week 7: attention

Question 1

what is needed for the mind to process information

Answer 1

it has to be represented in a way the mind/brain can manipulate it

Question 2

what is change blindness

Answer 2

the inability to notice (salient) changes in a visual scene

Question 3

how is our ability to recognise visual scenes

Answer 3

its great

Question 4

what is boundary extension

Answer 4

when we memories a visual scene, a wide-angle view of the scene tends to be stored in the memory

Question 5

what is correct rejection rate

Answer 5

things that are not important to the visual scene changing take longer or don’t get recognised. eg. clothes changed

Question 6

when we perceive a visual scene, 2 types of representation seem to be formed:

Answer 6

representation of the meaning of the scene
representation of surface properties of the scene (visual details, colour etc)

Question 7

what characteristics of representation of visual information is well recognised

Answer 7

the meaning of the scene is very well represented

Question 8

what characteristics of representation of visual information is not good well recognised

Answer 8

the surface properties are not

Question 9

what is attention

Answer 9

the selection mechanism that allows us to process less information than we receive.

Question 10

why is attention important

Answer 10

in order to use our neural and cognitive resources effectively, it is necessary to select important pieces of information for further processing

Question 11

what is early selection theory: the filter theory

Answer 11

sensory information has to pass through some bottleneck
only some of the sensory information is selected for further processing

Question 12

what task was developed for early selection filter theory

Answer 12

dichotic listening task

Question 13

what is the dichotic listening task

Answer 13

requires the subject to shadow, or repeat aloud, a message presented to one ear while ignoring a message presented to the other ear

Question 14

what did the filter theory find

Answer 14

that the unattended message is usually not remembered

Question 15

what type of information from the unattended message is processed

Answer 15

some non-semantic aspects of the message (eg. whether voice was male or female)

Question 16

what is the cocktail party effect

Answer 16

you can hear your name mentioned in a crowded bar, even when you are talking with someone else

Question 17

what does the cocktail party effect suggest

Answer 17

that some semantic information can also pass through a bottleneck without attention

Question 18

what is early-selection theory: the attenuation theory

Answer 18

the salience of unattended stimuli is reduced, but they are not filtered out entirely

Question 19

what is late-selection theory

Answer 19

the filter occurs after the perceptual stimulus has undergone analysis for its semantic content

Question 20

what is the prediction of the attenuation theory

Answer 20

the target will be less frequently detected in an unshadowed ear

Question 21

what is the prediction of the late-selection theories

Answer 21

the target will be detected equally well in either ear

Question 22

what were the results of detention accuracy

Answer 22

in the shadowed ear: 87%
in the unshadowed ear: 8%

Question 23

what do the detection accuracy results support

Answer 23

the attenuation theory

Question 24

what are some types of attention

Answer 24

voluntary attention
reflective attention

Question 25

what is voluntary attention

Answer 25

top down
goal directed

Question 26

what is reflective attention

Answer 26

bottom up
stimulus driven

Question 27

for voluntary attention where is the focus

Answer 27

the focus of attention is usually the same as the focus of the eyes

Question 28

when is voluntary attention not the same as the eyes

Answer 28

posners cueing paradigm

Question 29

what happens when more time passes between a reflective cue and a target

Answer 29

the response to the target becomes slower

Question 30

what is inhibition of return

Answer 30

the reflective attention system has built in mechanisms to prevent reflexively directed attention from being stuck at a location for too long

Question 31

what is meant by feature integration theory

Answer 31

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

Question 32

what happens in feature integration theory tests

Answer 32

illusory conjunctions of features occur almost as frequently as correct combinations

Question 33

what happens without focussed attention for feature integration theory

Answer 33

individual features are perceived but they are not always combined properly

Question 34

what is dual-task performance

Answer 34

multitasking

Question 35

can we do 2 or more things simultaneously without having any interference

Answer 35

the answer depends on the agree to which tasks involved require attention