week 7: attention Flashcards
what is needed for the mind to process information
it has to be represented in a way the mind/brain can manipulate it
what is change blindness
the inability to notice (salient) changes in a visual scene
how is our ability to recognise visual scenes
its great
what is boundary extension
when we memories a visual scene, a wide-angle view of the scene tends to be stored in the memory
what is correct rejection rate
things that are not important to the visual scene changing take longer or don’t get recognised. eg. clothes changed
when we perceive a visual scene, 2 types of representation seem to be formed:
representation of the meaning of the scene
representation of surface properties of the scene (visual details, colour etc)
what characteristics of representation of visual information is well recognised
the meaning of the scene is very well represented
what characteristics of representation of visual information is not good well recognised
the surface properties are not
what is attention
the selection mechanism that allows us to process less information than we receive.
why is attention important
in order to use our neural and cognitive resources effectively, it is necessary to select important pieces of information for further processing
what is early selection theory: the filter theory
sensory information has to pass through some bottleneck
only some of the sensory information is selected for further processing
what task was developed for early selection filter theory
dichotic listening task
what is the dichotic listening task
requires the subject to shadow, or repeat aloud, a message presented to one ear while ignoring a message presented to the other ear
what did the filter theory find
that the unattended message is usually not remembered
what type of information from the unattended message is processed
some non-semantic aspects of the message (eg. whether voice was male or female)
what is the cocktail party effect
you can hear your name mentioned in a crowded bar, even when you are talking with someone else
what does the cocktail party effect suggest
that some semantic information can also pass through a bottleneck without attention
what is early-selection theory: the attenuation theory
the salience of unattended stimuli is reduced, but they are not filtered out entirely
what is late-selection theory
the filter occurs after the perceptual stimulus has undergone analysis for its semantic content
what is the prediction of the attenuation theory
the target will be less frequently detected in an unshadowed ear
what is the prediction of the late-selection theories
the target will be detected equally well in either ear
what were the results of detention accuracy
in the shadowed ear: 87%
in the unshadowed ear: 8%
what do the detection accuracy results support
the attenuation theory
what are some types of attention
voluntary attention
reflective attention
what is voluntary attention
top down
goal directed
what is reflective attention
bottom up
stimulus driven
for voluntary attention where is the focus
the focus of attention is usually the same as the focus of the eyes
when is voluntary attention not the same as the eyes
posners cueing paradigm
what happens when more time passes between a reflective cue and a target
the response to the target becomes slower
what is inhibition of return
the reflective attention system has built in mechanisms to prevent reflexively directed attention from being stuck at a location for too long
what is meant by feature integration theory
people must focus attention on a stimulus before they can synthesise its features into a pattern
in essence, attention works as glue with which various features are combined into an object
what happens in feature integration theory tests
illusory conjunctions of features occur almost as frequently as correct combinations
what happens without focussed attention for feature integration theory
individual features are perceived but they are not always combined properly
what is dual-task performance
multitasking
can we do 2 or more things simultaneously without having any interference
the answer depends on the agree to which tasks involved require attention
