Week 3 Slides Flashcards
Features of Attention
- Our Sensory Systems are sensitive to very small energy
- They are also flexible
- Under optimum conditions we can detect a candle 30 miles away
- Attention gives us the ability to focus on specific stimuli
Define Attention
Being able to focus on a specific stimuli or location in our environment
Define Attending
- How much a stimulus affects behaviour can demonstrate how much attention we pay to it
- Varied stimulus around a dimension (colour) and how we respond to that dimension
Lee, Hayes & Lovibond 2018
- Trained people to associate a snack was available from a vending machine when a blueish green light was presented
- People were shown 11 different colours and asked to say how sure they were a snack would arrive
- People were sure at S6 but less sure the further away the colours were
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Drawbacks of Attending & Generalisation
Maladaptive Generalisation has been identified in clinical disorders
- Panic Disorder (lissek et al. 2010)
- PTSD (Grillon & Morgan, 1999; Morey et al.,)
- Generalised Anxiety Disorder (Lissek et al. 2014)
All these condition relate to attention
Morey et al 2015
- Used fear conditioning model to assess the generalisation of conditioned fear
- Found PTSD patients misidentified S5 as the CS more often and remembered S5 more often
- PTSD Symptom are more likely to be triggered by threat curs
- These cues are very different to the original trauma
- Resemblance and symbols can still be triggers
Mary Cover Jones
- Used Little Albert case to develop the first behaviour therapies
- Albert’s case shows that fears can generalise from the Initial event
- Exposure Therapy Associative Learning appear helpful to treat Phobia and PTSD
- Salience = Attention
- CS is the key part of Associative Learning
- If a person is not attending to CS there will be no learning
Two Theories about how Attention can Influence Salience
- Mackintosh 1975 - Salience is higher when it accurately predicts US
- Pearce-Hall 1980 - CS will be attended to more if the prediction of the US is uncertain
- Very different to being a poor predictor
- This is partial vs continuous reinforcement
These two theories may partly account for how the environment can capture our attention
Animal Attention to Stimuli
- Animals attend to stimuli when the environment is less predictable
- This helps avoid dangers and threats
- Also helps discover new opportunities
Mackintosh 1975 vs Pearce-Hall 1980
- Which theory is right?
- Haselgrove et al., says both occur simultaneously
- Showed when stimuli trained separately then brought together attention will be biased towards the unpredictable stimuli
- When trained together attention is biased to the predictable stimuli
Summary of Attention
- Attention is how well we focus on certain stimuli or locations in the environment
- Generalisation Gradient tell us how we attend to stimulus
- Maladaptive Generalisation is connected to clinical disorders like PTSD
Summary of Associative Learning
- Attention being paid to the CS is measured by salience.
- Mackintosh (1975) - Attention is paid to more predictable
outcomes - Pearce Hall (1980) - Attention is paid to more unpredictable outcomes.
- Both appear to occur simultaneously.
Selective Attention
The ability to focus on one message while ignoring others
Distraction
One Stimulus interfering with the process of another stimulus
Divided Attention
Paying attention to more than one thing at a time
Attentional Capture
A quick shift of attention usually caused by loud, sudden noise, bright light or event
Dichotic Listening Procedure
- Presenting different stimuli to each ear
- Participant attends to one message by copying it
- Participants could not say what the information in the other ear was
- Some stimulus was processed because they could identify change in gender and tone of the message
Cocktail Party Effect
- Moray 1959
- people could not detect a word repeated 35 times
- But ⅓ people noticed when their name was used
- This is bottom up selectivity to a single stimulus
The Attentional Filter
- Is there a way to filter out information so we can only focus on information that is important
- Early vs Late processing gives different predictions
Broadbent’s Filter Model
Early Selection Model has 4 Key Components
- Sensory Memory
- Filter
- Detector
- Short-term Memory
Broadbent’s Filter Model - Sensory Memory
Holds all incoming information for a fraction of a second the transfers it to the next stage: The Filter
Broadbent’s Filter Model - Filter
Identifies attended messages based on physical characteristics and only attended message is passed on to the next stage: Detector
Broadbent’s Filter Model - Detector
Processes all information to determine higher level characteristics of the message