Cognitive Psychology (McBride &Cutting) Chapter 4

Processing capacity

Amount of info people can handle

conjunction-feature

In Treisman and Gelade's (1980) experiments n visual search for a target, the target in the ____________ condition seemed to pop out of the displays.

inattentional blindness

Not noticing a change in the environment from moment to moment is called

Stroop Task

a research procedure where subjects are asked to name the color of printed words where some words are color words that conflict with the print color showing interference in the naming task

Shadowing task

a research procedure where subjects are asked to repeat a message heard over headphones

Attention

ability to focus on a specific stimuli/location

cocktail party effect

ability to focus on on e stimulus while filtering out other stimuli (often used at noisy parties with many conversations going around you)

cocktail party effect

an effect of attention where one's focus changes abruptly due to a salient stimulus (such as one's name) in the environment

attenuator

analyzes the incoming message in terms of its physical characteristics, language, and meaning

illusory conjunctions

combinations of features attributed to the incorrect stimuli (mixing up size, shape, color)

Simon effect

interference in response due to inconsistency between the response and the stimulus

visual search

looking for an object among other objects

visual scanning

movements of the eyes from one object/location to another

inattentional blindness

not paying attention to something that is clearly visible (basketball game)

automatic processing

occurs without intention and at a cost of only some of a person's cognitive resources

distraction

one stimulus interfering with the processing of another

divided attention

paying attention to more than one thing at a time

binding

process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object

covert attention

process of directing attention while keeping our eyes stationary

controlled processing

processing due to an intention that consumes cognitive resources

automatic processing

processing that is not controlled and does not tax cognitive resources

shadowing

repeating what you are hearing

Dual-task method

research procedure where subjects are given two tasks to perform at once to compare with performance on one task alone to examine interference due to the second task

focused attention stage

second step in feature integration theory where features are combined