Cognitive 325 Week 4b - Attention II

Cognitive Psychology Overview Instructor: Dr. Jonas Vibell

Attention IIKey Concepts:

• Attention Capture

• Inattentional Blindness

• Dual Tasks and Attention Limits

• Mind Wandering

• Attentional Blink

• Task Switching

• Sustained Attention

• Overt Visual Attention

Attention Types

• Endogenous vs. Exogenous Attention

Spatial Attention: Selecting visual information in specific regions for conscious awareness.

• Endogenous Attention: Voluntary shifts of attention.

• Exogenous Attention: Involuntary shifts triggered by external stimuli.

Peripheral Cueing Paradigm

• Demonstrates Exogenous Attention

• Involves a peripheral cue (e.g., a light) followed by a target either at the same or different location.

Covert Attention: CueingCueing Experiment Design:

• An arrow indicating potential target locations

• Tasks: Simple detection or choice tasks.

• Researcher: Michael Posner

Valid vs. Invalid Cued Trials

• Valid Cued Trial: When the target appears at the cued location.

• Invalid Cued Trial: When the target appears at an uncued location.

Cueing Costs & Benefits

• Costs: Slower responses for incorrect target locations.

• Benefits: Faster responses for correct target locations.

Response Times in Cueing Experiments

• Observations from Posner (1980):Response Time data shows distinctions among valid, neutral, and invalid cues across different task types (detect vs. choice).

Temporal Considerations in Cueing

• Examine time effects of cue-target presentation (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony - SOA).

• SOA indicates time between two stimuli presentations.

Inhibition of Return (IOR)

• IOR: Delayed response to targets in previously attended locations compared to uncued ones.

• Purpose: Prevents returning focus to previously attended areas to encourage exploration.

Spotlight Theory

• Concept that spatial attention functions like a spotlight focusing on specific objects for detailed processing.

• Characteristics: Single beam, indivisible, fixed size.

Flanker Tasks

• Examines how irrelevant stimuli near a target affect attention.

• Tasks include identifying a middle letter while disregarding flankers.

• Influence of flankers indicates the 'size' of the attentional spotlight.

Response to Flanker Task

• Findings on how the proximity of flankers (compatible/incompatible) impacts response times.

Load Effects

• The relationship between attentional load and the efficiency of attention.

• High Load: Limited cognitive resources lead to early selection; distractions more easily ignored.

• Low Load: Sufficient resources allow for late selection and processing of distractions.

Conclusion from Recent Research

• Peripheral cueing effects vary in size and speed compared to central cues.

• Effects take longer to emerge or are larger in peripheral contexts.

• Attention studies suggest that attention can spread within objects, but shifts between different objects take longer.

• Multitasking and dual-task performance depends on task similarity, difficulty, and familiarity.