Studied by 1 person
Attention
process of concentrating on specific features of the environment or on certain thoughts or activities
Selective attention
focus on one object/idea/etc., excludes others
we do not attend to a large fraction of the information in the environment
filtering out some information and promoting other information for further processing
Divided attention
the processes used to focus on more than one source or task at once
Dichotic listening
one message is presented to the left ear and another to the right ear
participant “shadows” one message to ensure they are attending to that message
results show it’s easy to report the shadowed message
participants could not report the content of the message in the unattended ear
knew that there was a message (vs. music or silence)
knew the gender of the speaker, tone of voice (high/low, soft/loud)
the unattended ear is being processed at some level
change of tone or gender is noticed
Early selection model
Broadbent’s filter model
filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning
Sensory
Holds all incoming information for a fraction of a second
Transfers all information to the next stage
Filter
identifies attended message based on physical characteristics
Only attended message is passed on to the next stage
Detector
Processes all information to determine higher-level characteristics of the message (i.e. - meaning of the message)
Short-term memory
Receives output of detector
Holds information for 10-15 seconds and may transfer it to long-term memory
Does NOT explain
why the participant’s name gets through
cocktail party effect
effects of practice on detecting information in the unattended ear
you can be trained to detect in unattended ear
based on meaning of message
Participants can shadow → meaningful messages that switch from one ear to another
Intermediate-selection model
Treisman’s Attenuation Theory
attended message is separated from unattended message early in the information-processing system (before meaning processing)
Only important unattended info is fully processed for meaning and brought to conscious awareness
Attenuator
analyzes incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning
Attended message is let through the attenuator at full strength, unattended message is let through at a much weaker strength
Dictionary unit
contains words, each of which have thresholds for being activated
words that are common or important have low thresholds
uncommon words have high thresholds
Late selection model
selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after ALL information has been analyzed (unconsciously) for meaning → selection process happens after
the meaning of the biasing word significantly affected participants’ choice
yet participants were unaware of the presentation of the biasing words
Inattentional blindness
a stimulus that is not attended is not perceived, even though a person might be looking directly at it
sometimes effects of attention are so strong that we fail to see stimuli that are directly in front of our eyes
no warning leads to failure to detect change in fixation dot
unconscious perception can still occur in the absence of attention
no conscious perception without attention
Change blindness
if shown two versions of a picture, differences between them are not immediately apparent
Task to identify differences requires concentrated attention and search
as the task difficulty inc, participants were less likely to notice the fight (esp @ night)
attention is necessary for (conscious) perception
Task load
how much of a person’s cognitive resources are used to accomplish a task
Flanker-compatibility task
can participants focus their attention on detecting the target so that the identity of the distractor will not affect their performance
Results: reaction time is longer for incompatible distractors
since this a low-load task, participants still had cognitive resources available to process additional (although irrelevant) information
incompatible distractor increases reaction time ONLY for low-load, not high-load condition
High-load
participants use all resources for task
no resources left process the extra distractor
High-load
uses almost all resources; no resources left over for other tasks
____ experiments support early selection
complex stimuli involve more effort, no resources left to process unattended information
Low-load
uses few resources; plenty of resources left over for other tasks
____ experiments support late selection
less complex stimuli take less effort, so even the unattended information is processes to an extent
Spatial attention
attention can be “primed” to a location without moving the eyes
participants respond faster to light at an expected action than at an unexpected location
location-based
attention being directed to one particular spatial location
object-based
attention being directed to one particular object
damage to the right parietal lobe
cannot attend to the left side of space
Unilateral neglect syndrome
damage to the right parietal lobe
cannot attend to the left side of space
it is not that they can’t see they just don’t notice unless told
Even when drawing with reference, they are still likely to miss left details
believed that they drew the whole image completely
“the eyes are slaves to attention”
symptoms support the idea of location-based attention
some experiments suggest that the deficit is also object-based
Once their attentional system is locked onto the target, they don’t lose it when it is moved to their left field of vision
Balint’s syndrome
patients can only focus on one “object” at a time
grouping objects into one helps → ie: connecting red dots with green dots with a single line helps see them as one object and therefore see both red and green
Resource specialization
doing two tasks at once is easier if the two tasks are relatively different (verbal + spatial is easier than verbal + verbal)
task-specific vs. task-general cog resources
our attention can be lessened when doing two things at once (ie: driving and talking, talking and walking)
Central executive theories
executive control
involved in working memory
keeps desired goal in mind
serves to inhibit automatic responses
Prefrontal cortex damage
PFC is particularly important to executive control
patients with PFC damage show preservation errors as well as goal neglect
Practice
enables people to simultaneously do two things that were difficult at first
Schneider and Shiffrin (1977)
consistent mapping → target would always be numbers, and distractors would be always letters
with _______, were able to do the task automatically, without consciously working to divide attention
Automatic processing occurs without intention and only uses some of a person’s cognitive resources → more susceptible to distractors
Varied mapping condition: rules changed from trail to trail
over time, participants never achieved automatic processing
had to engage in controlled processing due to changes in rules
Note
Flashcard