LEC 7

Practice flashcards on key concepts from the lecture about perception and attention in cognitive psychology.

What role does movement play in perception according to cognitive psychology?

Movement facilitates perception by providing more visual information and 'raw data' for our cognitive system to process.

What is the significance of the dorsal and ventral streams in perception?

The dorsal stream is associated with the 'where' pathway (spatial awareness), while the ventral stream is related to the 'what' pathway (object recognition).

What is a method used to investigate perception in cognitive psychology?

Brain ablation or lesioning experiments, where specific brain areas are removed to study the effects on perceptual capabilities.

Who conducted research on the 'what' and 'where' pathways in the brain?

Ungerleider and Mishkin in 1982.

What happened to monkeys that had their temporal lobe removed?

They showed problems with the object discrimination task, indicating issues with the 'what' pathway.

Describe the results from patient D.F. regarding ventral and dorsal pathways.

Patient D.F. could not match the orientation of a card while holding it, but could do so when placing it in a slot, indicating the intactness of her dorsal stream.

What is the cocktail party effect?

The ability to focus on one conversation while filtering out others, as studied in dichotic listening tasks.

What does Broadbent's filter model propose?

It suggests that attention operates as an early selection model, filtering out unattended information right at the beginning of processing.

What is the role of the attenuator in Treisman's attenuation model?

It analyzes the incoming message and separates information into attended and unattended streams, allowing some unattended information to be processed at a weaker strength.

What does the term 'selective attention' refer to?

The ability to focus on one stimulus while ignoring other stimuli.

How does the load theory of attention describe processing capacity?

Processing capacity refers to the amount of information that can be handled at any moment, influenced by the perceptual load of tasks.

What is the Stroop effect?

The interference that arises from competition between automatic processes like word reading and intentional processes like color naming.

What did Moray's 1959 study reveal about unattended information?

Participants could still notice their name when it was embedded within an unattended message, challenging early selection theories.

How do early and late selection models differ in attention processes?

Early selection models filter information at the beginning, while late selection models analyze meaning before filtering occurs.

What are the two major components of Lavie's load theory of attention?

Processing Capacity and Perceptual Load.

What does sustained attention refer to?

Maintaining focus over long periods of time on a specific task or stimulus.

What was a key finding in Gray and Wedderburn’s 1960 experiment?

Participants combined information from both auditory streams in a meaningful way, indicating that attention can occur after initial processing.

What is dichotic listening?

A method used to study selective attention where different messages are presented in each ear.

What are late selection models in attention research?

Models proposing that stimuli selection for final processing happens after the information has been analyzed for meaning.

What key result did McKay (1973) find regarding late selection?

Participants were influenced by a biasing word in the unattended channel, even though they were unaware of it.

What challenge does the Stroop effect present to cognitive processing?

It illustrates how automatic reading interferes with intentional tasks, such as identifying colors.