Attention

Attention

Attention is the process of concentrating on specific features of the environment or on certain thoughts or activities.

The Standard Model of the Mind: Perception Component

• Figure $3.1$ illustrates the perception component within the standard model of the mind.

• This model integrates different cognitive functions like declarative long-term memory, procedural long-term memory, working memory, perception, and motor functions.

  • Perception acts as a central gateway, interacting with working memory and long-term memory systems.

Taxonomy of Attention

Internal Attention

• Refers to managing information within working memory or long-term memory.

• Example: Calculating $16 \times 7 = ?$ internally requires internal attention.

External Attention

• Involves attending to objects or stimuli in the environment.

Inattentional Blindness

• A phenomenon where individuals fail to notice an unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight because their attention is focused elsewhere.

• Example: A magic trick often relies on inattentional blindness, redirecting attention to hide key actions.

Attention Networks

There are three primary attention networks:

The Alerting Network

• Function: Responsible for achieving and maintaining a state of high sensitivity to incoming stimuli; essentially, alerting to potential danger.

• Neurotransmitter: Involved with norepinephrine.

• Mechanism: Helps prepare the cognitive system to respond to, or attend to, stimuli.

The Orienting Network

• Function: Coordinates attention with sensory inputs, enabling the selection of information from sensory input.

• Measurement: Often assessed using cueing tasks, where a cue directs attention to a specific location or feature.

• Involvement: Plays a critical role in daily activities requiring shifting attention, like searching for an object.

The Executive Attention Network

• Function: Manages and resolves conflicts among responses and regulates overall cognitive processes, especially in demanding or novel situations.

• Testing: Typically tested with tasks involving conflict, such as the Stroop task, which requires inhibiting a prepotent response.

• Neurotransmitter: Associated with dopamine.

• Impact: Important for higher-level cognitive functions and can impact cognitive abilities later in life.

Bottleneck Theories

• Concept: Bottlenecks refer to limited processing streams in the cognitive system.

• Bottleneck Theories: These theories explain how selection is made at these processing bottlenecks, as the system cannot process all incoming information simultaneously.

• Research Method: Dichotic Listening Task: A common experimental procedure where different auditory messages are presented to each ear simultaneously. Participants are typically asked to

Broadbent's Filter Model of Attention

• First Bottleneck Model of Attention: Introduces the concept of a bottleneck in information processing.

• Information Flow:

  • Attended Stream: Input $<br>ightarrow$ Sensory Store $<br>ightarrow$ Filter $<br>ightarrow$ Pattern Recognition $<br>ightarrow$ Short-Term Memory.

  • Unattended Stream: Input $<br>ightarrow$ Sensory Store $<br>ightarrow$ Filter (and then filtered out, never reaching pattern recognition).

• Evidence:

  • Dichotic Listening Task: Participants listened to two streams of information simultaneously, one in each ear. They were instructed to attend to one stream and ignore the other.

  • Findings: Participants could not report the content (meaning) of the message in the unattended ear. However, they could report:

    • That there was a message.

    • The gender of the speaker.

Challenges to Broadbent's Model

• Later Evidence: The model was later challenged by findings suggesting that unattended information is processed at some level.

• Cocktail Party Effect:

  • Description: The phenomenon where an individual can hear their own name or other significant information in an unattended conversation amidst many other conversations.

  • Observations during Dichotic Listening: Participants noticed if:

    • Their name was sent to the unattended ear.

    • There was a change in the speaker's gender (e.g., female to male).

    • The input changed from words to a tone.

• Implication: If unattended information is processed to the extent of recognizing one's name or changes in non-meaningful characteristics, then Broadbent's assertion that it stops completely at the filter cannot be entirely correct. However, it's also not true that all unattended information is let through fully, otherwise, we would remember everything.

Treisman's Attenuation Model (Leaky Filter Model)

• Development: Developed in response to the limitations of Broadbent's model.

• Attended Stream: Follows Broadbent's path (full strength through the system).

• Unattended Stream:

  • Goes through Sensory Store at full strength (like Broadbent).

  • Reaches the filter, but does not stop.

  • Gets through the filter and to later stages, but at a much weaker strength (attenuated).

• The Attenuator:

  • Located at the filter.

  • Analyzes messages in terms of:

    • Physical characteristics: Pitch, loudness, location.

    • Language: Syllables, words.

    • Meaning: Semantic content.

  • Allows the attended message through at full strength.

  • Allows the unattended message through at a reduced (attenuated) strength.

Threshold and Dictionary Unit

• Threshold: The minimum amount of activation required for a stimulus to become consciously aware.

  • Easily reached by full-strength (attended) messages.

  • Much harder to reach for weaker-strength (unattended) messages.

• Dictionary Unit:

  • Contains words known to the individual.

  • Each word has an activation threshold.

  • Low Threshold Words: Common, important, or expected words (e.g., your name, frequently used words like "ice cream"). These require less activation to become consciously aware.

  • High Threshold Words: Rare, unimportant, or unexpected words (e.g., "rutabaga," words that make you ask, "Wait, what did you say?"). These require more activation.

• Conceptual Diagram (as discussed in class):

  • Shadowed (Attended) Ear $<br>ightarrow$ Attenuator (discriminates pitch, gender) $<br>ightarrow$ Selective Filter $<br>ightarrow$ Dictionary Unit (higher strength/activation).

  • Rejected (Unattended) Ear $<br>ightarrow$ Attenuator (discriminates pitch, gender) $<br>ightarrow$ Selective Filter $<br>ightarrow$ Dictionary Unit (lower strength/activation - attenuated).

  • The arrows representing activation strength are different heights because the unattended message is attenuated.

  • Horizontal lines within the dictionary unit represent thresholds: higher lines mean higher thresholds.

  • Example: If the rejected ear said "table," it likely wouldn't reach the threshold for conscious awareness. If the attended ear said "table," it would easily reach the threshold.

  • Vegetable Naming Example: Common vegetables (broccoli, squash) were named quickly, indicating lower thresholds. Rarer vegetables (asparagus, eggplant, rutabaga) took longer or were unknown, indicating higher thresholds.

Chapter 5: Different Late Selection Models

Early vs. Late Selection Models

• Early Selection Models (Broadbent, Treisman):

  • The stream of information is selected before pattern recognition.

  • Meaning is not processed for unattended information (or only minimally in Treisman's model).

• Late Selection Models:

  • The stream of information is selected after pattern recognition.

  • This implies that meaning is processed for both attended and unattended streams of information.

Deutsch and Deutsch's Late Selection Model

• Information Flow:

  • Both Attended and Unattended streams $<br>ightarrow$ Sensory Store $<br>ightarrow$ Pattern Recognition (at full strength).

  • Selection Point: After pattern recognition.

  • Unattended ear is filtered out after pattern recognition.

  • Attended stream $<br>ightarrow$ Short-Term Memory.

• Conscious Awareness:

  • Participants are still not consciously aware of the unattended stream.

  • Reason: Conscious awareness only occurs once information reaches Short-Term Memory. All processing up to the selection point (including pattern recognition, where meaning is extracted) happens before conscious awareness.

  • This aligns with the concept that we are not consciously aware of early processing stages.

Evidence for Late Selection: McKay (1973) Experiment

• Goal: To distinguish between early and late selection models.

• Method: Dichotic Listening Task with Ambiguous Sentences and Biasing Words.

  • Attended Ear: Participants heard ambiguous sentences (e.g., "They were throwing stones at the bank.").

  • Unattended Ear: Participants heard a biasing word related to one interpretation of the ambiguous sentence (either "river" or "money").

  • Conscious Recall: Participants could not consciously recall the word heard in the unattended ear.

• Test Phase: Participants were asked to choose the closest meaning of the attended message from two options:

  • "They threw stones towards the side of the river yesterday."

  • "They threw stones at the Savings and Loan Association yesterday." (Note: "Savings and Loan Association" is an old term for a bank).

• Hypothesis for No Processing: If the unattended word were not processed, participants would pick randomly, resulting in a $50/50$ split.

• Hypothesis for Processing:

  • If they heard "river" in the unattended ear and processed its meaning, they would be more likely to pick the "river" option.

  • If they heard "money" in the unattended ear and processed its meaning, they would be more likely to pick the "Savings and Loan Association" option.

• Results: The meaning of the biasing word (from the unattended ear) affected the participant's choice.

  • Participants who heard "money" were more likely to choose the "Savings and Loan Association" option.

  • This indicates that the unattended words were processed for meaning (primed the interpretation), supporting late selection.

• Subliminal Priming: This experiment provides evidence for subliminal priming, where information processed below conscious awareness (pattern recognition in the unattended ear) can still influence behavior.

Chapter 6: Capacity Theories of Attention

• Concept: We possess a limited total amount of effort or attention that can be distributed across various tasks.

• Capacity Limit: Once this total capacity is reached, any additional demands for attention will not be processed.

• Distribution: Attention frequently needs to be distributed across multiple simultaneous processes or tasks.

  • In-Class Example: A "perfect student" simultaneously engages in:

    • Writing notes.

    • Listening to the professor.

    • Reading information on changing slides.

  • Other Examples (Distractions): Texting, checking prices online, watching videos (e.g., soccer matches), playing games.

• Relationship to Bottleneck Theories: Capacity theories are often considered supplemental to bottleneck theories, rather than replacements. They address how attention is allocated after selection occurs.

• Kahneman's Capacity Theory: Developed based on studies like Johnston and Hines (1978).

  • Johnston and Hines (1978) Demonstration: Participants had to split attention by:

    • Listening to two words (one per ear) and reporting the one spoken by a female or the name of a city.

    • Simultaneously pressing a button when a light flashed.

  • This demonstration highlights the need to distribute a limited pool of attention across competing tasks.