Attention

If you are looking to find a blue circle, in which of the following sets would you have the fastest reaction time? A) 50 objects including green triangles and red squares B) 50 objects including blue squares and yellow circles. C) 50 objects including red triangles and green circles D) 50 objects including blue triangles and red circles.

A) 50 objects including green triangles and red squares

Which of the following would result in the fastest visual search time amongst an array consisting of green and red B's and green, blue, and red D's? A) A black D. B) A blue B. C) A blue P. D) A green P.

A) A black D.

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

A) Controlled attention processes are slow, effortful, and consciously guide attention to objects of interest.

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) 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. C) Individuals are able to explicitly recall phrases from both channels if tested with an implicit memory task. D) 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.

A) Individuals report hearing a female speaker in the unattended channel but cannot recall the phrase that they were repeating.

Which of the following outlines an advantage of inhibition of return? A) Inhibition of return promotes an individual attending to new and unsearched locations, thereby resulting in a more efficient visual search. B) Inhibition of return prevents an individual from attending to the same location twice, an effective strategy when searching for moving objects. C) Inhibition of return assists an individual in attending to various different locations, thereby increasing the salience of previously attended stimuli. D) Inhibition of return increases the effort required for an individual to attend to the same stimulus several times, thereby decreasing evolutionary survival.

A) Inhibition of return promotes an individual attending to new and unsearched locations, thereby resulting in a more efficient visual search.

According to Cherry's work on auditory attention, which of the following would NOT help to distinguish target sounds from background noise? A) Semantic meaning B) Speed of speech C) Gender of speaker D) Pitch

A) Semantic meaning

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 slower overall through the use of controlled processing. C) Target detection is slower in the uncued location through the use of controlled processing. D) Target detection is faster overall through the use of automatic processing.

A) Target detection is faster in the cued location through the use of automatic processing.

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

B) Contextual features associated with particular stimuli or experiences help us predict outcomes when we encounter such cues in the future.

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

B) If 25% of items are congruent, the participant will more quickly identify an incongruent item than another person whose task involves 75% congruency.

Which model of attention is best supported by research findings and why? A) The late selection filter because it does not filter out irrelevant physical information before it has been processed in terms of its physical significance. B) The late selection filter because it allows for higher-order information to be processed even if physically irrelevant. C) The early selection filter because it allows higher-order information to be processed even if physically irrelevant. D) The early selection filter because it does not filter out irrelevant physical information until after irrelevant semantic information is filtered out early in processing.

B) The late selection filter because it allows for higher-order information to be processed even if physically irrelevant.

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.

C) Adam is their friend who got lost earlier in the night and they were looking for him.

Which of the following would provide evidence against Broadbent's theory of attention? A) Information with a low degree of saliency is ignored and doesn't go on for further processing. B) In the dichotic listening task, information in the unattended channel always has no effect on participants, whether in terms of implicit or explicit memory. C) Information with semantic relevance receives further processing even if not directly attended to. D) Targets are detected faster only if they are in cued locations.

C) Information with semantic relevance receives further processing even if not directly attended to.

Which of the following correctly outlines a limitation to Broadbent's single filter model? A) It assumes attended information is enhanced, while unattended information is not. B) Its semantic filter does not consider physical characteristics. C) It assumes unattended information is completely filtered out, with no further processing. D) It cannot explain the findings of the dichotic listening paradigm.

C) It assumes unattended information is completely filtered out, with no further processing.

During a chemistry lab, your friend is listening intently for bubbling in her solution. You call her name and ask for instructions on the next step but she seems not to hear you. Which of the following model of attention best describes this scenario? A) Spotlight model B) Dual filter model C) Single filter model D) A combination of the single filter and dual filter models

C) Single filter model

Which of the following statements about filter models of attention is most correct? A) Broadbent proposed that semantically important information may still be processed even if it is heard through the unattended ear. B) Triesman proposed that information from the attended ear was filtered for semantic importance and the unattended ear was filtered for physical characteristics. 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.

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.

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

What aspect of the Stroop task demonstrates controlled processing? A) The colours of words cannot be ignored. B) The words themselves cannot be ignored. C) A majority of congruent items leading to no Stroop effect. D) A majority of incongruent items leading to a decreased Stroop effect.

D) A majority of incongruent items leading to a decreased Stroop effect.

Which of the following is NOT a task used to quantitatively measuring attention? A) Reaction time B) Spatial Cueing paradigm C) Stroop Task D) The Dichotic listening paradigm

D) The Dichotic listening paradigm

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 task becomes less difficult when it includes searching for the colour and shape of the item as opposed to just the shape. C) The difficulty of the task is increased if a subset of items, including the target, are highlighted. D) The number of items in the field does not affect the difficulty if the target item is the only one of that colour.

D) The number of items in the field does not affect the difficulty if the target item is the only one of that colour.

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 half of the font words are scripted in a different font, Aadil will identify all fonts with the same speed. B) When the majority of font words are scripted in the same font, Aadil will identify all of the fonts quickly. C) When the majority of font words are scripted in the same font, Aadil will identify the incongruent fonts quickly. D) 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 a different font, Aadil will identify the incongruent fonts quickly.