Unit 2

Attention

The restriction of cognitive processes so that they operate on a subset of the available information for the purpose of improving the speed of accuracy of the processes

Input/Exogenous Attention

Low-level, fast, and automatic cognitive processes that register raw sensory information from the environment and pull it into the nervous system (bottom-up)

Alertness

A type of input attention that describes an alert state in preparation to detect certain stimuli that is affected by internal and external states

Vigilance

A prolonged state of alertness

Orienting

A type of input attention that is the sudden, reflexive response to a significant or novel stimulus that causes an attention capture/shift

Kingstone et al. Implications

A study that shows how [social] cues can orient an individual’s attention by focusing on a specific location in space (spatial attention)

Visual Search

The process of actively scanning a visual environment to find a specific target item among a field of distractors that typically speeds up as the number of distractors decrease

Feature Search

An exogenous component of visual search that describes the obvious presence of a stimulus that is discriminated from others by a single feature

Conjunction Search

An endogenous component of visual search that describes the discrimination of a stimulus from other distractors by a combinations of features, which decreases reaction time

Feature Integration Theory

A theory that describes how visual search shifts from a preattentive (automatic) to attentive (controlled) stage as the need to integrate multiple features increases

Controlled/Endogenous Attention

The voluntary capacity to choose what you focus on while actively ignoring distractions, which prioritizes the goal of focusing attention

Controlled Processing

Processing that requires active, conscious, and deliberate focus

Automatic Processing

Processing that requires little to no conscious effort, awareness, or attention that occurs during tasks such as habits or frequently repeated procedures (e.g., driving), unless they require deliberate focus

Selective

A type of controlled attention which describes the conscious focus on one input or task while ignoring other stimuli

Cocktail Party Problem

A common problem of trying to pay attention to one of many streams of auditory information

Dichotic Listening

A testing tool that requires participants to listen to two different, simultaneously playing auditory streams and asks them to ignore an unattended channel while shadowing the attended channel

Filter Theory

An attentional theory posed by Broadbent that suggests that people erect a cognitive filter that blocks potential distractors, implying that stimuli are bottlenecked early in processing

Late-Selection Theory

An attentional theory that suggests all stimuli are fully analyzed for meaning before selection occurs, meaning the bottleneck happens later in processing, and are selected based on importance to the current task

Attenuation Theory

An intermediate attentional theory posed by Treisman that suggests unattended stimuli are attenuated, not blocked, based on differing threshold levels and hierarchal processing

Cocktail Party Effect

A phenomenon when a person can hear their name from an unattended stream of information, which challenges the notion that irrelevant stimuli are blocked from attention

Inattentional Blindness

The failure to perceive unexpected [visual] stimuli, which implies that attention processing requires a degree of cognitive control (failure to shift attention spotlight)

Priming Effect

The phenomenon when more-recently fired detectors will fire more readily, explaining the subconscious effect of unattended stimuli

Biased Competition Theory

A theory that suggests attention functions by shifting neurons’ priorities so that neurons are more responsive to inputs that have properties associated with the desired or relevant input or the perceiver’s expectations

Divided Attention

A type of controlled attention that is the skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously, which depends on the specificity and generality of resources

Specificity of Resources

A factor of divided attention that suggests attention can be more easily divided when tasks demand different resources, and that tasks that are similar tend to interfere with each other

Generality of Resources

A factor of divided attention that suggests dissimilar tasks still interfere with each other when the tasks demand similar energy resources, or one tasks demands executive control

Cognitive Control Theory

The mental ability to regulate thoughts, emotions, and actions in line with internal goals rather than reacting purely to habits or immediate impulse

Prefrontal Cortex Frameworks

A theory of cognitive control posed by Cohen, which suggests that the anterior cingulate gyrus acts as a conflict monitor and sends signals to the prefrontal cortex to initiate executive control by boosting the activity of a weaker neural pathway

Dichotic Listening Implications

Listeners cannot detect semantic meaning from the unattended channel (e.g., language, content) —unless it is relevant to them in some way--but they can detect the physical characteristics of the unattended channel (e.g., human vs nonhuman sounds, gender, tone, volume)