Cog Psych Test 2 (ATTENTION)

Explain the cocktail party effect

When you are at a party but you are able to listen to the current conversation you are having but not everything that is around you (We boost attended items and dampen unattended items) You remember (own name, words of significance) - breaks through the attended channel Scientist put two different audio in each ear of a headphone and they were able to ignore one

Treisman (1960)

(Late Selection) People switch channels spontaneously Based on semantic process analysis Sentence 1: I saw the girl song was wishing Sentence 2: Me the bird jumping in the Street

What is late selection

(Treisman, 1960; Moore & Egeth, 1997) = Sensory inputs are filtered only after we perceive them

What is inattentional blindness?

Ability to focus on a single task, while ignoring other tasks

Neural aspects of Central executive: stroop task

Anterior Cingulate was active during conflict between the word and the word's color (incongruent events) Frontal Lobe was involved with maintaining goal—regardless of whether congruent or incongruent

Executive systems (parts)

Anterior cingulate, left lateral frontal, basal ganglia

Orientation system (parts)

Bilateral parietal, superior colliculus, thalamus

What is early Selection?

Broadbent, 1958) = Sensory inputs are filtered based on perceptual characteristics (Pitch, loudness, spatial location)

Which of the following can we NOT multitask successfully a.Two tasks involving perceiving different things b.Two tasks involving different motor responses c.Two tasks involving the response selector d.A and B

C. Two tasks involving the response selector

In terms of driving errors Strayer and Johnson found that talking on a handheld phone was _____ talking on a hands free, and ______ talking to someone who is in the car: A. Just as bad as ; just as bad as B. Worse than; just as bad as C.Just as bad as; worse than D. Worse than; worse than

C.Just as bad as; worse than

Evidence of Early Selection

Cherry (1953) Same word played 35 times in one ear and people didn't notice. They were told to shadow other ear and didn't notice other Hillyard, Vogel, & Luck (1998) EEG signal for attended stimulus differs for unattended 80ms post presentation O'connor, Fukui, & Kastner (2002) attention may affect processing as early as LGN

Why does practice improve performance?

Complex tasks get broken into parts With practice, these parts go from being controlled to being automatic = require less conscious, expectation-based attention I.e., require less capacity E.g., We can read and listen to music at same time

Advantages of controlled attention

Conscious attention is useful when something unexpected or novel comes up If friend is going to funeral of a loved one, don't say "have a fun trip!" Once automatic, we cannot turn a skill off Try not to finish reading this line. You failed! ;)

What are the filter theories?

Early Selection & Late selection

Examples for response selector in driving

Ex. driving and talking on cell phone both require response selector (Strayer & Johnston) Swerving left vs. right? Friend had bad day--how to respond?

What is Expectation based attention

Expectation-Based= conscious attention We are paying attention to some stimulus (Top down)

Capacity Theories and their costs

Expectation-based Attention draws on limited capacity of attention• Attention can be "spent"on other channels But there is a limited amount to spend• Explains why there is a cost in expectation-based tasks Vs. Stimulus-based attention, which has no cost

What are the types of Attention

Expected-based Stimulus-based

Object-based attention meaning

We have to reconsider "spatial attention"—attention can also be based on objects

Explain Posner and Snyder's letter matching experiment

Had to say if letters matched EX (GG, or HG) but shown neutral stimulus (nothing), congruent ( "G"), or incongruent stimulus "H" TWO VALIDITIES HIGH VALIDITY(built expectation letters would be congruent) - VERY FAST congruent reaction time, REALLY LOW incongruent reaction time LOW VALIDITY- kinda fast congruent reaction time, kinda above average incongruent reaction time

Working Memory especially important in inhibiting automatic responses (Kane et al., 2001)

Individual differences in working memory predict ability to move eyes away from a cue Did not predict ability to move eyes towards cue (automatic)

What is spotlight theory?

Hoffman & Nelson (1981) Spatial locations can be enhanced when they fall in same region

Central Executive and memory

Important to working memory Works to keep the desired goal in mind

Capacity theroies by khanerman , pashler

Kahneman: Capacity increases with arousal More difficult tasks -> more capacity available EM: Surprise àarousal --> more capacity?

provide one piece of evidence for change blindness.

Mack & Rock (1998)- subjects given task of identifying if horizontal or vertical line longer in an "+" while looking at middle of screen. While this was happening in the middle they would change symbol Without Attention we don't perceive what is directly in front of us Effect goes away when we are warned (change is perceptible we just don't perceive it) Ex: of the walking gorilla when focusing on the ball passes

Evidence Of Late Selection

Moore & Egeth (1997) Trisman (1960) 2 sentence task Treisman 2 billingual task

Is processing late or early

On the one hand, selection starts very early (early selection) On the other hand, some input we are not paying attention to affects perception and semantics (late selection)

Control Systems in Attention

Orientation system- disengages Alerting systems- achieves and maintaining alert state Executive systems- control voluntary actions

Behrmann & Tipper (1999)

Patients with right hemisphere lesions I.e., left neglect Respond when you see a probe Static condition: Better when probe appears on right Rotating condition: Better when probe appears on left (because right side of object) Object-based attention: We have to reconsider "spatial attention"—attention can also be based on objects

Phineas Gage central function evidence

Probably orbitofrontal PFC Permanent change of personality "impatient and obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, unable to settle on any of the plans he devised for future action"

Alerting systems (parts)

Right frontal cortex, right posterior parietal, locus coeruleus

Left neglect

Stimulus only in left visual field(e.g.a wiggling finger) Reported stimulus Stimuli presented in both visual fields "Extinction " of object in left visual field Reading"BROTHER"as"HER" Breaking the word down spatially, not respectin

Treisman Task Bilinguals

Supports late selection Participants billinguals Got fed same sentence but in different language in each ear, subjects can hear they were the same

What is response selector

Task-general cognitive resource that selects and initiates responses, both physical and "mental"

What is the binding problem?

The brain processes features in parallel, so the elements need to be put together This is the binding problem Overloading attention leads to binding errors

Divided attention vs selective attention

We are capable of doing multiple tasks at the same time = multitasking This requires divided attention as opposed to selective attention (one task) So far, we've seen that stimulus-based attention appears unlimited (No cost, unlimited capacity) But how do we perform two expectation-based tasks at the same time? E.g., doing the dishes while carrying on a conversation We need to pay attention to both

What is Change Blindness

We don't remember details in front of our eyes unless we attend to them(There is a memory component from scene to scene)

Advantages of automatic attention

We don't use up attentional capacity, so we can multitask Reading and writing are so automatic that you can do both right now without interfering The goal of your teaching project might be to get people to do something more automatically

Is there any limit to multitasking?

With practice, many tasks can become automatic But one limit is that we have to select responses

In a study of spatial attention, participants were given a neutral, correct, or misleading cue about where on the screen a stimulus would appear. What is an explanation for what happened on trials with misleading cues? a) There were costs because spatial attention is a limited- capacity system. b) There were costs because the spotlight of attention had moved to the misled location and had to move back. c) both a and b d) neither a nor b

a) There were costs because spatial attention is a limited- capacity system. b) There were costs because the spotlight of attention had moved to the misled location and had to move back. c) both a and b d) neither a nor b

What is the focus of the spotlight of attention? a. A particular position in space b. A particular object c. A particular feature of an object d. Aspects of the visual field that trigger strong emotions

a. A particular position in space

Which statement about visual attention is LEAST accurate? a) Stimuli that are expected are very likely to catch our attention b) The only way to point attention to a place is to point our eyes in the direction c) By priming our detectors, we make expected stimuli more likely to be noticed and remembered d) Attention can be directed toward specific areas of space.

b) The only way to point attention to a place is to point our eyes in the direction (it can be focused in an area without having to look there)

Which of the following is a failure of selective attention? a) You are in the basement washing clothes and you hear the dog bark unexpectedly upstairs. b) You are able to change the radio station while driving. c) While you are working on your problem set in the living room, you are thrown off track when your sister changes your favorite radio station d) While upstairs talking to your best friend, you pretend not to hear your brother asking you to help clean the kitchen.

c) While you are working on your problem set in the living room, you are thrown off track when your sister changes your favorite radio station or a) You are in the basement washing clothes and you hear the dog bark unexpectedly upstairs.

When we are not paying attention to something a) there is no perception b) participants still consciously perceive stimuli if the stimuli are simple enough c) participants can perceive most aspects of the world but are not influenced by what they perceive d) stimuli may not be consciously perceived but can still have an influence on the perceiver.

c) participants can perceive most aspects of the world but are not influenced by what they perceive or d) stimuli may not be consciously perceived but can still have an influence on the perceiver

You are in a loud room conversing with a friend. In this situation, you are MOST likely to hear a) whether the person behind you is speaking intelligently or foolishly b) whether it is a man or a woman standing behind you talking c) that the couple beside you are talking about a movie you just saw and loved d) that your name is being called out by the person next to you.

c) that the couple beside you are talking about a movie you just saw and loved or d) that your name is being called out by the person next to you.

Stroop test

color words are shown, but text is in different colors reading is so automatic it is hard to cancel it to use our controlled attention Anterior cingulate was active during conflict between word and words color

Which of the following statements applies to stimulus-based priming but not to expectation-based priming? a) It has an immediate effect on attention b) It has a cost attached c) It leads to faster recognition of subsequent related stimuli d) It is bottom-up.

d) It is bottom-up.

What is dichotic listening + channels

different messages in each ear (2 Channels) attended channel= show this one unattended channel= ignore this one

Parts of Brain involved in Central Executive

dorsolatertal preontal cortex, anterior prefontral cortex cortex, ventro lateral prefrontal cortex, orbitoal prefrontal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus

describe one real life situation in which inattentional blindness plays a role

driving and not noticing a bicyclist because they were too focused on driving Refrigerator - cant find ketchup when right in front of you

Posner spatial task (flanking) neglect patients

faster with valid cues (like participants without neglect) Faster with ipsilateral targets Interaction effect: Invalid cues on contralateral side were particularly difficult Another interaction: Differences were most pronounced for those with right parietal damage (Right parietal cortex important in spatial attention) Supports Spotlight Theory, and suggests that Neglect is a disorder of the spotlight

Posner spatial task (FLANKING)

focused on stimulus would appear in left or right box a cue would be given in a direction 2 types (invalid, valid)

Central Executive meaning

is responsible for allocating limited attentional resources among cognitive tasks

Response selection with talking data

people with cellphone performed worse at driving and had a delay with action but when talking with a person in the passenger seat they were better because the person stopped talking when driving got too strenuous

What is shadowing

repeating every word you hear

Response Selection Bottleneck (Pashler)

response selection is serial, not parallel; we can only select one response at a time

What is Stimulus based attention

unconscious attention A stimulus that catches our attention Examples: loud noise, flashing light (bottom up)