Attention

Attention

The taking possession by the mind of one out of several possible objects or trains of thought, implying withdrawal from some things to effectively deal with others.

Selective Attention

The ability to focus on a subset of perceptual information that reaches the senses, filtering out non-relevant messages.

Cocktail Party Effect

A phenomenon where individuals notice their name being mentioned in a different conversation, despite focusing on another discussion.

Spotlight Metaphor

A metaphor describing attention as acting like a spotlight that selects a region of space for further visual processing.

Inattentional Blindness

A psychological phenomenon where an unexpected stimulus is not perceived when attention is focused on a task.

Dual Task Performance

When performance on one task suffers due to attentional resources being allocated to another task.

Primacy Effect

The tendency to remember the first few items in a list better than those in the middle.

Recency Effect

The tendency to remember the last few items in a list better than those in the middle.

Automatic Processing

A process that does not require attention for execution and can be carried out unconsciously.

Controlled Processing

A process that requires conscious use of attentional resources, allowing for purposeful, goal-directed behavior.

False Memory

A phenomenon where a person recalls something that did not happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually occurred.

Misinformation Effect

When a person's recollection of an event is altered by misleading information received after the event.

Episodic Memory

A type of declarative memory that involves recollecting specific events in time and space.

Semantic Memory

A type of declarative memory that involves general knowledge and facts, not bound to the context of learning.

Implicit Memory

Memory that influences behavior without conscious awareness, often assessed through indirect tests.

Amnesia

A disorder characterized by the loss of memory, which can be retrograde (loss of past memories) or anterograde (inability to form new memories).

Prototype Theory

A theory suggesting that concepts are represented by a categorical 'prototype' that summarizes the central tendency of a category.

Exemplar Theory

A theory that suggests individual exemplars are stored in memory, and categorization is based on similarity to those stored exemplars.

Typicality Effect

The observation that some members of a category are more readily identified and categorized than others.

Attention as a Resource

The concept that attention has limits and mental energy can be distributed among multiple tasks but with some resource depletion.

Central Processing Bottleneck

A limitation in cognitive processing where only one task can be processed at a time, hindering efficiency in multitasking.

Level of Processing

A theory that deeper levels of processing (semantic) lead to better retention than shallow processing (shallow features of information).

Fluency Heuristic

The tendency to judge the familiarity of something based on how easily it can be processed.

Vigilance Decrement

The decline in performance or attention over time when continuously focusing on a task.

The Role of Prior Knowledge

The influence that knowledge gained from previous experiences has on the categorization and processing of new information.

Memory Disorders

Conditions that impair the ability to form and recall memories, such as amnesia or neurodegenerative diseases.

Flashbulb Memories

Highly detailed and vivid memories of significant events, often believed to be more accurate than regular memories.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The idea that memory is enhanced when the context at encoding matches the context at retrieval.

State-Dependent Memory

The phenomenon where people are better at recalling information when they are in the same emotional or physical state as when they learned it.

Cognitive Control

The ability to direct attention and manage thoughts and tasks according to specific goals.