Attention

Input attention

The basic process of getting sensory information into the cognitive system

Four interrlelated ideas

• We are confronted with more attention that what we can attend to.

• Limits to how much we can attend to at one time

• we can respond to some information with little/ no attention

• With enough practice and knowledge some task can become less attention demanding.

Attention

mental process of concentrating effort on a stimulus or a mental event

Attention as a limited mental resource

the limited mental energy or resource that powers the mental system.

Input Attention aspects

• alternes or arousal

• orienting reflex or response

• spotlight attention and search

Controlled attention aspects

• selective attention

• mental resources/ conscious processing

alternes and arousal

• The nervous system must be awake, responsive, and able to interact with the environment

• reason behind Vigilance: the maintenance of attention for infrequent events over time

Explicit VS Implicit processing of Alertness or arousal

Explicit: Involves conscious processing, awareness of task performance, and its outcome.

Implicit: Processing in which there is no necessary involvement of conscious awareness

Bonebakker and al.

created a experiment in which they placed recorded lists before and during (anesthetized) then ask them to recite the words form explicit and implicit (ones they don’t remember hearing) memory.

it concluded that learning can occur without conscious awareness.

Orienting Reflex

• The reflexive redirection of attention toward an unexpected stimulus

• attention capture: physical stimulus which spontaneously redirects attention

• Habituation: A gradual reduction of the orienting response

Spotlight Attention and visual search

The mental attention-focusing mechanism that prepares you to encode stimulus information

Properties of spotlight attention

• can be narrow or broad

• disengages when shifts rather than sweeps

• cognitive not perceptual

pop-out effect

the target object seems to “pop out” of the display.

inhibition of return

Recently checked locations are mentally marked by attention as places that the search will not return to.

facilitation of return

when simply scanning or memorizing, attention returns to a previously fixated location

selective attention

The ability to attend to one source of information while ignoring other ongoing stimuli around us.

Inattention(al) blindness

People can fail to attend to or process information, even when looking directly at it.

the cocktail party effect

selecting one message in a crowed, noisy environment

ex, You hear your name in the previously unattended to noise

Filtering

process of limiting all distractions and focusing on a particular message/ stimulus

Dual task procedure

•in which two task are done simultaneously as a test to see the performance compared to single tasks.

Treisman study

an individual listens to two different auditory streams, typically speech, presented simultaneously to each ear via headphones and is instructed to attend to one stream (the attended ear) while ignoring the other (the unattended ear).

Two models of selective attention

Broadbent’s Filter Theory

• Information is selected based upon the physical characteristics of the information

• Early selection theory

 

Treisman’s Attenuation Theory

• Pattern recognition comes before attention.

• Late Selection Theory

Selection models: summary

1.Selective attention can occur early in processing, based on very low-level, physical characteristics, as Broadbent proposed.

2. it can also be influenced by top-down processing and meaning.

Mind Wandering

Mind wandering occurs when attention drifts off task to some other inappropriate line of thought

Attention as a mental resources

•Attention is mental effort; the mental resource that fuels cognitive activity

•Limited in quantity

•Only so much fuel can be devoted to mental tasks

Attention as a Mental Resource: 2 Principles

Psychological Refractory Period

•A.K.A. Attentional Blink

•A brief slow-down in mental processing as a result of having processed another very recent event

Elastic Attention

Attentional capacity increases with arousal

Automatic and Conscious Processing

•Automatic Processing: Cognitive processes are done with little or no necessary conscious involvement

•Conscious Processing: a deliberate, voluntary allocation of mental effort or concentration

The Stroop Task

•List of coloured words is given and participant must name the colour of the ink. However, the coloured words are colours that do not match the ink colour

Practice and Automaticity

Practice, meaning repetition and overlearning, can make tasks more automatic

Disadvantages of Automaticicty

• difficult to reverse the effects of practice in a automated tasks

• Action slips: unintended, often automatic, actions that are wrong for the current situation.

Hemineglect

•A disruption or decreased ability to look at something in the neglected (often left) field of vision and pay attention to it.

causes odd behaviour

not a disruption in the sensory apparatus rather a perceptual error.

Hemineglect research

• Spatial cuing task: when the only stimulus is on the left side forcing them to attend to the left side.

• affects both input and controlled attention

• attentional capacity issues