Paying Attention

Selective Attention

The skill through which a person focuses on one input or one task while ignoring other stimuli that are also on the scene

Dichotic Listening

A task in which research participants hear two simultaneous verbal messages

Attended Channel

A stimulus that a person is trying to perceive. Ordinarily info is understood or remembered from it

Unattended Channel

A stimulus that a person is not trying to perceive. Ordinarily, little info is understood or remembered from it

Shadowing

A task in which research participants repeat back a verbal input, word for word as they hear it

Filter

A hypothetical mechanism that would block potential distractors from further processing

Fixation Target

A visual mask at which research participants point their eyes. Help research participants to control their eye position

Inattentional Blindness

A pattern in which perceivers seem literally not to see stimuli right in front of their eyes; this pattern is caused by the participants focusing their attention on some other stimulus and not expecting the target to appear

Change Blindness

A pattern in which perceivers either do not see or take a long time to see large-scale changes in a visual stimulus. This pattern reveals how little people perceive, even from stimuli in plain view, if they are not specifically attending to the target info

Early Selection Hypothesis

A proposal that selective attention operates at an early stage of processing so that the unattended inputs receive little analysis

Late Selection Hypothesis

A proposal that selective attention operates at a late stage of processing so that the unattended input receive considerable analysis

Biased Competition Theory

A proposal that attention functions by shifting neurons’ priorities so that the neurons are more responsive to inputs that have properties associated with the desired or relevant input

Spatial Attention

The mechanism through which people allocate processing resources to particular positions in space so that they more efficiently process any inputs from that region in space

Limited-Capacity System

A group of processes in which mental resources are limited so that extra resources supplied to one process must be balanced by a withdrawal of resources somewhere else. With the result that the total resources expected don’t exceed the limit of what is available

Mental Resources

Some processes or some capacity needed for performance, but in limited supply

Endogenous Control of Attention

A mechanism through which a person chooses where to focus attention

Exogenous Control of Attention

A mechanism through which attention is automatically directed essentially as a reflex response to some “attention-grabbing’ input

Feature Integration Theory

A proposal about the function of attention in “glueing” together elements and features that are in view

Divided Attention

The skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously

Executive Control

The mental resources and processes that are used to set goals, choose task priorities, and avoid conflict among competing habits or responses

Perseveration Error

A pattern of responding in which a person produces the same response over and over even though the person knows that the task requires a change in response. This pattern is often observed in patients with brain damage in the frontal lobe

Goal Neglect

A pattern of behaviour in which people fail to keep their goal in mind

Automaticity

A state achieved by some tasks and some forms of processing, in which tasks can be performed with little or no attention. often difficult to control, leading psychologists to refer to them as “mental reflexes”

Stroop Interference

A classical demonstration of automaticity in which research participants are asked to name the colour if ink used to print a word and the word itself is the name of a different colour