SLHS 507 Cognition: Quiz 1

What is attention?

Attention: the process of selectively focusing on stimuli at the expense of other stimuli

What are the two types of attention?

• active (endogenous) attention

• passive (exogenous) attention

what is active attention?

• Active (endogenous) attention

  • Selectively attending to stimuli

  • Controlled from within 

    • Looking for an object on a shelf

what is passive attention?

• Passive (exogenous) attention 

  • Attention in response to external events 

  • Controlled by outside forces 

    • Example 

      • Noticing a loud noise

      • Looking towards a moving object

      • Responding to an alarm

What is top-down processing?

• Top-down processing – goes with active attention 

  • Intentionally allocating our attention to specific stimuli 

  • Using existing knowledge (i.e, previous experience) to direct attention 

  • Process the attended stimuli 

  • Most beneficial for most types of problem solving 

What is bottom-up processing?

• Bottom- up processing – passive 

  • The most salient/dominant (loudest, brightest, closest, moving) stimuli captures attention 

  • Processes the attended stimuli

What is dichotic listening?

• Dichotic listening 

  • Hearing two different auditory streams in left and right ear and attending to only one

  • Participants cannot recall content information from the unattended ear 

  • Attention matters for perception – you can get input but it only matters if you are attending to it

• Attention acts as a filter for sensory input

• Highlights the role of attention in auditory perception - even if we hear stimuli, we cannot process them without attention 

  • Sensory input, sensory buffer, filters, selected stimuli

    • Top-down processing

Space-based attention

• Space-based attention (spotlight, zoon)

  • Focus visual attention on spatial area

object based attention

• Object based attention 

  • Focus visual attention on target object

selective sustained attention

• Selective Sustained Attention 

  • Attending to specific stimuli (selective) over time (sustained)

  • Often measured using a continuous performance task (CPT)

    • You did this in activity 2 today

  • Errors

    • False alarms= impulsivity

    • misses= inattention

automaticity

• As skills become more practiced, they require less attentional resources 

• What are some examples of skills that have become automatic for many adults?

  • Reading 

  • Typing

  • Driving

  • Walking

Divided attention and multitasking

• Divided attention and multitasking 

  • A consequence of automaticity is multitasking, which is attending to multiple stimuli simultaneously

  • What are some examples of multitasking that you engage in

    • Walking + talking

    • Reading + listening to music 

  • Have to be across modalities otherwise it creates attention switching not multitasking

Attention throughout the lifespan

• Attention Lifespan changes 

  • Kids get better, adults are best, older adults start to get worse

what is processing speed?

Processing speed is how fast people execute basic cognitive processes

• gets quicker as we age (teens better than children)

• but as we age in adulthood we get slower again

• Best from teens-40s

• before teens we are increasing processing speed

• after forty’s we decline in speech

what are clinical considerations regarding processing speed?

• May affect lag and wait times for client/patient responses

• Consider the rate of information presentation