PSYCH 1X03 Attention

selection

act of attending to an object to select it apart from the unattended objects

what are the two forms of attention?

automatic and controlled

what are the qualities of automatic processing?

involuntary, "capturing" of attention, fast, efficient

what are the qualities of controlled processing?

conscious attention, slow, effortful

are controlled processes limited or unlimited?

limited (i.e. turning the music down when driving conditions are poor)

salient

a piece of information that "pops out" right away

do conscious tasks always remain effortful?

no, they can become automatic through practice (i.e. biking)

spotlight model

conscious visual attention focuses like a spotlight

cueing paradigms

tests that test for the automatic processes of attention, allows researchers to measure shifts of attention across a scene

Posner's Spatial Cueing Paradigm

participant is told to continually stare at a '+' symbol at the center of a display with two boxes on either side, a brief visual flash appears in one of the two boxes and following this flash, a target stimulus is presented in one of the two box. the participant's task is to quickly press either a left or right key based on where the target appeared. participants detect the target faster when it is presented where the flash also appeared. (guys i'm so sorry this is so freaking long)

in Posner's Spatial Cueing Paradigm how long was there between the visual flash in one of the boxes and the target stimulus being presented?

less that 300ms

what sensory information does the spotlight model work best for?

visual

can attention move faster than the eye?

yes

filter model

(auditory) information passes through a filter that determines whether or not something is important so that it can go on for further processing

how does the spotlight model work?

attention enhances visual processing of target object compared to the background

how does the filter model work?

attention helps to block/ignore visual or auditory information, allowing target information to be further processed

what is Broadbent's filter model

single filter model, attentional filter selects important information based on physical characteristics and allows it to be further processed. any information that is unattended isn't processed at all.

what effect does Broadbent's filter model explain?

the cocktail party effect

what is Treisman's filter model?

information passes through physical filter based on physical cues where it is then assigned a weighting, then it passes through a semantic filter which can override the physical filter and continue for further processing

what are some examples of physical cues?

pitch, volume, etc.

what does Treisman's filter model account for?

breakthrough effect

what is the cocktail party effect?

despite competing background noises, a listener can single out a single channel of information (i.e. having a conversation amidst many other people talking in the background)

what is the breakthrough effect?

when relevant information from an unattended channel is still picked up i.e. your name being called

Stroop Task

a participant is asked to identify the colour of the word without identifying the word itself - words will either be congruent (i.e. red printed in red ink) or incongruent (i.e. red printed in blue ink)

Stroop Effect

increased time taken to identify non-congruent tasks compared to congruent tasks

if there is a higher ratio of congruent trials the Stroop Effect will be ________?

increased

If there is a higher ratio of noncongruent trials the Stroop Effect will be ________?

decreased

what do Stroop tasks tell us about automatic processes?

they can be consciously controlled

why does the Stroop Effect increase when there is a higher ratio of congruent trials?

the participant learns that the word more often than not accurately predicts the colour of the font, causing them to use more automatic processing

set size

number of items to search through

set size effect

increase in difficulty as set size increases

pop-out effect

when the object of a visual search is easily found due to a distinct feature (usually colour)

is the pop-out effect affected by set size?

no

single feature search task

only looking for one particular feature to identify the target

conjunction feature search task

looking for two or more features to identify the target

contextual cueing

having an expectation of where to find something makes us faster at visual searches

flashbulb memory

a highly detailed and vivid 'snapshot' of a moment, typically occurs during a time when an important piece of news was heard - not always as accurate as they may seem (i.e. Dr. Kim and his freaking squirrel)

bottom-up processing

raw data collected from our senses (inductive reasoning) (ex - Seeing an object for the first time and identifying it by analyzing its shape, colour, and features)

top-down processing

using a combination of our memories and heuristics to interpret information (deductive reasoning)

orienting

how attention shifts along a scene

overt attending

looking to where you're attending

covert attending

attending to something without looking at it ("invisible shifts of attention") ex - keeping tabs on a cyclist in the bike lane when driving

what did Posner's Spatial Cueing Paradigm tell us about how attention shifts?

covert shifts in attention can help us to more efficiently process a target stimulus and attention shifting must be independent of eye movement

inhibition of return

prevention of your gaze (and attention) from revisiting a previously attended location, promotes orienting towards previously unsearched location, which should result in a more efficient search (ex - scavenger hunt, will avoid locations you’ve already checked)

how does Posner's Spatial Cueing Paradigm display inhibition of return?

when the time between the cue and the target was more that 300ms, there was time for the participant to look to the cue before the target was presented, resulting in lower response time as the location was previously attended

visual search paradigms

a task where the participant is required to locate a target among a set of distractor items

conjunctive search

when an item does not pop-out during a visual search paradigm, you must examine each item individually to determine if it is the target - as set size increases, so does search time

schema

representation depicting the range of plausible objects and likely configurations of those objects within particular scenes - it can help guide your search for a target

selective attention

attended items being better remembered when compared to unattended items

dichotic listening paradigm

participants wear headphones where one message is presented to one ear (that is attended to) and a different message is presented to the other ear (that is not attended to). the participant is typically instructed to shadow (immediately repeat the message) in the attended ear.

what information from the unattended ear was remembered (dichotic listening paradigm)?

physical characteristics (i.e. pitch/volume of the voice)

inattentional blindness

our limited attentional resources can result in some important information being missed

change blindness paradigm

perceptual phenomenon where a change has occurred in a visual scene but the observer cannot notice it

when are we faster at detecting the change of a scene? what type of processing does this support?

if prior knowledge gives us a general idea of where to look, top-down processing. We detect scene changes faster when the change is meaningful or expected, which supports top-down processing as the dominant mechanism.

why is the Stroop Task difficult?

the automatic process of word reading interferes with the ability to name the colour of the font

incoming information encounters a "bottleneck". what does this mean?

only a limited amount of attentional information can be passed on for further processing

early-selection model

filters information out relatively early, before it can be analyzed for semantics (single-filter model)

attentuation theory

unattended information is not filtered out but instead "turned down" and assigned a weighting based on physical attributes, the information is also assessed for semantic meaning to see if it is important (dual-filter model)

late-selection model

filtering occurs after semantic and physical processing and only selected information goes on for further processing due to limitations in processing capacity

vigilance

Our ability to maintain focus for a long time

change blindness

even with directed focus, the limits of attention lead us to miss information