Attention

Which of the following is true of the Stroop Effect? A) If 25% of items are congruent, the participant will more quickly identify an incongruent item than another person whose task involves 75% congruency. B) If 75% of items are incongruent in a task, it will draw more on automatic processes of attention. C) If 75% of items are incongruent, the participant will more quickly identify a congruent item than another person whose task involves 25% congruency. D) If 75% of the items are incongruent in a task, the participant will not display the Stroop Effect.

CA: A MA: A Feedback: With a decrease in congruency, the participant consciously tries to ignore what colour is written and just look at the ink colour so when an incongruent item is presented they will outperform a participant who has not developed this strategy.

Which of the following scenarios would be most likely to occur if participants are tested with the dichotic listening task? A) Individuals report hearing a female speaker in the unattended channel but cannot recall the phrase that they were repeating. B) Due to interference between the attended and unattended channels, participants are often only able to recall the general message or idea of the unattended channel. C) Information in the unattended channel with relevance to a task that has to be completed often has no effect on the individual being tested, but it is typically recollected if presented in the attended channel. D) Individuals are able to explicitly recall phrases from both channels if tested with an implicit memory task.

CA: A MA: B Feedback: It is likely that there is no significant interference between the channels so long as participants are following instructions (only shadowing the attended channel), thus it is unlikely that a great deal of information from the unattended channel, such as the general message, will be recalled.

In a spatial cueing paradigm, the target appears shortly after the cue, and equally often in both cued and uncued locations at random on the left and right sides. Which of the following correctly outlines the type of processing and effect on target detection? A) Target detection is faster in the cued location through the use of automatic processing. B) Target detection is faster overall through the use of automatic processing. C) Target detection is slower in the uncued location through the use of controlled processing. D) Target detection is slower overall through the use of controlled processing.

CA: A MA: B Feedback: The manipulation of the target shortly after both cued and uncued locations at random results in controlled processes being removed, and automatic processes being utilized. Target detection is faster in the cued location, but not in the uncued location.

Which of the following statements is true of attention and selection? A) Selection is the conscious direction of cognitive resources to a select portion of the environment. B) Controlled attention processes are slow, effortful, and consciously guide attention to objects of interest. C) Automatic attention processes are fast, efficient, voluntary, and triggered by external events. D) Attention is the automatic direction of cognitive resources to a select portion of the environment. Hide Feedback

CA: B MA: A Selection refers to the fact that attending to one thing causes the object of attention to be selected apart from the rest of the unattended objects. It is not the conscious direction of cognitive resources.

Which of the following statements about visual search tasks is most correct? A) The difficulty of the task always increases as the number of items in the field increases. B) The number of items in the field does not affect the difficulty if the target item is the only one of that colour. C) The difficulty of the task is increased if a subset of items, including the target, are highlighted. D) The task becomes less difficult when it includes searching for the colour and shape of the item as opposed to just the shape

CA: B MA: A Feedback: Increasing the set size does not increase the difficulty of the search task if the popout effect is present.

Aadil is a font specialist in the linguistic department, and he is given a list of font words and asked to identify the font each word is scripted in. Which of the following best exemplifies what we would expect of Aadil's performance? A) When the majority of font words are scripted in the same font, Aadil will identify all of the fonts quickly. B) When half of the font words are scripted in a different font, Aadil will identify all fonts with the same speed. C) When the majority of font words are scripted in a different font, Aadil will identify the incongruent fonts quickly. D) When the majority of font words are scripted in the same font, Aadil will identify the incongruent fonts quickly.

CA: C MA: A Feedback: The Stroop paradigm predicts that Aadil will perform quicker for congruent conditions in this scenario.

Which of the following statements about filter models of attention is most correct? A) Triesman proposed that information from the attended ear was filtered for semantic importance and the unattended ear was filtered for physical characteristics. B) Broadbent proposed that semantically important information may still be processed even if it is heard through the unattended ear. C) Triesman proposed that all information is passed through the physical filter, where ratings of importance are made, to the semantic filter to determine what is attended to. D) Broadbent proposed that information is processed through a single attentional filter on the basis of semantic importance.

CA: C MA: B Feedback: Broadbent's single filter model suggests that information is processed on the basis of physical characteristics, such as pitch, origin, and intensity. He proposed that information that did not pass through the physical filter was not processed any further. This option outlines one of the shortcomings of Broadbent's attentional model.

Connie is at a club talking with her boyfriend Cody, when her attention is suddenly directed to someone yelling out the name Adam. Which of the following uses top-down processing to best explain Connie's sudden shift in attention? A) Connie has a fraternal twin named Adam who she grew up with very closely. B) Adam's name was shouted loudly and it grabbed everyone's attention. C) Adam is their friend who got lost earlier in the night and they were looking for him. D) The man that yelled was very loud and obnoxious a few seconds earlier.

CA: C MA: B Feedback: This is an example of bottom-up processing.

Which of the following would be least likely to engage controlled attention? A) Responding as quickly as possible to different coloured stimuli in an experiment. B) Grabbing your alarm clock from your dresser to press the snooze button. C) Turning around and looking at the person in the library who just turned their music on full blast. D) Riding your bike through your favourite trail.

CA: C MA: D Feedback: Although your favourite trail may be familiar to you, this option does not indicate anything about the level of bike experience, and therefore a high number of controlled processes may be engaged in this scenario.

Which of the following highlights the relevance of contextual cuing? A) Contextual cuing helps to build conscious strategies for automatic processing of stimuli. B) Contextual cuing prevents the rapid selection of memories as it may lead to error; instead it involves controlled, voluntary selection of memories. C) Contextual features linked to particular stimuli or experiences guide us in terms of what we ought to encode for better future recall. D) Contextual features associated with particular stimuli or experiences help us predict outcomes when we encounter such cues in the future.

CA: D MA: A Feedback: Automatic processing is not necessarily guided by conscious strategies; the fact that it is automatic suggests that it is not under voluntary control. Cues associated with particular stimuli act as links to those stimuli; when the cues are experienced in the future they automatically activate the associated stimuli and this helps us anticipate stimuli that are likely to appear in our environment.