LESSON 04: Attention and Consciousness

Attention

It is the means by which we actively select and process a limited amount of information from all of the information captured by our senses, our stored memories, and our other cognitive processes.

Consciousness

It includes both the feeling of awareness and the content of awareness, some of which may be under the focus of attention.

- Signal Detection and Vigilance

- Search

- Selective Attention

- Divided Attention

The four main functions of attention

Signal Detection and Vigilance

Attention wherein we try to detect the appearance of a particular stimulus.

Search

Attention wherein we engage in an active search for particular stimuli.

Selective Attention

Attention wherein we choose to attend to some stimuli and ignore others.

Divided Attention

Attention wherein we engage in more than one task at a time, and we shift our attentional resources to allocate them as needed.

Signal-detection Theory (SDT)

It is a framework to explain how people pick out the important stimuli embedded in a wealth of irrelevant, distracting stimuli.

Signal-detection Theory (SDT)

It is often used to measure sensitivity to a target's presence.

Signal

What is a target stimulus called?

- Hits (True Positives)

- False Alarms (False Positives)

- Misses (False Negatives)

- Correct Rejections (True Negatives)

Four possible outcomes in signal-detection theory (SDT)

Hits (True Positives)

Outcome of correctly identifying the presence of a target.

False Alarms (False Positives)

Outcome of incorrectly identifying the presence of a target that is actually absent.

Misses (False Negatives)

Outcome due to failing to observe the presence of a target

Correct Rejections (True Negatives)

Outcome of correctly identifying the absence of a target

Vigilance

It refers to a person's ability to attend to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period, during which the person seeks to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus of interest.

Amygdala and Thalamus

What parts of the brain are involved in vigilance?

Search

It refers to a scan of the environment for particular features—actively looking for something when you are not sure where it will appear.

Distractors

These are nontarget stimuli that divert our attention away from the target stimulus.

Feature search and conjunction search

Two types of searches

Feature Search

We look for just one feature (e.g., color, shape, or size) that makes our search object different from all others.

Conjunction Search

We have to combine two or more features to find the stimulus we're looking for.

Feature Search

Search for a target defined by a single attribute, such as a salient color or orientation.

Conjunction Search

Search for a target defined by the presence of two or more attributes

Display Size

The number of items in a given visual array

Feature-integration Theory and Similarity Theory

Two theories that tries to explain search processes

Feature-integration Theory

It explains why it is relatively easy to conduct feature searches and relatively difficult to conduct conjunction searches.

Anne Treisman

Developed the feature integration theory

Similarity Theory

Theory that claims that the more similar target and distracters are, the more difficult it is to find the target.

Colin Cherry

Coined the phenomenon "cocktail party problem" and experimented on shadowing and dichotic listening.

Cocktail Party Problem

It is the process of tracking one conversation while distracted by other conversations.

Shadowing

An experiment task where the participant is made to listen to two different messages.

Dichotic Listening

A task in which people wearing headphones hear different messages presented to each ear.

Sensitivity

It is the criteria by which we determine whether a stimulus is a distractor or not.

Attention, perception, memory

Signal detection can also be discussed in the context of...

Attention

In the context of _______, signal detection is about paying enough attention to perceive objects that are there.

Perception

In the context of _______, signal detection is the ability to sense signals that may or may not be beyond your perceptual range.

Memory

In the context of _______, signal detection is about remembering whether a stimulus had been detected before (recalling the past).

- Early Filter Model

- Selective Filter Model

- Attenuation Model

- Late Filter Model

- Two-step Model

Theories of Selective Attention

Early Filter Model

According to this theory, information is filtered right after it is noticed at the sensory level.

Selective Filter Model

According to this theory, the filter blocks out most information at the sensory level but some information are so important to the perceiver that it "breaks through" the filter.

Attenuation Model

According to this theory, instead of blocking out information, the filter attenuates (i.e. minimizes) the strength of all stimuli other than the target stimulus

Late Filter Model

According to this theory, information is filtered out only after they have been analyzed for both their physical properties and their meaning

Two-step Model

It is the synthesis of early filter and late filter models.

Ulric Neisser

Who proposed the two-step model of selective attention?

- Preattentive Processes

- Attentive, Controlled Processes

The two processes that govern attention according to the two-step model of selective attention

Preattentive Processes

These automatic processes are rapid and occur in parallel. They can be used to notice only physical sensory characteristics of the unattended message. But they do not discern meaning or relationships

Attentive, Controlled Processes

These processes occur later. They are executed serially and consume time and attentional resources, such as working memory. Information is processed in much more detail here

Divided Attention

Ability to attend to two tasks simultaneously

Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) Effect

The slowing in the speed of performance after a second task is introduced while doing an initial task.

Attentional Blink

The Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) Effect is also known as...

Anxiety, arousal, task difficulty, skills

Factors that influence the ability to pay attention

Alerting, orienting, executive attention

Three subfunctions of attention

Alerting

It is being prepared to attend to some incoming event, and maintaining this attention.

Orienting

It is the selection of stimuli to attend to.

Executive Attention

It includes processes for monitoring and resolving conflicts that arise among internal processes.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Change Blindness/Inattentional Blindness

Two examples of failing attention

Change Blindness

It is the inability to detect changes in objects or scenes that are being viewed

Inattentional Blindness

It is a phenomenon in which people are not able to see things that are actually there.

Spatial Neglect or Hemineglect

It is an attentional dysfunction in which participants ignore the half of their visual field that is contralateral to (on the opposite side of) the hemisphere of the brain that has a lesion.

Extinction

It is a phenomenon wherein patients can typically perceive stimuli regardless of if it is ipsilateral or contralateral to their lesion but cannot perceive the stimuli if it is present in both sides of their visual field.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

People with this disorder have difficulties in focusing their attention in ways that enable them to adapt in optimal ways to the environment.

Dr. Heinrich Hoffman

He was the one who first described ADHD in 1845.

Inattention, hyperactivity, impulsiveness

The three primary symptoms of ADHD

- Hyperactive-impulsive

- Inattentive

- Combination of hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive behavior

The three main types of ADHD

Automatic Processes

Tasks performed without conscious awareness and with little to no effort or even attention.

Parallel Processes

Multiple automatic processes occurring either at once or quickly with no particular sequence.

Controlled Processes

Accessible to conscious control and often require it. These processes are performed serially i.e. one at a time.

Automatization

When controlled processes eventually become automatic as a result of practice

Instance Theory

Alternative theory wherein automatization occurs when we gradually accumulate knowledge about specific responses to specific stimuli

Stroop Effect

It is the delay in reaction time between automatic and controlled processing of information

John Ridley Stroop

The stroop effect is named after who?

Mistakes

These are errors in choosing an objective or in specifying a means of achieving it.

Slips

These are errors in carrying out an intended means for reaching an objective.

Capture Errors

Error in which intending to deviate from a routine activity we are implementing in familiar surroundings, but at a point at which we should depart from the routine, we fail to pay attention and to regain control of the process

Omissions

Error wherein interruption of a routine activity may cause us to skip a step(s) in implementing the remaining portion of the routine.

Perseverations

Error wherein after completing an automatic procedure,

one or more steps of the procedure may be

repeated.

Description Errors

Error wherein internal description of the intended behavior leads to performing the correct action on the wrong object.

Data-Driven Errors

Error wherein incoming sensory information may override the intended variables in an automatic action sequence.

Associative-Activation Errors

Error wherein strong associations may trigger the wrong automatic routine

Loss-of-Activation Errors

Error wherein the activation of a routine may be insufficient to carry it through to completion.

Priming

The introduction of one, priming stimulus affects cognition on a second stimulus.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

It occurs when one tries to retrieve a memory that is not readily retrieved.

Blindsight

These are traces of visual ability in blind areas; observed in individuals with lesions in the visual cortex.