Attention and Pattern Recognition – Key Vocabulary

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts from the lecture on attention, pattern recognition theories, processing types, and notable perceptual phenomena.

Attention

The allocation of limited cognitive resources to a subset of external or internal information, enabling focused processing and consciousness of what is being attended to.

Bottom-up processing

Perception that begins with low-level sensory input and builds up to recognition, starting with features and progressing to patterns and meaning.

Top-down processing

Perception guided by expectations, prior knowledge, and context, which can influence interpretation even with weak sensory input.

Template theory

A theory of pattern recognition where the brain matches input to stored whole-pattern templates; fails to handle context and multiple interpretations.

Feature theory

A theory of pattern recognition where recognition is based on detecting a small set of distinguishing features (e.g., lines, curves) rather than entire templates.

Parsimony

The idea that theories should explain as much as possible with as few assumptions or features as necessary.

Selective attention

Focusing on a single stimulus or stream while ignoring others, often influenced by personal relevance and task goals.

Divided attention

Trying to attend to two or more tasks or streams at once, typically with performance costs, especially if the streams are similar.

Alerting

The lowest level of attention; quick detection of a new or potential signal, present from birth in babies.

Vigilance

Sustained, high-level attention to monitor multiple stimuli over time, demanding continuous tracking and pattern recognition.

Dichotic listening

An experimental paradigm where two different streams are presented to each ear to study how attention filters information.

Broadbent’s bottleneck theory (single-channel hypothesis)

Early attention model proposing a bottleneck that filters information into a single channel before conscious processing.

Cocktail party effect

The ability to focus on one conversation amid noise and distractions, yet sometimes notice personally relevant information (e.g., your name).

Inattentional blindness

Failure to notice an unexpected object or event when attention is engaged elsewhere.

Change blindness

Failure to detect changes in a scene when attention is not focused on the location or the scene changes briefly.

Cognitive resources

The limited mental capacity available for processing information, used as a metaphor for attention and effort.

Working memory capacity

An individual difference in how much information can be held and manipulated; higher capacity correlates with better attention control and distraction resistance.

Where’s Waldo analogy (feature-based search)

Illustrates how recognizing key features can help detect targets amidst many distractors, highlighting feature-based processing.

Sensory memory

A brief, high-capacity store of raw sensory information that holds impressions long enough to decide what to process next.

Shadowing (dichotic listening task)

Repeating aloud one input from a pair of simultaneous streams while ignoring the other, used to study selective attention.

Two-process interaction (bottom-up and top-down)

Acknowledgment that perception involves both bottom-up features and top-down expectations, and people often move between these modes rather than using one exclusively.