Introduction to Attention and Memory

These flashcards cover key concepts and definitions from the lecture on attention and memory.

Attention

The mental process of concentrating effort on a stimulus or mental event; involves focusing mental resources on external stimuli or internal thoughts.

Implicit Processing

Processing in which there is no necessary involvement of conscious awareness.

Explicit Processing

Involves conscious processing and awareness that a task is being performed.

Habituation

Gradual reduction of the orienting response, allowing attention to deal with constant aspects of the environment.

Selective Attention

The ability to divide attention to focus on one source of information while ignoring others.

Broadbent's Early Selection Theory

A filter theory of attention suggesting that only one message passes through the filter at a time based on physical characteristics.

Treisman's Late Selection Attenuation Theory

Explores how unattended information receives low-level meaning analysis and is attenuated if not useful.

Automaticity

Processes that occur without awareness or intention and consume little mental resources.

Mind Wandering

When our selective attention drifts off track during a task or conversation.

Short-Term Memory

The part of memory that holds information for up to 30 seconds; often equated with attention and consciousness.

Working Memory

Includes short-term memory and components for actively manipulating information.

Primacy Effect

Good memory for items at the beginning of a list due to rehearsal.

Recency Effect

Good memory for items at the end of a list, presumably because they remain in short-term memory.

Dual-Task Method

A method used to test the limits of working memory by performing two tasks simultaneously.

Central Executive

The component of working memory that plans, initiates retrieval, makes decisions, and integrates information.

Episodic Buffer

Part of working memory that binds together information from different modalities and sources.