8: Attention

attention

process that allows us to focus on relevant information while ignoring distractions

William James

defined attention as taking possession of one thought or object while withdrawing from others

selection

act of attending to an object and selecting it apart from unattended objects

active selection

conscious ability to attend to information that is relevant to goals

noise

irrelevant information in the environment that competes with important information and can cause distraction

operational definition

specific definition of a psychological concept that allows it to be tested through experiments

automatic processes

attention that is triggered involuntarily, fast, efficient and obligatory

controlled processes

attention that is voluntary, conscious, slow and cognitively effortful

limited attentional resources

controlled attention has limited resources, making it difficult to consciously attend to many tasks at the same time

salience

how noticeable information is; salient information naturally stands out and automatically captures attention

automaticity through practice

tasks that initially require conscious effort can become automatic after enough practice

spotlight model

model of attention that compares visual attention to a spotlight that focuses on one area of the environment at a time

Posner

proposed the spotlight model of attention

attentional spotlight

area of the visual environment that receives preferential attention and processing

objects within the spotlight

processed with greater accuracy and faster reaction times

cuing paradigms

experiments used to measure changes in attention by presenting a cue before a target

cued location

location where the cue appears; targets are detected faster when they appear in this location

uncued location

location opposite to where the cue appears; targets are detected more slowly when they appear in this location

attention shifts faster than the eyes

attention can move toward a location before the eyes physically look in that direction

filter models

models that compare attention to a filter that suppresses irrelevant information and allows selected information to receive further processing

spotlight vs filter models

spotlight models enhance the processing of attended information, whereas filter models suppress distracting information

Cherry

studied the cocktail party effect using shadowing tasks and showed that physical characteristics help separate target sounds from background noise

cocktail party effect

ability to focus on one conversation while ignoring other conversations and background noise

shadowing task

task where participants listen to two messages and repeat one message while ignoring the other

dichotic listening

task where participants hear different messages in each ear and are instructed to attend to and repeat one message

physical characteristics of sound

features such as speaker gender, direction, pitch and speed that help distinguish target sounds from background noise

Broadbent

proposed the single filter model of attention in 1958

Broadbent's single filter model

model that proposes an early physical filter selects important information based on physical characteristics and allows it to continue for further processing

early physical filter

filter that selects information based on physical characteristics such as volume, pitch and speaker direction

attended ear

ear that receives the message participants are instructed to listen to and repeat in a dichotic listening task

unattended ear

ear that receives the message participants are instructed to ignore in a dichotic listening task

evidence supporting Broadbent's model

participants can answer questions about information in the attended ear but process very little information from the unattended ear

limitations of Broadbent's model

assumes unattended information is completely eliminated and cannot be processed for meaning

Von Wright

showed that information from the unattended ear can still be processed through classical conditioning experiments

breakthrough

occurs when important or highly relevant information from an unattended stream captures attention

evidence against Broadbent's model

unattended information can still be processed when it is meaningful or highly relevant

Treisman

proposed the dual filter model of attention

Treisman's dual filter model

model that proposes an early physical filter and a late semantic filter to select information for attention

early physical filter (Treisman)

evaluates physical characteristics of incoming information and assigns different levels of importance or weight

late semantic filter

evaluates the meaning and relevance of information before deciding what receives attention

attenuation

reducing the importance or strength of information rather than completely eliminating it

semantic relevance

importance of information based on its meaning

Stroop Task

task where participants identify the font colour of a word while ignoring the word itself

congruent trials

trials where the meaning of the word matches the font colour

incongruent trials

trials where the meaning of the word does not match the font colour

Stroop effect

slower performance when identifying font colours on incongruent trials compared to congruent trials

task-relevant information

information needed to complete a task; in the Stroop Task, this is the font colour

task-irrelevant information

information that is not needed to complete a task; in the Stroop Task, this is the word meaning

automatic word reading

word recognition that happens relatively automatically and can interfere with identifying the font colour

proportion congruent manipulation

changes the ratio of congruent and incongruent trials in a Stroop task

high proportion congruent task

task with more congruent than incongruent trials; increases the Stroop effect by encouraging attention to task-irrelevant word information

low proportion congruent task

task with more incongruent than congruent trials; decreases the Stroop effect by encouraging attention to task-relevant font colour

controlling the Stroop effect

using controlled attention to focus on the font colour and ignore the automatically processed word

visual search

task where participants search through an array of distractors to find a specific target

target

object or item that a person is trying to find in a visual search task

distractors

items in a visual search task that are not the target

set size

number of items that must be searched through in a visual search task

set size effect

increase in difficulty as the number of items in a visual search task increases

single feature search

visual search task where the target is identified using one distinguishing feature

uniform distractors

identical items that make a target easier to identify in a single feature search

pop-out effect

occurs when a target is easily found regardless of set size because it stands out from the distractors

conjunction search

visual search task where the target is identified using two or more features, making it more difficult to find

contextual cueing

when the context of a search task helps guide attention and allows a target to be found more efficiently

importance of attention

allows us to select relevant information and ignore distractions in our everyday environment

attentional errors

mistakes that occur when attention fails to select or process important information