chapter 6

Attention

Process of selecting certain sensory information for deeper processing while ignoring other information.

Voluntary (Goal-Directed) Attention

Attention guided by goals or intentions.

Involuntary (Stimulus-Driven) Attention

Attention captured by a sudden or salient stimulus.

Overt Attention

Shifting attention by moving your eyes.

Covert Attention

Attending without moving your eyes; using peripheral vision.

Cocktail Party Effect

Ability to focus on one conversation while filtering out others.

Dichotic Listening Task

Two messages played to different ears; participants shadow one message.

Broadbent’s Filter Model

Early theory claiming that unattended information is blocked based on physical characteristics before processing.

Sensory Memory

Brief storage of all incoming information for fractions of a second.

Filter (Broadbent)

Selects which information is processed based on physical properties.

Detector (Broadbent)

Processes the filtered message and sends it to memory.

Spatial Attention

Focusing attention on a specific location in space.

Precuing

Cueing a location before a stimulus appears to influence reaction time.

Valid Cue

Correctly indicates where the stimulus will appear; speeds responses.

Invalid Cue

Incorrect location; slows responses.

Covert Attention (Neural Evidence)

Attention shifts boost neural activity in corresponding retinotopic areas (fMRI/EEG findings).

Spotlight Model

Attention works like a mental spotlight that enhances processing at a specific area.

Feature Integration Theory

Proposes two stages of perception:

1. Preattentive Stage – Features processed automatically and separately.

2. Focused Attention Stage – Features are bound together into whole objects.

Binding

The process of combining separate features (color, shape, orientation) into unified objects.

Illusory Conjunctions

Incorrect combinations of features that occur when attention is not fully applied.

Feature Search

Searching for a single unique feature; fast and automatic.

Conjunction Search

Searching for a combination of features; slower and attention-demanding.

Search Slope

How reaction time increases with number of distractors; flat slope = easy search, steep slope = hard search.

Stimulus-Driven (Bottom-Up) Attention

Attention captured by unique or salient stimulus properties.

Goal-Driven (Top-Down) Attention

Attention guided by knowledge, expectations, and intentions.

Inattentional Blindness

Failure to notice visible objects because attention is directed elsewhere.

Change Blindness

Difficulty detecting changes between visual scenes unless attention is focused on the changing item.

Fixation

Pausing the eyes on an object for detailed processing.

Saccadic Eye Movement

Rapid eye movements between fixations, occurring about 3 times per second.

Central Vision

Area you’re directly looking at; processed by the fovea.

Peripheral Vision

Everything outside central vision.

Motor Signal (MS)

Command from brain to move the eyes.

Corollary Discharge Signal (CDS)

Copy of motor signal sent to perceptual systems.

Image Displacement Signal (IDS)

Signal from retina that the image has shifted.

Comparator

Mechanism that compares CDS and IDS:

• IDS only → motion is perceived.

• CDS + IDS → no motion perceived.

Predictive Remapping

Covert attention shifts to the new location before an eye movement, helping maintain continuity.

Saliency Map

Representation of visually noticeable or attention-grabbing regions.

Visual Salience

Physical properties (color, brightness, contrast) making stimuli stand out.

Attentional Capture

Automatic shift of attention caused by a highly salient stimulus.

Scene Schema

Knowledge of what objects typically appear in a scene.

Just-in-Time Fixations

Eyes land on the needed object just before using it in a task.

Prediction-Based Attention

Fixations ahead of where important objects will be found (e.g., predicting a ball bounce).

Prediction Violation

Longer fixations when an event violates expectations.

Same-Object Advantage

Attention directed to part of an object enhances processing for other parts of the same object.

Contrast Enhancement (Carrasco Effect)

Attention makes stimuli appear higher in contrast.

Attention-Modulated Receptive Fields

Neural receptive fields shift toward the attended location.

Distributed Representation

Objects activate multiple brain areas rather than one specialized region.

Category Map (Huth et al.)

Large-scale brain map showing different object categories represented across cortex.

Attentional Warping

Searching for a category reshapes distributed neural activation, giving more space to the target category.

Inattentional Blindness

Missing visible items due to lack of attention.

Change Blindness

Failing to detect changes between scenes unless attention is focused.