unit 2 psych attention and perception

attention

actively focusing on particular information while simultaneously ignoring other information.

internal attention

information or sensations that originate from within the body

external attention

information or sensations that originate from outside the body

sustained attention

involves focusing on one stimulus or task across a prolonged, continuous period of time.

selective attention

involves exclusively focusing attention on a specific stimulus or task while ignoring all other stimuli or tasks.

divided attention

refers to spliting attention across 2 or more stimuli at one time

distractions

Internal or external stimuli that draws attention away from the current task.

multitasking

the act of working on multiple tasks at one time

sensory stimuli

the raw pieces of information that are detected by the five senses

sensation

the process of receiving and detecting raw sensory stimuli via sensory organs and sending the information to the brain

perception

the process of selecting, organising, and interpreting sensory information

selection

the process of attending to certain sensory stimuli, or features of certain stimuli and excluding others.

organisation

the process of regrouping selected features of sensory stimuli in order to form a cohesive and meaningful understanding.

interpretation

the process of understanding and assigning meaning to sensory information

visual sensory system

the network that is involved in the sensation and perception of visual stimuli, including the eyes, the brain, and the nerual pathways.

visual perception

the process of becoming consciously aware of visual stimuli as a result of the interactions between the visual sensory system, and the individual’s internal and external environments

top-down processing

bottom-up processing