Week 3 Attention Flashcards
Selective Attention
The skill through which a person focuses on one input or one task while ignoring other stimuli that are also on the scene
Dichotic listening
A task in which research participants hear two simultaneous verbal messages - one presented via headphones to the left ear and a second one presented to the right ear. In typical experiments, participants are asked to pay attention to one of these inputs (the attended channel) and are urged to ignore the other (the unattended channel)
Attended channel
a stimulus (or group of stimuli) that a person is trying to perceive. Ordinarily, information is understood or remembered from the attended channel.
Unattended channel
A stimulus (or group of stimuli) that a person is not trying to perceive. Ordinarily, little information is understood or remembered from the unattended channel. Often contrasted with attended channel.
Shadowing
A task in which research participants repeat back a verbal input, word for word, as they hear it.
filter
A hypothetical mechanism that would block potential distractors from further processing.
fixation target
A visual mark (e.g., a dot or a plus sign) at which research participants point their eyes, or fixate. Fixation targets help research participants to control their eye position.
inattentional blindness
A pattern in which perceivers seem literally not to see stimuli right in front of their eyes; this pattern is caused by the participants focusing their attention on some other stimulus and not expecting the target to appear.
Change Blindness
A pattern in which perceivers either do not see or take a long time to see large-scale changes in a visual stimulus. This pattern reveals how little people perceive, even from stimuli in plain view, if they are not specifically attending to the target information
Early selection hypothesis
A proposal that selective attention operates at an early stage of processing, so that the unattended inputs receive little analysis.
Late selection hypothesis
A proposal that selective attention operates at a late stage of processing, so that the unattended inputs receive considerable analysis.
biased competition theory
A proposal that attention functions by shifting neurons’ priorities, so that the neurons are more responsive to inputs that have properties associated with the desired or relevant input.
spatial attention
The mechanism through which people allocate processing resources to particular positions in space, so that they more efficiently process any inputs from that region in space.
limited-capacity system
A group of processes in which mental resources are limited, so that extra resources supplied to one process must be balanced by a withdrawal of resources somewhere else—with the result that the total resources expended do not exceed the limit of what is available.
mental resources
Some process or capacity needed for performance, but in limited supply.
endogenous control of attention
A mechanism through which a person chooses (often, on the basis of some meaningful signal) where to focus attention.
exogenous control of attention
A mechanism through which attention is automatically directed, essentially as a reflex response, to some “attention-grabbing” input.
feature integration theory
A proposal about the function of attention in “glueing” together elements and features that are in view.
divided attention
The skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously.
executive control
The mental resources and processes that are used to set goals, choose task priorities, and avoid conflict among competing habits or responses.
perseveration error
A pattern of responding in which a person produces the same response over and over, even though the person knows that the task requires a change in response. This pattern is often observed in patients with brain damage in the frontal lobe.
goal neglect
A pattern of behavior in which people fail to keep their goal in mind, so that, for example, they rely on habitual responses even if those responses will not move them toward the goal.
automaticity
A state achieved by some tasks and some forms of processing, in which the task can be performed with little or no attention. In many cases, automatized actions can be combined with other activities without interference. Automatized actions are also often difficult to control, leading many psychologists to refer to them as “mental reflexes.”
stroop interference
A classic demonstration of automaticity in which research participants are asked to name the color of ink used to print a word, and the word itself is the name of a different color. For example, participants might see the word “YELLOW” printed in blue ink and be required to say “blue.” Considerable interference is observed in this task, with participants apparently being unable to ignore the word’s content even though it is irrelevant to their task.
