Cognition - Chapter 4: Attention

Attention

The abilities to focus on specific features, objects, or locations or on certain thoughts or activities.

Selective attention

The ability to focus on one message and ignore all others.

e.g. Focusing on a study guide while ignoring the noise of other people talking

Distraction

Occurs when one stimulus interferes with attention to or the processing of another stimulus

Divided attention

The ability to pay attention to, or carry out, two or more different tasks simultaneously

Attentional capture

A rapid shifting of attention, usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement.

e.g. When one’s studying is interrupted by the sound of a gunshot

Visual scanning

Movement of the eyes from one location or object to another.

When did modern research on attention begin?

Modern research on attention began in the 1950s with the introduction of Broadbent’s filter model of attention.

Donald Broadbent’s filter model of attention

A model of attention that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli.

Dichotic listening

The procedure of presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear.

Dichotic listening (con’t)

Was first done by Colin Cherry in 1953

Shadowing

The procedure of repeating a message out loud as it is heard.

Shadowing (con’t)

Is commonly used in conjunction with studies of selective attention that use the dichotic listening procedure.

Shadowing’s results

Participants could easily shadow a spoken message presented to the attended ear, but they couldn’t report what was being said in the unattended ear

Cocktail party effect

The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli

e.g. At a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations.

Broadbent’s filter model of attention.

1. Sensory memory

2. Filter

3. Detector

4. Output

Sensory memory

Holds all the incoming information for a fraction of a second and then transfers all of it to the filter

Filter

Identifies the message that is being attended to based on its physical characteristics, and lets only this attended message pass through to the detector in the next stage.

e.g. Things like the speaker’s tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, and accent

Detector

Processes the information from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning.

Output

When a detector is sent to short-term memory, which holds information for 10 to 15 seconds and also transfers information into long-term memory for indefinite storage

The benefits to Broadbent’s attention model

It provided testable predictions about selective attention, which stimulated further research

Attenuator

In Annie Treisman’s model of selective attention, the attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of

• Physical characteristics (Pitch)

• Language (How the words or syllables are grouped)

• Meaning (How sequences of words create meaningful phrases)

Attenuator (con’t)

Attended messages pass through the attenuator at full strength, and unattended messages pass through with reduced strength.

Attenuation model of attention

A model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages.

Attenuation model of attention (con’t)

Treisman proposed that the analysis of the message proceeds only as far as is necessary to identify the attended message.

e.g. If there are two messages, one in a male voice and one in a female voice, then analysis at the physical level is adequate to separate the low-pitched male voice from the higher-pitched female voice.

Attenuation (III)

The attended message emerges at full strength and the unattended messages are attenuated

Attenuation model of attention’s first stage

In the first stage, an attenuator analyzes the incoming message and lets through the attended message, and also the unattended message, but at a lower (attenuated) strength.

The dictionary unit

A processing unit containing words and thresholds for activating the words

e.g. A word with a low threshold (like one’s name) might be detected even when it’s presented softly or is obscured by other words

The dictionary unit (con’t)

Helps explain why we can sometimes hear a familiar word, such as our name, in an unattended message.

Priming

A change in response to a stimulus caused by the previous presentation of the same or a similar stimulus

e.g. When someone associates an ambiguous sentence like “They were throwing stones at the bank” with a financial institution due to the word ‘money’ being presented to the unattended ear

Repetition priming

When an initial presentation of a stimulus affects the person’s response to the same stimulus when it is presented later

Lexical priming

Priming that involves the meaning of words.

e.g. Rose would prime flower because their meanings are related.

Late selection models of attention

A model of selective attention that proposes selection of stimuli for final processing doesn’t occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning

Processing capacity

The amount of information input that a person can handle, which sets a limit on the person’s ability to process information.

Perceptual load

Related to the difficulty of a task. Low-load tasks use only a small amount of a person’s processing capacity

Perceptual load (con’t)

High-load tasks use more processing capacity.

Low-load tasks

A task that uses few resources, leaving some capacity to handle other tasks.

High-load tasks

A task that uses most or all of a person’s resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks.

Load theory of attention

Lavie’s proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person’s carrying out.

Load theory of attention (con’t)

High-load tasks result in less distraction and available processing capacity, and vice versa

e.g. When driving to a friend’s house for the first time, you feel the need to turn down your music and slow down so you can focus on the numbers written on the buildings (high-load)

For an easy, low-load task, the remaining processing capacity can handle task-irrelevant stimuli, as you experience once you leave the neighbourhood and can focus on your normal drive home and listen to music again

Endogenous attention

Attention that is focused voluntarily on a stimulus in a sustained, goal-driven manner.

e.g. When one focuses on their studying while also attempting to ignore the talking in the coffee shop

Exogenous attention

Attention that is involuntarily directed toward a stimulus in a transient, fleeting manner.

e.g. One’s attention being drawn rapidly and without their conscious control toward the loud siren

Stroop effect

A task described by J. R. Stroop in 1935 in which a person is instructed to respond to one aspect of a stimulus, (such as the color of ink that a word is printed in), and ignore another aspect (such as the color that the word names.)

Central vision

Describes the center-most region of our visual field, and this area is usually where we focus our attention.

Peripheral vision

Everything that surrounds the center of our visual field

Foveal vision

When objects in central vision fall on a small area called the fovea, which has much better detail vision than the peripheral retina

Fixation

A pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene during perception and attention

Saccadic eye movement

Eye movements from one fixation point to another

Overt attention

Shifting of attention by moving the eyes.

Overt attention (con’t)

Contrasts with covert attention.

Stimulus salience

Bottom-up factors that determine attention to elements of a scene.

e.g. Color, contrast, and orientation. (not meaningfulness)

Saliency map

Map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the scene.

Scene schemas

A person’s knowledge about what is likely to be contained in a particular scene

Scene schemas (con’t)

People look longer at things that seem out of place in a scene because their attention is affected by their knowledge of what is usually found in the given environment.

e.g. Observers looked longer at a printer in a kitchen scene than the pot because a printer is less likely to be found in a kitchen

Scene schemas’ benefits

It can help guide attention to different areas of the scene

e.g. Knowledge of what is usually in an office may cause a person to look toward the desk to see the computer

What’s scanning influenced by?

Scanning is influenced by people’s predictions

e.g. Scanning anticipates what a person is going to do next as they make a peanut butter sandwich or that stop signs are most likely to be located at intersections

Covert attention (seeing “out of the corner of one’s eye.”)

Occurs when attention is shifted without moving the eyes

Covert attention (seeing something “out of the corner of one’s eye.”) [con’t]

Contrasts with overt attention.

Pre-cuing

A technique where a cue directs attention to a specific location in the visual field before a target appears.

e.g. When focusing their attention on a drop of water on the side of a glass, one will be more likely to notice a fly land on the rim of said glass

Same-object advantage

Occurs when the enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object, so that attention to one place on an object results in a facilitation of processing at other places on the object.

Attentional warping

Occurs when the map of categories on the brain changes to make more space for categories that are being searched for as a person attends to a scene.

e.g. When a person is on the lookout for vehicles prior to viewing the movie, the brain becomes “warped” or “tuned” so that large areas respond best to vehicles and things related to vehicles

Task switching

A shifting of attention and cognitive resources from one task to another

e.g. Texting and driving requires task switching. To do both, someone has to alternate where attention is allocated rapidly: first at the road, then at the phone, then back at the road, then back at the phone, etc

Multitasking

A phenomenon in which a person attempts to consciously divide attention between multiple tasks while also attempting to switch between those tasks.

Automatic processing

Processing that occurs automatically, without the person intending to do it, and that also uses few cognitive resources.

e.g. Driving, locking the door

Automatic processing (con’t)

Is associated with easy or well-practiced tasks.

Choking (cognitive choking)

A decline in performance following increased conscious awareness or intended control of a task

Choking (cognitive choking) [con’t]

Is more common when people are under pressure or stress, as attention is divided between the task and stress-provoking thoughts

e.g. While playing the piano, giving a class presentation

Productivity illusion

The false belief that multitasking makes a person more productive, while actual productivity tends to be slower and lower quality.

Mind wandering (daydreaming)

Often unintentional thoughts that come from within a person that’s very prevalent to their current situation(s)

Mindless reading (Zoned-out reading)

When one suddenly realizes they have no idea what they’ve just read because they were thinking about something else

Inattentional blindness

How one can miss things and stimuli even if they’re clearly visible due to not directing their attention to them

e.g. Viewers watching a video failing to notice a gorilla due to focusing their attention on counting ball passes

Visual search

Occurs when a person is looking for one stimulus or object among a number of other stimuli or objects.

Inattentional deafness.

Occurs when inattention causes a person to miss an auditory stimulus

e.g. Experiments have shown that it is more difficult to detect a tone when engaged in a difficult visual search task.

Change detection

Detecting differences between pictures or displays that are presented one after another

i.e. Spot the difference

Change blindness

Difficulty in detecting changes in similar, but slightly different, scenes that are presented one after another

Change blindness (con’t)

The changes are often easy to see once attention is directed to them but are usually undetected in the absence of appropriate attention.

Continuity errors

In film, changes that occur from one scene to another that don’t match

e.g. When a character reaches for a croissant in one shot, which turns into a pancake in the next shot.

Binding

Process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create perception of a coherent object

Binding problem

The problem of explaining how an object’s individual features become bound together.

Feature integration theory (FIT)

An approach to object perception, developed by Anne Treisman, that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object.

Pre-attentive stage

The first stage of Treisman’s feature integration theory, in which an object is analyzed into its features before we focus attention on an object.

Focused attention stage

The second stage of Treisman’s feature integration theory where attention causes the combination of features into perception of an object.

Illusory conjunctions

A situation, demonstrated in experiments by Anne Treisman, in which features from different objects are inappropriately combined

e.g. A small blue circle and a large green square might be seen as a large blue square and a small green circle.

Why do illusory conjunctions occur?

In the pre-attentive stage, each feature exists independently of the others.

i.e. Features such as “redness,” “curvature,” or “tilted line” are, at this early stage of processing, not associated with a specific object

Balint’s syndrome

A condition caused by brain damage in which a person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects.

Conjunction search

Searching among distractors for a target that involves two or more features

e.g. “horizontal” and “green.”

Conjunction search (con’t)

Is useful for studying binding because finding the target in a conjunction search involves scanning a display in order to focus attention at a specific location.

Ventral attention network

A network that controls attention based on stimulus salience

Dorsal attention network

A network that controls attention based on top-down processing.

Effective connectivity

How easily activity can travel along a particular pathway between two structures.

Synchronization

Occurs when neural responses become synchronized in time, so positive and negative responses occur at the same time and with similar amplitudes.

Synchronization (con’t)

It’s been proposed that synchronization is a mechanism responsible for enhanced effective connectivity and enhanced communication between two areas that accompany shifts of attention.

Executive attention network

A proposed complex neural network responsible for executive functions that may involve two separate networks

Executive functions

A number of processes that involve controlling attention and dealing with conflicting responses.

e.g. The stroop test

Cognitive control

A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli.

Cognitive control (con’t)

Is related to executive function, inhibitory control, and willpower.

Inhibitory control

A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli.

Inhibitory control (con’t)

Is related to executive function, cognitive control and willpower.

Willpower

A mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli.

Willpower (con’t)

Is related to executive function, inhibitory control, and cognitive control.