Attention

Week 3 - Attention (September 13, 2024)

1. Understanding Attention

  • Definition of Attention: Facilitates processes like decision-making and language.

  • Attention as a Resource: Limited, can run out (example: multitasking while driving).

  • Default Mode: Structures active when not focused (e.g., resting or daydreaming).

2. Alertness and Arousal

  • Levels of Attention:

    • Alertness: Maximum efficiency level.

    • Vigilance/Sustained Attention: Focus over prolonged periods; can decrease over time.

    • Factors Influencing Effectiveness: Length and frequency of signals, background noise.

3. The Central Executive and Attentional Control

  • Components of the Central Executive:

    • Semi-automatic conflict-resolution (operates without conscious awareness).

    • Supervisory Attentional System (SAS): Activated when automatic processes fail.

4. Impact of Frontal Lobes on Attentional Control

  • Damage Effects:

    • Perseveration: Repeated actions or mistakes.

    • Utilization Behaviors: Indiscriminate environmental cue usage.

    • Failure to monitor behaviour

    • This suggests that SAS relies on the frontal lobes


  • Orienting Reflex: Reflexive attention shift to unexpected stimuli.

5. Attention as a Cognitive Process

  • Cognitive Processing and Attention: Attention is required for focused cognitive tasks.

  • Attention as a Limited Resource: Must be allocated among tasks.

6. Selective Attention

  • Definition: Choosing specific stimuli to focus on while ignoring others.

  • Models of Selective Attention:

    • Spotlight Model: Attention directed like a spotlight (unattended outside).

    • Zoom Lens Model: Attention can be widened or narrowed; affects processing speed.

7. Dual Task Methods for Studying Attention

  • Concept: Participants perform two simultaneous tasks to study attentional limits.

  • Listening Experiment: Focus on one ear, ignoring the other; reflects limitations in processing.

  • Decreased Processing: Instead of blocking information, stimuli are attenuated.

8. Late Selection Models of Attention

  • Process Flow: Information passes through a sensory-perceptual filter; short-term memory has limited processing.

9. Divided Attention

  • Definition: Splitting attention across multiple tasks.

  • Central Executive's Role: Coordinates tasks and manages divided attention.

  • Bottleneck Approach: Describes limitations in processing where tasks become inefficient due to overloaded capacity.

  • Psychological Refractory Period: Delay in processing subsequent stimuli after one has been presented.

10. Capacity Theory

  • Attention Capacity: Limited; exceeding it can lead to task failures.

  • Task Interference: Relatedness of tasks affects interference levels.

11. Controlled vs. Automatic Processing

  • Automatic Processing: Requires minimal conscious thought and effort.

  • Controlled Processing: Requires deliberate thought and effort.

  • Stroop Effect: Demonstrates difficulty when automatic processes conflict with controlled tasks.

12. Action Slips

  • Definition: Mistakes made during automatic processing due to attention failures.

  • Types of Action Slips:

    • Loss-of-Activation Error: Forgetting intended action.

    • Description Error: Carrying out the action incorrectly.

    • Data-Driven Error: External influences causing unintended behavior.

    • Capture Error: Incorrect action due to similar schemas.

    • Associative Activation Error: Related schemas unintentionally activated.

13. Attentional Blink

  • Definition: Period where detection of a second visual stimulus is impaired after the first.

  • Method of Study: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP).

14. Inattentional Blindness

  • Definition: Failure to notice stimuli due to attention focusing on another task.

  • Evolutionary Advantage: Helps prioritize essential changes in the environment.

15. Change Blindness

  • Definition: Inability to notice changes in a visual stimulus.

  • Flicker Task: Method highlighting change detection in images.

  • Detection Conditions: Improved when images are processed holistically.

16. Comparison: Inattentional vs. Change Blindness

  • Focus: Inattentional blindness relates to single scenes, while change blindness involves scene comparisons.

  • Effect of Intent: Intentional focus affects detection capability.