Cognition and Attentional Resources

Question 1

Describ the attentional resource model.

Answer 1

Question 2

What is effortful attention?

Answer 2

When people assign attention.

Question 3

Does attention effect the human information processing model?

Answer 3

Yes. Attention affects many stages of the human information processing model. Resoures are required for most stages in information processing.

Question 4

Is attention limited or unlimited?

Answer 4

Attention is limited in availability and is allocated to processes as required.

Question 5

What is post sensory registry?

Answer 5

Attention used as information passes into preceived/recognized phase.

Question 6

What are the types of attention?

Answer 6

1) Selective attention: successful application is necessary for acheiving perception.
2) Focused attention: the ability to concentrate on one source of information
3) Divided attention: concurrent processing of different sources of infomration. Sometimes describeds our limited ability to time-share two or more tasks.

Question 7

What is the Searchlight Metaphor by Wachtel 1964?

Answer 7

Metaphor that describes our attention is a searchlight beam. The focus of this searchlight falls on that which is in momentary consciousness. Everyting within the beam of light is processed whether wanted or not. The searchlight metaphore emphasizes the unity of attention.

Question 8

What are two properties of the searchlight metaphore?

Answer 8

1) the “breadth” of hte beam (how many objecst we can illuminate at once) and the distinction between the desired focus (that whicih we want to process), and the unwanted objects that are illuminated because they lie close to the wanted objects. These represent the issues of divided and focused attention, respectively.
2) The brain controlling the hand that guieds the searchlight.

Question 9

What are the three common categories for failure of attention (Malaterre)?

Answer 9

1) Selection of inappropriate aspects of environment (SAF).
2) Inability to concentrate on one source of information (FAF).
3) Inability to divide attention among stimuli or tasks (DAF).

Question 10

How are attention succss and failure related?

Answer 10

The same things that can be attributed to attention can also attribute to attention failure.

Question 11

Describe selective attention.

Answer 11

1. Successful application is necessary for achieving perception.
2. Selectively attend to only some of the stimuli in your sensory registry
3. Peripheral information not processed in as much detail, but still processed to a certain extent

Question 12

Describe focused attention.

Answer 12

1. The ability to concentrate on one source of information. You become aware of something, but can you focus your attention on it. You really don’t focus all of your attention on one thing 100%. Your sensory systems are constintently scanning.
2. Selecting something, doesn’t mean you are going to focus on it. You have to put the effort into focusing on something - which you may or not may do.

Question 13

Describe divided attention.

Answer 13

1. Concurrent processing of different sources of information. Sometimes describes our limited ability to time-share two or more tasks.
2. Processing information for several tasks at once
3. Called Time Sharing

Common examples: a) Drive car, talk to passengers, monitor speed; b) Listen and write

Question 14

Describe parallel processing and divided attention.

Answer 14

Aspects of perceptual processing that happen in parallel. Divided attention Focused attention

E.g., fixate on a short word, all letters processed in parallel

Question 15

How are channels selected?

Answer 15

The selection of channels to attend to is usually driven by four factors:

1. salience,
2. effort,
3. expectancy
4. value

(Wickens, Goh, Helleberg, Horrey, Talleur, 2003).

Question 16

What is salience?

Answer 16

The quality of a stimulus. When salience is high, bottom up processing will predominate. Something stands out against other items and is easy to find. Example: north star. It grabs your attention.

Question 17

What is the definition of effort in attention?

Answer 17

The required effort needed to sense a stimulus: humans prefer to scan short distances rather than long ones.

The required effort needed to sense a stimulus: humans prefer to scan short distances rather than long ones. The more effort you have to put into something, the less likely you are to find something or devote attention to. Elderly people are more likely to run you over. Selection of channels takes more effort for them, and they are less likely to look around.

Question 18

Whar is expectancy and value as they related to attention?

Answer 18

Expectancy and value refer to the act of projecting on and assessing stimuli based on stored knowledge. Expectancy and value are associated more with top-down processing, humans “sample” the world where they expect to find information.Part of your attention is always scanning for you find to be important.

You look for things were you expect to find things. Example: the professor is exoected to be at the front of the class.

For example the length of time a person attends to a signal depends on its value. Example: Your name is a high value, so you notice it when it is mentioned.

Question 19

What is visual sampling in selective attention?

Answer 19

Visual scanning/gaze (look at something). Fixations/useful field of view (UFOV)/fovea/dwell time.

Question 20

What is pursuit and saccadic eye movement?

Answer 20

• Saccadic: A rapid intermittent eye movement, as that which occurs when the eyes fix on one point after another in the visual field.
• Pursuit: allow the eyes to closely follow a moving object. It is one of two ways that visual animals can voluntarily shift gaze, the other being saccadic eye movements

Question 21

What is the definition of Useful Field of View (UFOV)?

Answer 21

Area of visual field from which information necessary for task can be extracted in a single fixation. Mackworth (1976)

Question 22

What is the useful field of vision?

Answer 22

6 degrees. If it goes outside the useful field, you start to see blurs and movment. You miss a lot things that are outside the useful field.

Question 23

Does the useful field of view and eye movement cover the visual field?

Answer 23

No. 3 inches of area that you are able to view in detail, with 6 degrees of useful field at arms length. Average UFOV (useful field of view) reduction by spec attention deficits (attention effects vision)

Question 24

How does the average useful field of view reduce by way of attention deficits?

Answer 24

1. Divided attention 28%
2. Selective attention (distraction) 46%
3. Slowing of processing 54% (tired, drunk, etc.

Combining of the above:

• Both 1 and 2: 61%
• Both 1 and 3: 73%
• Both 2 and 3: 79%
• All 3 deficits: 85%

Question 25

What are factors affecting UFOV?

Answer 25

• Density of visual information (goes down with density of visual information) (Example: Wears Waldo books.)
• Discriminability of target (goes up with discriminability) (Example: If Waldo wear loud cloths, your eyes would be drawn to it.)
• Aging (goes down with age) (Reduced UFOV associated with greater accident risk in drivers)
• Training (goes up with training) (Training to expand UFOV improves airborne search and rescue performance. Trained to manage clutter and ignore things, while noticing things that are important.)

Question 26

Supervisory control sampling effects selective attention. What are the prinicples of supervisory control sampling?

Answer 26

1. Mental models of event frequencies
2. Memory limitations (oversample, or fail to sample)
3. Preview helps
4. Cognitive tunneling/methods of processing
5. Arrangement of information displays (channels)

Question 27

What is supervisory control?

Answer 27

It is a type of attention control.

Question 28

What is target search?

Answer 28

Target search is a type of selective attention. It involves looking around the environment for a target. It is less structured than supervisory control

Question 29

How is search pattern and performance influenced in a target search?

Answer 29

1. Expectations (probabilistic). You focus on things you expect. Can distract you if you look at things that aren’t important just because you expect.
2. Salient display features (can be biasing). People go to things that stand out.
3. Unique display features (can capture attention). You look at things you have never or rarely see.
4. Location in a display (upper left, center vs. edges) Edge effect (search concentrated near center). The center of things has more values to use then the edges.
5. Knowledge/models of structure of information. What do people know? What they know effects how they search for things.
6. Useful field of view (density, aging)
7. Dwell time (survey/examination/difficulty). How much time is spent look at something.