attention
INTRODUCTION
- As scientists we need to operationally define the problem to build cognitive models and design experiments w testable hypothesis
selection :: concept that says attending to something causes the object of attention to be selected apart from the rest of the unattended objects. something can trigger you to pay attention to something
noise :: irrelevant information in the environment acts as _____ that can make it difficult to identify and attend to important information
AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED ATTENTION
automatic processes :: involuntary, captures attention; are fast and efficient
controlled processes :: consciously guide attn to objects of interest; are slower
salience :: thing that naturally pops out to you ex. police sirens
auto pilot :: a task which used to required a great deal of conscious effort to perform has become automatic through practice
THE SPOTLIGHT MODEL
Michael Posner :: psychologist responsible for idea of spotlight process for visual attn
spotlight model :: you only focus on only part of the environment at a time. you can scan across the visual scene. can be hijacked by unconscious processes that can quickly grab your attn
objects within the spotlight :: faster + more accurate rxn time
cues :: our attentional spotlight is automatically attracted to _______
FILTER MODELS
Colin Cherry :: simulated the cocktail party effect. revealed that the ability to separate target sounds fro background noise is based on physical characteristics (gender of speaker and the direction, pitch, or speed of the speech)
auditory :: filter models are readily applied to understand ________ attention
visual :: spotlight model is readily applied to understand ______ attention
Donald Broadbent :: proposed the single filter model
single filter model :: suggests that imput we filter as important goes on for further processing. all other info is disregarded/eliminated. tested using the dichotic listening paradigm.
dichotic listening paradigm :: two different messages put in diff ears; one is attended and the other is barely processed
Von Wright :: by combining classical conditioning with the dichotic listening experiment they were able prove that ppl can respond to unattended info
breakthrough :: participants are able to notice important info from an unattended stream ex. hearing your name called mid convo
Treisman’s model :: suggests that there are two filters: one physical and one semantic filter
physical filter :: 1st filter of Treisman’s model. based on physical cues. brighter or louder stimulus will be given a higher weight
semantic filter :: 2nd filter of Treisman’s model. based on meaning. chooses what will be attended to based on deeper meaning and relevance of the stimuli
THE STROOP TASK
the stroop task :: participants given colour names; have to say out loud the colour of the font. can be name and font colour can be congruent or incongruent.
interfere :: on incongruent trials of the stroop task, the automatic word-reading __________ w colour naming peformance
proportion congruent manipulation :: change the ratio of congruent to incongruent trials
high congruency tests :: when the words are mostly congruent, the participants tend to focus on word reading, so when they find the rare incongruent case, they tend to trip up. inc stroop effect
low congruency test :: participants find that the word reading does not help so they actively ignore the word and instead process the font colour on its own. slower but also dec stroop effect
controlled :: the Stroop task shows that automatic processes can be consciously __________
VISUAL SEARCH
set size :: # of items to search through to find target
set size effect :: inc of set size = inc difficulty to find target
pop-out effect :: something about the target makes it stand out no matter the set size ex. colour
conjunction search task :: identifuing a target by considering 2 or more features; unable to use one simple feature to find the target
single feature search :: when target can be found by relying on just one feature
context cueing :: when target can be found more easily based on context ex. looking for my keys, ill first look on the hook where it is usually
top-down processing :: involves perception via our prior experiences, heuristics, and biases (your past experiences suddenly "fill in the blanks" about something you perceive).
bottom-up processing :: involves perception via sensory information and stimuli