the most relevant aspects of our environment

Question 3

Selection

Answer 3

Attending to an object to select it apart from the unattended objects.

Question 4

How do we get distracted

Answer 4

Irrelevant information overwhelms us.

Question 5

Automatic Processes of attention

Answer 5

• involuntarily capture your attention
• fast, efficient, obligatory

Question 6

Controlled processes of attention

Answer 6

• conscious attention
• slow and effortful

Question 7

Salient info

+ what does it do

Answer 7

Automatically captures your attention

Question 8

Attention spotlight

Answer 8

• focus like a spotlight
• faster reaction time
• higher accuracy

Question 9

Cueing paradigms

Answer 9

Attentional spotlight is automatically attracted to cues

Question 10

Spotlights vs filters

Answer 10

Spotlights enhance stimulus

Filters suppress surrounding “noise”

Question 11

Single filter model + who + explains what?

+ unattended info is …

Answer 11

Only info that passes through PHYSICAL filter is processed further + deeper

• Unattended info is eliminated

Broadbent

Explains cocktail party

Question 12

Dual filter model + who + explains what?

+ unattended info is…

Answer 12

Attenuation of info that passes through the physical filter, then through the semantic filter

• Unattended info is attenuated

Treisman

Explains cocktail party + breakthrough

Question 13

The stroop task

Answer 13

Say the colour the word is written in

either:
congruent match
or
incongruent mismatch

demonstrates that attention is facilitated by stimulus relevance

Question 14

Proportion congruent manipulation

Answer 14

Change in ratio of congruent to incongruent trials

Question 15

High congruency

task rel/irrel

Answer 15

Bias attention to task-irrelevant info

Increased stroop

Question 16

Low congruency

when + effect on stroop

Answer 16

Bias attention to task-relevant info

Decreased stroop

Question 17

Evidence for automatic processes

in stroop

Answer 17

Word reading influences performance even when the word is to be ignored

Question 18

Evidence for controlled processes

Answer 18

People can adopt consciously controlled world reading strategies that manipulate the stroop effect

Question 19

Visual search tasks

model what

Answer 19

Model real tasks such as searching for a friend in the crowd, looking for keys, etc.

Question 20

Set size

Answer 20

of items to search through

Question 21

Set size effect

Answer 21

Set size increase = more difficult to find

Question 22

Pop-out effect

Answer 22

When the object of a visual search is easily found regardless of set size.

• easily influenced by colour

Question 23

Conjunction searches

Answer 23

Use 2+ features to create a more difficult search

• as opposed to a single feature search

Question 24

Flashbulb memories

Answer 24

A highly detailed and vivid ‘snapshot’ of a moment. Typically occurs at a time when an important piece of news is heard / seen as it is salient/emotional info.

• Not always accurate as they rely on both attention and memory

Question 25

Bottom-up processing

Answer 25

Raw data interpreted

• stimulus driven
  + salient events

Question 26

Top-down processing

Answer 26

Using memories, biases, heuristics to interpret information

• memory driven
  +conscious attention

Question 27

Orienting

Answer 27

Shifting attention to something in the environment

Question 28

Overt attending

Answer 28

It is obvious that you’re looking where you’re attending

Question 29

Covert attending

Answer 29

You attend to something without looking at it

Question 30

Spatial cueing

Answer 30

Cue a space before target appears

If congruent: faster reaction times
If incongruent: slower reaction times

Question 31

Inhibition of return

dot boxes

Answer 31

Prevents your gaze from revisiting a previously attended location
= orient towards new/previously unsearched locations
should = more efficient search

Question 32

Dichotic listening paradigm

+ example of what effect

Answer 32

Breakthrough effect simulation using headphones

attend info in one ear, unattended info in the other

result:
- semantic content not remembered
- physical content slightly remembered, vaguely

Question 33

Bottleneck

Answer 33

Only a limited amount of attentional info can be passed on for further processing

Question 34

Contextual cueing

how does it guide your search

kitchen

Answer 34

Relates to a schema
- gives us an idea of the range of plausible objects in an area guides your search

Question 35

Selective attention

Answer 35

aka cocktail party effect

Remember attended items rather than unattended items

Question 36

Inattentional blindness

+ why bad

Answer 36

Our limited attentional resources can result in missing out on very important or salient things

Question 37

Change blindness

Answer 37

Our perception when a visual change has occurred but we don’t notice / can’t identify it

Question 38

Late-selection model

Answer 38

Filtering occurs after physical + semantic analysis due to capacity limitations