Cognitive Psych Exam 2

Attention

capability/ability

selection among alternatives (operate on a subset of the available info)

serves to improve effectiveness of cog processing (improving speed and accuracy)

restricting- how to decide what to restrict? (attentional control/executive control)

frontal and partial areas involved

Types of Attention

alertness- ex lifeguard watching water

orienting- ex being aware of a rock thrown at you

visual search- ex picking out favorite player on football field

selective attention- ex studying for a test and ignoring TV sounds

divided attention- ex hitting tennis balls while talking with partner

Input Attention

alertness

orienting

visual search

Controlled Attention

selective

divided

visual search

Alertness

Achieving or maintaining an alert state

being prepared to detect some important stimulus

state of readiness

Vigilance

Maintaining alertness over time

hard to maintain for 30+ minutes

can be trained

ex. air traffic control

Orienting

shifting attention reflexively based on a cue

response to some stimulus

attention being oriented, eyes dont have to move

significant or novel objects catch our attention

can happen in response to social cues

Kingstone et al (attention orienting)

arrows

people faster to respond to symbol in cued location (predictive)

no predictiveness= faster when looked in cued direction

faces with eyes= faster to look in direction where the eyes are looking (eye gaze matters and acts as cue)

Visual Search

do it all the time

ex. searching for pineapple, searching for letter T

as items in display increase, reaction time increases and accuracy decreases

feature and conjunction

Feature Search

target discriminated from non target by single features

ex. color

people quick to detect any amount of items- takes the same amount of time

dont need to pay attention

Conjunction Search

target discriminated from non target by combination of features (2 or more)

ex. looking for green horizontal rectangle

it target present= takes less time (decreased reaction time)

if target absent= takes more time (increases reaction time) (becomes effortful) (have to do more searching if target is absent)

need to pay attention

Feature Integration Theory

Explanation for feature and conjunction searches

Tresiman and Gelade 1980

our visual system can detect simple features without controlled attention

need controlled attention for objects with multiple features

need controlled attention to integrate the features of an object

Pre-attentive and attentive stage

Attention and Practice

with practice, less attention is required

ex. driving, reading

Controlled Processing

in tasks that requires effortful attention

Automatic Processing

in tasks well practices not much effort or attention

occur without intention/ conscious awareness

does not interfere with other mental activity

but- an activity thought as automatic may not be (ex. reading comprehension, typing an essay) (some aspects may still require control)

Selective Attention

focus on one input/task while ignoring others

auditory= do this all the time, paying attention to one stream of sound over others

vision= paying attention to one object over others

Auditory- visual= paying attention to reading vs music

Auditory- Selective Attention

cocktail party problem= focus on what you want to focus on

ex. following one persons conversation at a party

Dichotic Lisenting Task

two different speech streams to ears, wear headphones

asked to pay attention to only one speech (attended channel) while ignoring info in the other (unattended channel)

shadowing: repeat back attended channel speech

findings= little reported about unattended message (Ps dont pay attention to it)- ex of auditory selective attention

explanation= Filter theory

Filter Theory

Broadbent

filter selects one message to process (for auditory)

happens in early processing

blocked channel is completely ignored

Cocktail Party Effect

problem of filter theory

certain pieces of info are noticed even in unattended channel

ex. your name

problem bc- filter theory says you cant process anything in unattended channel

Attenuation Theory

Tresiman

unattended channels’ volume is lowered not blocked

different types of processing can be done and analyze it, then extract meaning (lower volume channel is processed less)

high significance stimuli will get processed even at low volume (your name and “fire”)

explains cocktail party effect

Neural Bases Study

used fMRI, 3 conditions

Ps listened to no speech, clear speech, or competing (masked) speech

results

1. when listening to clear speech more activation in the brain regions important for language 2. clear speech- some regions were more active (auditory processing areas- less active when noisy)

3. Regions more active in masked speech were frontal and parietal lobes (controlled processing) (in presence of noise brain uses controlled processing)

Divided Attention

trying to perform multiple tasks simultaneously

Task Switching

switching back and froth between tasks

Divided Attention Findings

Interference between tasks related to similarity

ex. hear and memorize Allport study

• stimuli presented in one ear, in text form, and by pictures

• results= performance best when used pictures (least interfering), worst when heard in ear

• shows similarity matters

if always divided attention (chronic multi taskers)-did less well (decreased attentional ability)- Ophir et al

Dis-Similar tasks

should interfere less

ex. driving and having conversation= interfere

study- Strayer and Johnson= Ps had to track moving target on screen, would flash red or green (driving simulation), half had cell phone task, half had radio task

• single task= just driving, less prob of miss a red

• listening to radio and driving= no effect

• cell phone= more likely to miss red

Divided Attention Summary

we can divide our attention

performance suffers bc of interference

happens in driving and classroom learning

seeing someone multitask also produces worse outcomes

Cognitive/ Attentional Control

N back test (ex. 1 back v 2 back faces in lab) (also a memory task)

need to remember stimuli

ex, overriding autopilot, learning new skill, Tower of Hanoi

memory included

Proposals for Cognitive Control

Supervisory Attentional System (familiar situation= have script and know what to do)

Biased Competition (send signals to alter behavior)

Cognitive Control

Cognitive Control

Cohen

tested by computer simulations

• concepts= parts meant to be neurons, connection between neurons, info transmission, receiving neuron activity level depends on level of sending the neuron and strength of connection

operates by boosting activity levels of neurons in a less practiced pathway to compensate for the higher activity levels in more practiced pathway

learned connections strengths are stronger in word reading pathway than in color naming pathway

Anterior cortex activation comes first, then prefrontal cortex during conflict (fMRI study, Kerns)

Stroop Task

controlled attention

name ink color and not read the word

control is needed

Memory

memory is ability to have information from the past

ex. knowing to call 911, describing a vacation, riding a new bike

at some point it was taken into cognitive system (encoding)

info is: encoded- maintained- retrieved (emphasized more for long term memory)

memory functions typically

goes very deep

Sensory Memory

ability to have info from the brief past

< 1 second

doesnt last long

iconic and echoic

Iconic Memory

brief memory that fades almost instantly

ex. camera flash going off

George Sperling 1980- measures retension

visual sensory info

Echoic Memory

holds onto sounds

2-4 seconds

lets you remember just until you can process it

auditory sensory info

Short Term Memory

known as working memory

slightly longer lasting storage

20-30 seconds, maybe up to 2 minutes

Long Term Memory

much longer lasting storage

up to years