Chapter 5 - Paying Attention

Selective Attention

skill through which a person focuses on one input or one tasks while ignoring other stimuli that are also on the scene

Dichotic Listening

task where participants hear two simultaneous verb messages—one presented via headphones to the left eat and a second on presented to the right ear; in typical experiments, participants are asked to pay attention to one of these inputs (the attended channel) and are urged to ignore the other (the unattended channel)

Attended Channel

stimulus (or group of stimuli) that is person is trying to perceive; ordinarily, information is understood or remembered from the attended channel

Unattended Channel

stimulus (or group of stimuli) that a person is not trying to perceive; ordinarily, little information is understood or remembered from the unattended channel

Shadowing

task where research participants repeat back a verbal input, word for word, as they hear it

Filter

hypothetical mechanism that would block potential distractors from further processing

Fixation Target

visual mark at which participants point their eyes, or fixate; fixation targets help research participants to control their eye position

Inattentional Blindness

pattern where perceivers seem literally not to see stimuli right in front of their eyes; this pattern is caused by the participants focusing their attention on some other stimulus and not expecting the target to appear

Change Blindness

pattern where perceivers either do not see or take a while to see changes in a visual stimulus; this pattern reveals how little people perceive, even from stimuli in plain view, if they are not specifically attending to the target information

Early Selection Hypothesis

proposal that selective attention operates at an early stage of processing, so that the unattended inputs receive little analysis

Late Selection Hypothesis

proposal that selective attention operates at a late stage of processing, so the unattended inputs receive considerable analysis

Biased Competition Theory

proposal that attention function by shifting neurons’ priorities, so that the neurons are more responsive to inputs that have properties associated with the desired or relevant input

Spatial Attention

mechanism through which people allocate processing resources to particular positions in space, so that they more efficiently process any inputs from that region in space

Limited-Capacity System

group of processes where mental resources are limited, so that extra resources supplied to one process must be balanced by a withdrawal of resources somewhere else—with the result that the total resources expended do not exceed the limit of what it available

Mental Resources

some process or capacity needed for performance, but in limited supply

Endogenous Control of Attention

mechanism through which a person chooses (often, on the basis of some meaningful signal) where to focus attention

Exogenous Control of Attention

mechanism through which attention is automatically directed, essentially as a reflex response, to some “attention-grabbing” input

Feature Integration Theory

proposal about the function of attention in “glueing” together elements and features that are in view

Divided Attention

skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously

Executive Control

mental resources and processes that are used to set goals, choose task priorities, and avoid conflict among competing habits or responses

Perseveration Error

pattern of responding where a person produces the same response over and over, even though the person knows that the tasks require a change in response; often observed in patients with brain damage in frontal lobe

Goal Neglect

pattern of behavior where people fail to keep their goal in mind, they rely on habitual responses even if those responses will not move them toward the goal

Automaticity

state achieved by some tasks and some forms of processing, where the task can be performed with little or no attention; automatized actions can be combined with other activities without interference; automatized actions are also often difficult to control, leading many psychologists to refer to them as “mental reflexes"

Stroop Interference

classic demonstration of automaticity where research participants are asked to name the color of ink used to print a word, and the word itself is the name of a different color