M&C 4

what is selective attention?

the skill through which a person focuses on one input or one task while ignoring other stimuli

what is a dichotic listening task?

when participants wear headphones and hear one input on one side

what is the methodology of shadowing?

when participants are told to repeat back what they hear

what is an attended channel?

the stimulus that is trying to be perceived

what is the unattended channel?

the stimuli that is not trying to be perceived

what do we get out of unattended channels?

participants can usually report if they heard human speech

participants can usually tell if the speech is male or female

and the volume of the speech

what is an attentional filter?

a "shield" that prevents potential distractors

what role does an attentional filter play?

allows desired information in and prevents undesired information

what information can get through an attentional filter?

the attended channel / desired information

what is inattentional blindness?

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

what is the methodology of inattentional blindness?

asking participants to perform a primary

what is the effect of inattentional blindness?

a failure to perceive unexpected stimuli when attention is focused on another task

what are the real-world application of inattentional blindness?

drivers not seeing a pedestrian because they are focused on something other than the road

what is change blindess?

an observers inability to detect changes in scenes they are looking directly at

what is the methodology of change blindness?

presenting participants with an initial visual scene

what is the effect of change blindness?

a failure to notice significant changes in a visual scene

what is are the real world applications and examples of change blindness?

eyewitness testimony

what is early selection?

when attended input is privileged from the start

what is late selection?

all inputs are received and have equal analysis

what is evidence for early selection?

distractor stimuli falling out of the stream of processing in a very early stage

what is evidence for late selection?

people are unaware of distractors

when would we engage in early selection?

during tasks with high perceptual load

when would we engage in late selection?

during tasks with low perceptual load

what is priming?

what are the types of priming?

stimulus based and expectation based

what is stimulus based priming?

whether a detector has been used recently or frequently in the past

what is expectation based priming?

a person is given an expectation of what to expect

what is the impact of priming on reaction time?

priming decreases reaction time

what is the impact of cue validity on reaction time?

high cue validity leads to a faster reaction time; low cue validity leads to a slower reaction time

what is the cost of priming?

prior exposure to a stimulus hinders the processing of a related subsequent stimulus

what is the benefit of priming?

enhancing cognitive processes like memory

what does it mean when something is "limited-capacity"?

a group of processes in which mental resources are limited

what is spatial attention?

the ability to focus on a specific location in space

what is the spotlight of attention?

attention is focused in a specific spot

what are attention shifts?

the cognitive process of deliberately or involuntarily redirecting your focus from one task

what are the brain areas associated with attention?

everywhere

what parts of the brain are associated with the alerting system of attention?

frontal area

what are the parts of the brain that are associated with the orienting system of attention?

frontal eye field

what are the parts of the brain associated with the executive attention system?

prefrontal area and anterior cingulate gyrus

what is unilateral neglect

spatial deficit for one half of the visual field

what is a space attention deficit?

a type of inattentiveness where a person has difficulty focusing on a specific location or area in their visual field

what is a object attention deficit?

things that aren't in the immediate field of attention become perceptually "invisible" due to deficits in focus

what is feature binding in regard to selective attention?

the neurological process of integrating an object's individual characteristics

what are visual search tasks?

involve a person looking for a specific target item among other

what is the binding problem?

different aspects in a visual field can be combined to relate to one single object

what is feature search?

search for a target defined by a single attribute

what is conjunction search?

search for a target defined by the presence of two or more attributes

what is divided attention?

preforming multiple tasks at the same time

what would be the performance difference when doing two similar tasks versus two dissimilar tasks?

two similar tasks will result in a drop of performance and accuracy; two dissimilar tasks less so

when will we see interference even between two similar tasks?

when there are not enough resources to divvy out to tasks that require the same resource

what is a response selector?

an intermediate stage of human information processing in which a response to an identified stimulus is chosen

what is selection and initiating in regard to response selector?

selection is the process of choosing the best response from a set of possible options

initiating is the process of triggering or executing that chosen response

what is executive control?

the mechanisms that allow you to control your own thoughts

what is the function of executive control?

helps keep your current goals in mind

where is the prefrontal cortex?

anterior frontal lobe

what is goal neglect?

failing to organize behavior in a way that moves them toward their goals

what is preservation error?

a tendency to produce the same response over and over even when it's plain that the task requires a change in the response

how does practice help attention?

practice reduces the resource demand

what is automaticity?

tasks that are well practiced and involve little or no control

what are controlled versus automatic tasks?

controlled tasks require conscious effort

automatic tasks are effortless

spontaneous

what are the pros of automatic tasks?

freeing up attentional resources

what are the cons of automatic tasks?

a higher potential for errors and mistakes

what are the pros of controlled tasks?

they enable conscious

what are the cons of controlled tasks?

it has a limited capacity

what is stroop interference?

study participants are shown a series of words and asked to name aloud the color of the ink used for each word. The trick

what are the limits of attention systems?

tasks require resources