PSYC2050: QUIZ 2 (WKS 6-10)

Why do we need attention?

- capacity limits
- only having the ability to make one decision at a time

What makes a stimulus capture attention?

Sudden onset, intense, unexpected, stimulus shares features with the target

What is selective attention? What test is used to assess this?

ignoring irrelevant stimulus, and selecting the relevant stimulus. ie. The stroop test

What is divided attention?

when doing more than one thing your brain quickly switches between things instead of multitasking

Define attention?

- concentration and mental effort
- prioritising cognitive operations

What is the important elements of directing attention?

we need to maintain and sustain attention on tasks but also be flexible enough to shift attention when required

What are the two theories on how the brains shifts attention?

- top down (endogenous) and goal directed
- bottom up (exogenous) and stimulus driven

What is an example of an endogenous capture of attention?

tuning out of a dull conversation at a party and tuning into another interesting conversation

What is an example of exogenous capture of attention?

attention is captured by hearing your best friends name in a conversation

What brain areas are associated with the different types of attention attatchment?

the left is endogenous and the right is exogenous

What is inattentional blindness?

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

What is change blindness?

failing to notice changes in the environment due to visual disruption (ie. image flicker)

What does inattentional blindness and change blindness tell us?

- What we see is a result of our attention.
- Attention is more than what the eyes see.
-We can only see a small fraction of the external world.

What is meant by the statement, attention can operate at the level of objects?

there are separate systems processing the what, vs where and when.

What is Balint Syndrome: Simultanagnosia?

damage to the bilateral occipital/parietal lobe prevents patients form perceiving more than one stimulus at a time. Ie. can seen red dots, can see green dots but when shown a mix can only see one colour
EXCEPTION: when the coloured dots are grouped together, they can be seen

What is covert attention?

shifting attention from one place to another while keeping the eyes stationary

What is overt attention?

shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes

What is the cocktail party effect?

an ability to tune out other voices, outside of our conversation but also hear our name across the room.

What was found in the study by Cherry (1950) about dichotic listening & shadowing?

Participants can decipher physical features such as speech vs music, gender, pitch, tone of voice. And also some meaning ie. pronunciation of unattended stimulus.

What meaning can be found in the unattended message in the Cherry study?

cannot report meaning or language but participants can hear their own name

What is Broadbent filter theory about unattended messages?

individuals can decipher perceptual features (ie. voice) to filter out irrelevant messages

What was found in the Mackay 1973 study?

attended messages had homograph, unattended messages had river or money. Participants were likely to choose river, if river had occured in the unattended messages even if they have not heard it.

What did detusch & deutsch propose about late selection?

the unattended messages is processed all the way to meaning

What was Treisman & Geffen's 1967 test of early and late theory?

participants must tap when designated target words appear in either shadowed or unattended messages. Target detection occurs 87% of the time in attended year vs 8% of the time in unattended ear.

What was the Nillie Lavies Load Theory?

the circumstances we see late and early selection is dependent on the difficulty of the task

What did Lavie et al. 2004 find in their working memory load study?

under conditions of high working memory load you get late selection. Under conditions of low working memory load you get early selection. This is because in high working memory load you are more likely to process distracting stimuli

What did Kahneman, 1973 say about processing capacity?

attention is the process of allocating resources to inputs. Resources increase with arousal. If two tasks are done concurrently, one must be delayed.

What was found in the Spelke, Hirst & Neisser, 1976 study?

training, generates automaticity where task demands decrease with practice and reduces capacity demands

T or F? reaction time increases with greater difficulty of tasks or when selection becomes more difficult

true

What is parallel (pre-attentive) search?

the target pops out as the participant only has to look for one distinguishing factor ie. red x
- does not require control of attention
- efficient
- flat slope
- features

What is serial (attentive) search?

it is conjunctive, requires attention and awareness as distinguishing between more than one factor ie. red x when there is red os and black xs
- inefficient
- steep slope

What was found in the study by Treisman & Gelade (1980)?

- feature search is fast and unaffected by search set size.
- conjunction search is slower and affected by search set size

What is exhaustive search?

when the target is absent, participants take a long time to conduct the search

What is Feature Integration theory?

Suggests that there are two stages when perceiving objects: feature stage and conjunction stage.

feature stage: analyzes features, registered early, automatically, and in parallel

conjunction stage: combine features into object, sequentially, conscious attention

Explains why is it relatively easy to conduct feature searches and relatively difficult to conduct conjunction searches.

What are some limitation of feature integration theory?

- features do not always pop out
- conjunctions can lead to flat search slopes

What did the study by Duncan & Humphreys (1989) find?

the similarity of the target and the distractors significantly effect reaction time
- search is much easier (and quicker) when distractors are similar to each other

What did the study by Wolfe 1998 find?

The slope is much greater when the target is absent

What is attentional blink?

if two visual stimuli are presented concurrently, the accuracy for the second stimuli is reduced if the second stimuli is presented with 200 to 600 ms

What does RSVP mean?

rapid serial visual presentation

What is pattern masking?

when adjacent items reduce processing of the targets. A masked word may not be seen, but it can affect a bias in response.

T or F? T1 difficulty, makes the attentional blink greater

true

What happens when the number of distractors are increased in an AB paradigm?

competitive and inhibitory effects occur on the targets.

What is the task switching paradigm?

switching is an executive control operation. It involves establishing the appropriate task set and disengaging in an inappropriate set

What is an example of knowledge of task switching before psychological research?

the building of first cars, everyone had a set task to reduce the effects of task switching

What was found in the study by Arthur Jerslid 1927?

blocks of trials with alternating tasks takes longer. Even if the task changes are regular and predictable there is still switch costs

What Jerslid, 1927 find in their study?

the switch costs incurred for different responses and stimuli is small. The switch cost is greater if the task and the response selection changes.

What were the findings in the Rogers & Monsell, 1995 AABB paradigm?

large switch costs (accuracy and reaction time) when switching between tasks
- on day two, there were major improvements in the switch and non switch trials

What were the tasks of the Rogers & Monsell 1995 paradigm?

Digit task - right button for odd digit, left fo reven
Letter task - right button for vowel, left for consonant

What is the effect on practice on switch costs?

costs are reduce but not eliminated with practice of separate and switching tasks

What is the effect of task difficulty on switch costs?

switching to easier tasks incurs the greater costs
ie. from colour naming to word naming in the stroop task

Why is it revolutionary that is easier to switch to the more difficult task?

disengaging from the previous task is a major factor. Hence why disengaging from a more difficult task is harder

What did Rogers & Monsell 1995 find in their study?

- an individual can maintain 2 task sets for different tasks and stimuli
- task set needs to change when task changes

What is the task-cuing paradigm (Sedevan & Taylor, 1987)?

- switch costs decreased as interval increased to 2-3 seconds
- cuing reduces task-switch costs but does not eliminate them

What are the causes of task switching effects?

- adequate preparation cannot remove switch costs (residual costs)

What are residual costs?

exogenous effects. Cannot do any decision making for the next trial until the stimulus has been presented and identified

What did Rogers & Monsell study find about exogenous effects?

the incongruent stimulus was slower than the congruent stimulus. This reflects the learning response for the stimuli as endogenous is the preparation time theory

How do the theories of switch costs differ?

- the role of active preparation (endogenous factor)
- the role of interference effects from prior tasks and tasks set that dissipate passively
- whether exogenous factors play a role

What are the theories associated with task switching?

1. disengagement theory
2. endogenous + exogenous factors
3. endogenous only theory

What is the disengagement theory? (Allport et al. 1994)

- Task set decays after several minutes but impairs alternative tasks

What is the endogenous + exogenous factors theory? (Rogers & Monsell)

- switch costs reduces as preparation time increases
- the residual costs cannot be removed, so exogenous factors occur at arrival of stimulu

What is the endogenous only theory (de Jong, 2000)?

- the residual costs arises because participants do not prepare adequately on every trial

What is Kahneman's capacity theory?

over learned tasks become automatic and consumer fewer resources. Practice;
- improves performance
- reduces task effort
- faciliates restructuring and coordination of concurrent tasks

What was found in the automaticity experiment by Shiffrin & Scheneider (1977)?

participants had to press a key as soon as they saw a target. In categorical condition participants learn the target and set size has no effect. Ps have difficulty when assignment of items is reversed. In mixed condition, there is not simple response rule and effect size has an effect.

What are the components of automaticity?

- without awareness
- without conscious deliberation/obligatory
- without expenditure of resources
- rigid and habitual

T or F. In the absence of practice, thought and application of rules in required.

Logan 1988 - True

What are the drawbacks of criteria for automaticity?

- capacity and interference
- lack of awareness in intentional tasks
- habits are not unconscious, the link with intention is lost
- automaticity depends on the control and the situation

What is the capacity of working memory?

7 +/- 2

What is Baddeley's Working Memory Model?

central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketch pad and episodic buffer

What is the central executive?

an attention controller that is an interface between WM and LTM.
Functions:
- coordination of the subsidiary WM systems
- control of encoding & retrieval strategies
- switching of attention
- mental manipulation of material held

What is the phonological loop?

- maintains verbal, sequential information in a phonological (sound based) code.
Information decays after about 2 seconds, unless maintained in rehearsal.

What are the four key effects of the phonological loop?

- phonological similarity effect
- irrelevant speech effect
- word length effect
- concurrent articulation effect

What is the phonological similarity effect?

confusion of letters or words that sound similar, in recall ordering, suggest this is how it is remembered

What is the irrelevant speech effect?

non words and music interferes with serial verbal recall

What is the word length effect?

memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words

What is the alternate views for the world length effect?

delays at output associated with the longer articulation time of long items (disproven)

What is is concurrent articulation?

repeating words, affects serial recall of words. ie. sibling saying la la la la in your ear

What is the phonological loop for?

1. Learning to read
2. Language comprehension
3. Vocabulary acquisition

What is the Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS)?

visuo spatial rather than verbal encoding of material
- planning and execution of spatial tasks
- manipulating visual images
- keeping track of changes in the visual perceptual world
- maintaining orientations in space and directing movement
- comprehending navigation

What are the two models of capacity limits and working memory?

slot model and resource model

What is the slot model (Luck and Vogel, 1997)?

fixed number of object representations that can be help in memory at one time. No other items a can be hold in memory.

What in the resource model (Alvarez & Cavangh, 2004)

limited supply of a representational medium is continuously distributed between objects

What are semantic memories?

- non contextual
- abstract
- non autobiogaphical
- ie. reading and identifying a giraffe

What are episodic memories?

- context sensitive
- personal
- autobiographical
- ie. recalling a memory with a giraffe

What is the major difference between short and long term memory?

long term memory is stored in a permanent store and must be retrieved for use

What is the primacy effect evidence of?

the transfer of items to long-term memory
- loading the WM, the primacy effect still occured

What is the recency effect evidence of?

items are in working memory because they are later in the list items

What is the distinguishing features between long term and short term working memory?

- stm has low capacity (7 or 4)
- stm is highly sensitive to order of item presentation

What did Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) say about the modal model?

includes sensory stores, stm, and ltm store. Information held long enough in the short term memory, gets transferred into long term memory

What are the criticism of the modal model?

- should sensory systems be considered memory processed
- rehearsal is not what gets material into the LTM
- there is more complex interplay between STM and LTM

What is a conventional experiment for long term memory?

- participants study words, then asked to remember
- variations of materials, items vs relational

What are the types of recall tests?

- free recall
- serial recall
- cued recall

What are the types of recognition tests?

- single item recognition
- choice test: which word was in the list

Why is it important to remember that recognition is a discrimination task?

must consider both the false alarms and the hits

What is an explicit memory test?

participants are shown items and told they will need to retrieve them

What is an implicit memory test?

participants are asked to identify items or "give the first thing that comes to mind"

Define priming?

when a recently encountered word is more available or is better identified in an implicit test

What did the study by Schacter, Tulving & Wang, 1981 show?

patients with Korsakoffs syndrome are unable to use contextual and source information but there is still implicit memory effects

What is the evidence for decay in memory?

- memories fade when they are not used
- effectiveness of retrieval cues

What did the Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924 study show?

- compared recall after sleep vs wakefulness
- awake group forgot more
- evidence for interference

What were the limitations of the Jenkins & Dallenbach study?

- time scale is short
- the role of sleep in consolidating information