attention

attention as a filter

• Selective filter in the brain that manages limited cognitive resources, allowing us to focus on relevant information while also ignoring distractions

• filter to process a subset of possible things to attend to

attention early filter

• early selection

• attended input gets early preferential processing, unattended input receives little to no processing

if early filter correct, we should expect ___ influence of what is filtered out

little

attention late filter

• everything receives relatively complete processing, attended input makes it to consciousness

• late selection

If later filter is correct, we should expect ______ influence of what is filtered out

some

attention as a resource

finite valuable cognitive resource due to limited capacity of the brain

selective attention

• possible things to attend(inward and outward) at any given moment exceeds the limits of attention

• humans are good at selectively attending to a subset

selective attention can cause ______ and ________

inattentional blindness and change blindness

what captures attention

• salient or distinctive stimuli against some background

• emotionally charged stimuli

• stimuli with some personal importance or relevance

salient or distinctive stimuli against some background example

neon green outfit at IU football game

emotionally charged stimuli example

seeing a gun

stimuli with some personal importance or relevance example

cocktail party effect

what captures your attention now, might not capture your attention at a _____ or might not capture ______

different time; someone else’s attention

divided attention

• trying to keep your attention on more than one thing at the same time

  • you may have the resources to attend to each one separately, but combined may take more resources than your brain has

the cost of dividing attention

• cost because of task switching and the need to use general resources

the amount of cost for divided attention depends on:

• similarity between tasks

• level of practice between tasks

• complexity of tasks

Dichotic listening task

• listening task: listening to sentences, different in each ear

  • attended channel: the senate expects to approve a corporate tax bill

  • unattended channel: once upon a time, there was a lovely princess

• Participants shadow attended channel by repeating back what they hear word or word—a form of selective attention

attended channel

what the participant is actively focusing, processing and trying to remember

unattended channel

a stream of sensoru information(like a person speaking) that person is instructed to ignore in favor of focusing on attended channel

Dichotic listening task findings

• people are good selective attention

• attention is limited

• attention serves as a flexible filter of possible things to attend

Early filter in dichotic listening task

from unattended channel participants noticed:

• human speech vs. music

• male vs female

missed:

• content of message

• english vs. foreign language

because filtered early, the brain doesn’t process much of it aside from basic sensory information

late filter in dichotic listening task

from attended channel participants heard:

• once upon a time, there was a corporate tax bill

• the sentence from attended and unattended got spliced

unattended channel: about 1/3 of participants noticed their name mentioned

inattentional blindness

failure to notice a stimulus, even though you are looking right at it, because attention is elsewhere

• product of selective attention

you fail to notice something in front of you

inattentional blindness

change blindness

failure to notice stimulus, even though you are looking right it because attention is elsewhere

• product of selective attention

you fail to notice a change that occured

change blindness

cocktail party effect

the brain’s ability to focus auditory attention on a single speaker or stimulus while ignoring background chatter, though they may notice personal salient information like their own name.

attention as a limited capacity system

• we pay attention to things implies that our brains chose what it focuses on

• implies limited resources and the allocation of these resources to things

• you can only give out so much money before your bank starts to struggle

how do we know attention is limited?

• spatial attention studies

• divided attention studies

spatial attention studies

• Participants focus on center of the screen and press a button as soon as target letter appears

• Target letter appears either on left or right side of the screen

• A cue appears before each target letter(neutral, valid cue, invalid cue)

spatial attention study findings

• we are slower to percieve and respond to a stimulus if we are mislead

• we are faster to percieve and respond to stimulus if we have useful information in advance

task switching

switching back and forth between two tasks at the same time

compared to completing tasks separately, when you switch and forth between the two tasks:

• tasks take more time to complete

• you make more errors on tasks

task switching costs_____ as tasks become more _____

increases; complex

executive control

executive control mechanisms that allows control over thoughts and behaviors

• using whenever we consciously or voluntarily direct attention towards something

• limited in capacity

executive control puts strong activation in ______when allocating attention

prefrontal cortex of the brain (in frontal lobe)

task similarity

how much tasks share cognitive processes, resources, or sensory modalities

task similarity effects on divided attention

The more similar tasks are (in processes or resources), the harder they are to do together because they compete for the same limited mental resources, increasing interference and making switching slower and more effortful.

task practice

As a task becomes more practiced, it requires fewer resources or less frequent use of these of these resources

automaticity

a well practiced task requiring little or no control

• tasks can become automated with enough practice

• very difficult tasks can not be automated much

could driving, good note taking or complex problem solving become automated?

no

Tasks can become automatic with enough ______, meaning they can move forward without ______

practice; executive control

task complexity

as tasks become more complex, they require more attentional resources

• As tasks become more demanding, maintaining high-level performance becomes difficult

task complexity study

• Participants in driving simulator estimated if their vehicle could pass between two parked cars

  • Task complexity varied; large gap to judge (simple task) or small gap to judge (complex task)

  • Researchers measured % of participants who missed the unexpected pedestrian or animal (examples of inattentional blindness)

    •   46% of participants doing a simple task

    • 83% of participants doing complex task

stroop task

indicate color of word (ignore its meaning) by clicking 1 for blue, 2 for red, and 3 for black

• Independent variable (IV): congruent vs. incongruent

• Dependent variable (DV): response time (RT)

stroop task findings

• slowing in RT when naming font/ink color of words with incongruent meaning, in comparison with no conflict between ink color and meaning

  • the word blue in red color

  • the word chair in blue color

• no slowing in RT(no stroop effect) when reading words instead of naming ink color, even if incongruent

in stroop task, reading is an automatic process

for incongruent words, you use up some limited attentional resources to focus on ink color not the meaning

• bc limited capacity in brain, we are slower to complete primary task

why is stroop task important?

• demonstrated that inhibiting well-practiced tasks can use attentional resources as well

  • in this, using limited attentional resources to not pay attention to distractions

• tool to better understand attentional control