Attention and Inattentional Blindness

Introduction to Rebecca Pharmer

  • Rebecca Pharmer, M.S., is the guest speaker. Rebecca is an expert in cognitive psychology and human factors, bringing practical insights from her research and professional experience.

  • B.S. in Psychology from UCF (2018). During her undergraduate studies, Rebecca gained a strong foundation in psychological principles and research methodologies.

  • Worked as an RA in a Research lab. As a research assistant, she contributed to various projects, developing skills in data collection, analysis, and interpretation.

  • Research Psychologist, US Navy civilian contractor, studied Training Systems. Her work with the Navy involved applying psychological principles to enhance training effectiveness and optimize human performance in naval operations.

  • Started PhD Program in 2020 in Cognitive Psychology / Human Factors. Her doctoral research focuses on advanced topics in cognition and human-computer interaction.

  • Research focuses on learning with automation support. She investigates how automation can be designed to support and improve human learning and decision-making processes.

  • M.S. in Cognitive Psychology from CSU (2023). Her master's thesis explored innovative approaches to understanding cognitive processes.

  • Currently a PhD Candidate. Rebecca is now completing her PhD, contributing new knowledge to the field.

Psychological Research

  • Basic Research: Aimed at driving/expanding theory. Basic research expands the theoretical foundation of psychology, exploring fundamental principles and mechanisms.

  • Applied Research: Aimed at addressing real-world issues. Applied research translates theoretical insights into practical solutions for everyday problems and challenges.

Cognitive Psychology and Human Factors

  • Cognitive Psychology: The scientific study of mental processes involved in how people perceive, learn, remember, think, problem-solve, and communicate. Cognitive psychology seeks to understand the underlying processes that govern our mental activities.

  • Human Factors Psychology (Engineering Psychology): Applying theories of human cognition to the study of how people interact with systems, tools, environments, and technology aiming to optimize human performance, safety, and well-being. Human factors psychology focuses on designing technology and environments that are user-friendly and efficient.

What is Attention?

  • Attention is "A state in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the environment rather than on others and the central nervous system is in a state of readiness to respond to stimuli.” – America Psychological Association. Attention involves selective focus, filtering stimuli, and preparing the mind and body to respond.

The Card Trick

  • A video on attention can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3iPrBrGSJM&ab_channel=Quirkology

  • A challenge to figure out how the card trick in the video is done. This exercise demonstrates how easily attention can be manipulated, even when we believe we are paying close attention.

We Don’t Notice Everything

  • Our brain filters out stimuli that aren’t relevant. This filtering process is essential for managing the vast amount of sensory information we receive.

  • The downside is that we might miss things that are important. Inattentional blindness can lead to overlooking critical details with potentially serious consequences.

  • The upside is that it keeps us from being totally overloaded with information. Without attentional filtering, we would be overwhelmed by irrelevant stimuli, impairing our ability to function effectively.

Our Attention is Limited

  • We attend to less in our environment than we think. Our attentional capacity is finite, meaning we can only focus on a limited amount of information at any given time.

  • We cannot focus on multiple changes in our environment at once (at least not very well!). Trying to attend to multiple changes simultaneously overloads our cognitive resources, resulting in decreased performance.

Limited Attention Experiment

  • The presenter asked to count how many times the ball bounces on the video. This experiment illustrates the limits of our attentional capacity and susceptibility to distraction.

Simon & Chabris (1999)

  • Simon and Chabris (1999) were interested in what people pay attention to and what they ignore. Their research explored the phenomenon of inattentional blindness, revealing how easily attention can be directed.

  • Participants were shown a video of students passing a basketball around.

  • Participants were asked to count how many times the players wearing white pass the basketball. This task directed participants' attention narrowly, making them less likely to notice unexpected events.

  • About 50% of participants did not notice the gorilla at all, demonstrating Inattentional Blindness. The gorilla served as an unexpected stimulus, highlighting the power of focused attention to induce blindness to other visual elements.

  • Inattentional Blindness: People fail to notice an unexpected object because they are focused on a different task. This phenomenon has significant implications for understanding perception and awareness.

Simon & Levin (1997)

  • A researcher asks for directions from someone.

  • Another researcher walked through with a door and swapped with the initial researcher. This manipulation tested whether people would notice a change in the person they were interacting with.

  • Few people noticed the person they were talking to changed!! This starkly demonstrated that people often do not fully process even the most obvious features of their environment when attention is focused elsewhere.

What Grabs our Attention?

  • Sensory Activation- Something really bright

    • Something moving

  • Pertinence/Relevance- What we were instructed to look for

    • Something relevant to us and our own experiences

Biases in Change Detection

  • Yaxley & Zwaan (2005): showed smokers and nonsmokers scenes that flickered and changed. This study investigated how personal relevance influences what we notice.

  • In some scenes a smoking object changed.

  • In some scenes a smoking object was present but a nonsmoking object changed.

  • Measure: Number of alternations (flickers) before the change is detected. The number of alternations served as an indicator of how quickly participants detected the change.

Results of Yaxley & Zwaan (2005) Study

  • Smokers were fastest when the smoking object changed. This finding suggests that personal relevance enhances attentional processing.

  • Smokers were much faster than non-smokers at detecting change when a smoking object changed. The difference in detection speed highlights the impact of personal experience on attention.

  • The Y axis of the graph is "Alternations Before Detection"

Priming in Attention

  • In another condition, non-smokers were informed that the experiment was about smoking and attention. This priming manipulation aimed to increase the relevance of smoking-related stimuli for non-smokers.

  • The question was: Can we impose relevance of the stimuli through priming?

Results-Smoking Object Only

  • When non-smokers were told to look for smoking objects, they were just as fast at noticing the change as smokers. This result indicates that priming can effectively direct attention, even in the absence of personal experience.

We Can be Primed to Notice

  • If told to count how many times the ball bounces.

  • What if I told you to look for the gorilla? Would you have missed it? Probably not!

Why do we care about attention?

  • Inattentional blindness has real-world implications. Understanding attentional limitations is crucial for preventing errors and accidents.

  • What happens when we miss something important? Missing critical information can lead to serious consequences in various contexts.

Real-World Implications

  • Driving: Focusing on a conversation might make you miss important roadway hazards. Distracted driving significantly increases the risk of accidents.

  • TSA Baggage Screening: Being distracted, fatigued, or focused on finding a single item can lead to missing contraband. Improving attentional strategies among TSA agents can enhance security.

  • Medical Professionals: Radiologists reviewing an X-ray or scan for a particular condition may overlook other abnormalities. Comprehensive training and technological aids can help reduce errors in medical imaging.

Basic vs Applied Research

  • Basic Research: Establish an understanding of humans' attentional capacity. Basic research forms the foundation for practical applications by uncovering fundamental principles.

  • Applied Research: Design systems to support and supplement human attention. Applied research uses these principles to develop tools and strategies that improve real-world performance.

Attentional Cuing

  • Human Factors Psychologists: Study attention as it applies to real-world problems.

    • Have helped develop technology to combat our attentional limitations. The field of human factors is dedicated to creating systems that work with, rather than against, human cognitive capabilities.

    • Make things more salient with alarms, highlighting, AI detection. Attentional cuing techniques can effectively guide attention and reduce the likelihood of missing critical information.

Attentional Blindspots: Take home message:

  • We often do not notice everything in our environment.

  • Change detection can be affected by sensory input/salience.

  • Change detection also can be affected by our prior knowledge, biases, and instructions.

  • We can guide attention to avoid missing important information through attentional cuing. By understanding and applying attentional principles, we can design safer and more effective systems.