What is attention? Flashcards
Why is attention important?
Negative outcomes when it fails = education, workplace, driving.
Applied contexts = advertising, user experience
Clinical contexts = Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Anxiety,
Schizophrenia, Neglect
We can’t look at everything at once.
What does attention failure show?
attention has to be limited capacity resource/ processing ‘bottleneck’
What are the different types of attention?
Selective attention = Focusing attention on certain info while ignoring other info
Sustained attention = Maintaining focused attention or ‘vigilance’ e.g. Security guard monitoring surveillance camera
Divided attention = Another way of looking at capacity limits E.g. multi-tasking
Attention to different sensory modalities = Visual attention has received most examination e.g. sight, touch, sound, smell
How can attention be studied?
Eye movements
Reaction time experiments = assumes attention takes time to move around e.g Spatial cuing task
What does eye movements tell us
Visual attention move separately from eye movements
We don’t always look at what we have attention on = covert vs overt attention
Describe the spatial cuing, RT experiment
Responses = typically slower after invalid vs valid cues
Suggests spatial attention moved to cued location
Works with both endogenous cues (top-down) + exogenous cues (random cues) = covert spatial attention can be both voluntary and involuntary
What happens with RT experiment with visual search?
target “pops out”, increasing non-targets doesn’t affect RT
RT increases with number of non-targets = suggests serial search is required
What happens w/ RT experiments w/ distractor effects?
Assume attention = distracted by a stimulus if it slows us down when it is irrelevant
e.g Stroop task = Name ink colour of word = Suggests that we are unable to ignore the word meaning
What does the response competition flanker task show?
Responses typically slower when distractors = incongruent
vs congruent/ neutral
Suggests even spatially separated distractors can’t be ignored
What does RT experiments show w/ attentional capture?
Assume attention has been “captured” by a stimulus if it slows us down when it is irrelevant
Color “singleton” non-target increases search RTs = evidence of “attentional capture” by salient stimuli
How can self-report measures be used to study attention?
used to test effects of attention on awareness:
- change blindnes
- subjective phenomena = mind-wandering = people who who report more mind-wandering = show more RT interference on measures of distraction + more errors on sustained attention tasks.
How can the effects of attention on neural processing be used to study attention?
Neural response is boosted for covertly attended stimuli (e.g., Wojciulik et al., 1998), Vuilleumier et al., 2001)
Two regions known to respond selectively to specific stimulus
categories:
– Fusiform Face Area (FFA)
– Parahippocampal place area (PPA)
Central fixation
Covert attention to faces increased FFA response.
Covert attention to houses increased PPA response.
