cognitive psych chapter 4

Stroop Task

A task invented in which a subject sees a list of words (color terms) printed in an ink color that differs from the word named. The subject is asked to name the ink colors of the words in the list and demonstrates great difficult in doing so, relative to a condition in which non-color words form the stimuli

cocktail party effect

Ability to concentrate on one voice amongst a crowd

Simon effect

Response times to a stimulus are decreased when responses are in the direction of the stimulus, even though subjects are told to ignore the location of the stimulus

attention is the focus of consciousness and can be moved around in the environment

Spotlight model

how did the two stages of the featured integration model of attention differ

The first stage in automatic processing stage that does not require attention in identifying features in a scene. The second stage is a controlled processing stage requiring attention that finds features together to allow for an object identification and scene understanding.

shadowing task

Two different sounds projected into different ears- asked to repeat one thing in one ear

controlled processing

a detailed consideration of evidence and information relying on facts, figures, and logic

attention is an important process for many cognitive tasks describe some ways that attention is important in the tasks you perform as a student

answers will vary but some key aspects of attention involve focusing on the task searching for an object in a scene and having your attention captured by important things in the environment

attention reduces the strength of a irrelevant stimuli in the environment

attenuation model

describe the similar aspects in tresimans feature integration model and Schneider and shiffrins description of attention

both models contain conscious and automatic processes that support attention

can you think of other ways to describe attention processes besides the filter metaphor

but some other ideas proposes are as a spotlight of consciousness and as glue to bind features

in-attentional blindness

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

attention binds aspects of a scene together to identify objects

feature integration model

attention excludes irrelevant stimuli to allow one to focus on the relevant aspects of the environment

filter model

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

in-attentional blindness

based on the work of Daniel Simmons explain how it is possible that you did not notice that a different person was not a part of your conversation and a party scene described at the beginning of the chapter

intentional blindness is common-subject did not notice a person in a gorilla suit moving across the scene when they're attention was focused elsewhere

Schneider and Shiffrin (1977) experiments showed that the targets and distractors were (?) the task became automatic for the subjects

of the same types

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

in Treisman and Gelades experiments on visual search for a target, the targets in the (?) condition seemed to pop out of displays

single feature

identify some features that are likely relevant for focusing attention on a particular object in your current environment

size shape or color

describe how Treisman attenuation model would explain how you can study with background music playing without interfering with its your task. how would this model describe your ability to hear your text alert on your phone without losing concentration in your studying?

the attenuation model suggests that the strength of less relevant stimuli is reduced as it passes through the filter such than less attention is paid to it.

What does it mean that attention is a limited mental resource

this means that are available cognitive resources for paying attention and have a particular level at any given moment such that if we divide them across tasks requiring attention and performance on the task can suffer

automatic processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings

explain how tasks that initially require controlled attention can become automatic

with a lot of practice a task and become automatic as we need less conscious attention to complete it