Attention- Chapter4

What are the four theories of attention

Attention as a filter Attention as a spotlight Attention as a mental resource Attention as a feature binder

What its the dependent variable in a feature search

DV- reaction time to respond

What are the 4 characteristics of automatic processes?

Do not require attention Fast Parallel- multiple tasks at once Cannot be modified once started- because not under conscious control

What are the 3 main types of attention?

Exogenous-endogenous Overt-covert Automatic-controlled

When is gender most likely to be noticed?

Gender is most likely noticed by males- female to female change

Explain the study by Shiffrin & Schneider (1977) that shows the difference between automatic and controlled processes? State the task, IV, Measure

Item recognition task Independent Variables target- can be letters or numbers Frame size Target presence Distractor items- same category/varied mapping or different category /consistent mapping same/varied-distractor is number if looking for numbers and vice versa different/consistent mapping- distractor number if looking for letters measured- response time

What are the 3 independent variables in a visual search TDP

Manipulations: IV-type of search IV-number of distractors IV-presence of target

Is it possible to have covert-exogenous attention?

No

Attention as a Limited Resource Attention as a Spotlight Describe Posner's 1980 study based on how we direct attention

Question- How do we direct attention Method: Used a pre-queing paradigm Participants told to look at cross and was told that stimulus will appear in visual field, must press a button when stimulus appears 3 conditions first condition- valid trial-before the stimulus appears, there is an arrow above the cross that points where the target will appear 2nd- neutral trial - no arrow appears and then the stimulus appears 3rd- invalid trial- arrow points to the wrong place and then the target appears somewhere else

According to the Attention as a Mental Capacity theory, how is attention allocated?

Tasks with high cognitive -example driving during rush hour- load require more attentional resources and vice versa some control over how we allot these resources

Describe the study of spotlight vigilance with the two rectangles

Two orange rectangles, looking for smaller ones Used a pre-cueing paradigm Que: part of shape highlighted reaction time fastest for valid cue compared to invalid but intermediate reaction time when target appears at a different location but within the same object slowest reaction time when cue invalid - different location- different objects indicates- can pay attention to location and object

Based on Treisman's Attenuation Model how might unattended stimulus still be processed? IIL

Unattended stimuli may be more intense Unattended stimuli may be 'more important' Unattended stimuli may be 'more likely'

What are some problems with the attention as a spotlight theory?

We can attend one object even when there are two objects in the space

Is it possible to have overt-exogenous attention?

Yes

Is it possible to have overt-endogenous attention?

Yes- possible to decide where we're allocating attention or deciding where to look

Attention as a feature binder Visual search What is a feature search?

a search where the target does not share features with the distractors- need to look for one feature example green circle among blue squares

What were the results from the different category group 68DA

after 600 trials task became automatic Required only 80 ms per frame to achieve 95% accuracy umber of items per frame didn't affect response 4me Participants were not able to complete the varied mapping condition/same category after consistent/different category became automatic

What can one conclude from these results

arrow serves as a cue to guiding our attention to a specific field/location we pay attention to location/spatial

What are the results from conjunction searches

as number of distractors increases, the response time increases serial process relatively slow controlled

Explain how attention is described as a spotlight

attention acts like a spotlight, focused on a part of an environment that has our attention spotlight can be moved around as attention shifts to different things

Attention as a Mental Capacity/Divided Attention What does this model suggest?

attention has a limited capacity due to the limited amount of cognitive resources available for a task

What hypothesis Contributes to the Simon Effect?

attentional-movement hypothesis

Attention as a Spotlight Vigilance Define vigilance

can attend to both object and location

What does the feature integration theory suggest?

combine separate features of an object in 3 stages to create a more complete perception of the said object.

Describe exogenous-endgenous attention

endogenous- when we decide what to pay attention to, control is internal Example: can pay attention to group of people or not exogenous- stimulus or something out in the world catches our attention, attention driven by external events Example: a loud noise

What are the results from/characteristics of feature searches- think of automatic

constant reaction time, independent of distractors parallel process relatively fast automatic

Describe attention as having a limited capacity

decide how attention is allocated can decide on attending to what is going on out in the world or whats in your head one thing requiring lots of attention may result in reduced performance on other tasks

Driving and Cell Phones What are some arguments against driving with cell phones - Auto, Hands, Radio, Passenger

driving is automatic and have had lots of practice - all possibilities cannot be anticipated so attention needs to be available for unpredicted events use hands-free- attention still diverted/divided can listen to the radio- much less attention, not actively engaged, not many resources used can talk to passengers- passengers sees the same environment/shared attention

Define change blindness

failture to notice a change in the environment because we are not attending to it may be due to participants focusing on other parts of the scene

Define in-attentional blindess

failture to notice a stimulus because we are not paying attention example- failure to see gorilla in the scene or the curtains change

Filter Theories of Attention Selective Attention How is attention described as a filter/bottle-neck

filter out the irrelevant stimuli in the environment, information in consciousness is what we pay attention to attention acts like a bottleneck that only lets some information through at a time and selects attended information for processing only

What is the second stage of the feature integration theory? What does it suggest?

focused attention stage involves conscious attention to combine features used in conjunction searches

What are some factors that can't change without one noticing

gender age race

What were the findings from the Dichotic listening tasks

good at selective attention- paying attention to a message in 1 ear and not the other Took nearly all of their attention, reported a difficult task and needed to pay close attention in order to attend to one message and ignore the other noticed basic sensory info in unattended ear such as if speaker changed from male to female did not notice meaning of the message in the unattended ear

How does the Mental Capacity theory explain how we can complete multiple tasks at the same time?

if we practice a task, fewer attentional resources are required and become automatic and additional tasks can be added Example- learning to drive- initially high cognitive load with practice driving becomes more automatic

Broadbent's Early Selection Filter Model What are the steps involved in this model What is this model based on? SSAD

info from the environment is sent to sensory memory sensory memory stores information from the environment which is a brief storage everything from SM gets passed to the attentional filter the attentional filter picks 1 thing that we attend to then sends it to a detector detector- processes what is attended to no meaning until after attention based on dichotic listening tasks

Effects of Automatic Processes on Attention: The Stroop Task Explain the stroop task

inhibits automatic processes and focuses attention on a conflicting task Subjects asked to name the color of printed words - where the print color and words are inconsistent Reading is automatic Therefore cant be modified once started- must read yellow then answer out loud green

Define vigilance

keeping alert, paying attention to environment, waiting for stimulus to appear

How is attention described as it relates to its capacity?

limited capacity

Define dichotic listening and shadowing

listening to a different message presented in each ear at the same time participants asked to repeat/attend to the message presented in one ear whilst ignoring the other

What are some cues that affect attention

motion color brightness constrast orientation

What is the strongest cue? What does it indicate

motion strongest cue signals a change in the environment- evolutionary - if something is moving it is most likely dangerous

Why does the Simon effect occur?

must overcome attentional bias

What were the results from Posner's study?

neutral cue- acts as base line in valid condition- reaction time faster compared to neutral in invalid- reaction time slower compared to neutral

What is the cocktail party effect? What does it indicate

one's attention changes due to the presence of a salient stimulus such as one's name in the environment more salient info can get through the filter to capture attention

What were some problems with Broadbent's Early Selection Model and the dichotic listening task?

people were aware of their name in the unattended message- based on the theory if you are not attending to the message you should not be able to process info and understand name

Explain the study of Attention as a Spotlight Vigilance by Neisser and Becklen,1975, that shows a problem with the spotlight theory

persons asked to count claps and shown a video of passing a ball in basketball superimposed video with both- count passes and basketball according to the theory-both should be processed but people ignore the claps and attend to the ball

What is the first stage of the feature integration theory? What does it suggest?

pre-atttentive stage Single feature does not require attention- its automatic stops as soon as feature is identified because it is automatic we are not aware of the identification of these features this is why feature searches are quick- only requires the pre-attentive stage

Define the dual-task method

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

How is attention defined ?

process of concentrating mental effort on sensory or mental events

Describe overt-covert attention What is it related to?

related to eye movements overt- obvious to others what we are attending to because we are looking at what is being attended to covert- shifting attention without looking at something Example- eavesdropping, not looking at individuals speaking

What are the 4 characteristics of controlled processes

require attention slow serial- must complete one task before moving to the next under conscious control- therefore can be modified

What is the Simon Effect?

responses are fastest when a stimulus occurs in the same location as the response to be made

What is the role of attention in the focused attention stage?

role of attention is to bind features of an object at a location

Describe Treisman's alternate theory/ Attenuation Model SAD

sensory info comes in and passes through an attenuator the attenuation filter makes some signals stronger and others weaker the intended message or thing we are attending to receives a stronger signal from there it passes through a dictionary unit - there information is stored with a threshold value The lower the threshold, the more likely the information is attended to therefore, important info with low threshold such as one's name cn reach consciousness

Describe automatic-controlled attention

some tasks are automatic and do not require attention or not as much attention some tasks controlled-therefore need to pay more attention to it

What is attention driven by?

stimulus saliency - most important stimuli and previous knowledge

What experiment did Triesman 1960 perform to show the problems with Broadbent's Early Selection Model What did this suggest

subjects report information from the competing message in a shadowing task when the information is meaningfully related to the information in the attended-to message. Example in one ear heard- black, runs, meows, funny other ear- march,cat,clock, loudly would report- black cat meows loudly suggests that competing info is not filleted out and processing occurs in unattended ear

Describe the study by Nicoletti and Umilta which describes the Simon Effect

subjects to press the right key when a square was presented and a left key when a circle was presented. participants faster when the object appeared on right side and right key pressed and left side and left key pressed when presented further from centre, reaction times were slower

What were the result from the same category group N4P

task Never became automatic Same category condition required 400 ms to achieve 95% accuracy Performance decreased as the number of distracter items increased

What is the attentional-movement hypothesis ?

the shift in attention to a target on the left or the right of one's attentional focus biases one to want to respond on the side of the attention shift (left or right). Thus, a response on the other side from the target must overcome this bias, resulting in slower response time

Attention as a feature binder Visual search What is a conjunction search?

the target item shares features with distractors- need to look for combination of features Green circle among green squares and blue circles - search for green circle

What did Land and Hayhoe conclude from the experiment in making a sandwich

the task demands are most important in determining fixations/ eye movements when a person makes a peanut butter sandwich. individuals looked at the item needed before using it-past experience told them what was needed for the task and anticipated what would be important

What is the relationship between attention and consciousness

when we are attending to something we are consciously aware Once we stop attending to something it disappears from consciousness