Attention and performance Flashcards
(21 cards)
Describe the Multi-store model of memory?
Sensory stores (forgetting through decay) remembering through attention , then into short term store (forgetting through displacement) through rehearsal enters Long term memory store and forgetting occurs through interference.
Explain Sperling’s research into iconic memory
Sperling identified that information is held in the sensory registers until it is perceived or until attention is paid to it. He investigated this through measuring hoe many letters participants could recall. In the full report procedure , he concluded that not all information was stored in the sensory memory. In the partial report procedure, ppts could recall 3 our of 4 of the letters on the cued row
⇒ So sensory memory holds more information than we can process , we need to attend to certain items in order to remember them because memory is lost rapidly in sensory
What is altering in attention ?
maintaining arousal
What is executive processing (attention) ?
selective goal processing of some things while avoiding influence of others
What is orienting (attention) ?
spatial orienting of mental resource
Explain the Stroop effect
Stroop effect - processing of words is automatic and interferes with your naming of the colour the word is printed in
Explain the Bottleneck theory of attention
There is a division of limited mental resources , mental queuing results from a structural bottleneck . This theory addresses the basis of which we filter out information and at what point we do so
What is capacity theory?
How much of our attentional capacity do we devote to different tasks ?
What is the cocktail party phenomenon ?
We can attend to one person’s speech, ignoring others
Explain Dichotic listening and shadowing tasks by Cherry
Participants wore a headset with useless speech coming through on seat and important information in the other that they were tasked to repeat back. Participants did not notice changes in language or language played backwards. Selection was based on sensory properties, not semantics
Explain late filter theory
- selection actually takes place at the level of response
- bottleneck occurs late before the response
- X not parsimonious - simpler theories can account for the phenomenon
- X why processs stimuli to the highest level when most of it is irrelevant to our survival
Explain Broadbent’s early filter theory
Based on the premise that attention is all or nothing. - Sometimes we can switch attention either at will or involuntarily to another source
- shock experiment - shocked every time they hear the name of a city. later reported not hearing the word but still being shocked so still processed its meaning
- X inflexible model
Explain Treisman’s leaky filter
Your brain focuses on one thing at a time. But it still hears other things a little bit.If something important (like your name) is said, you notice it, even if you weren’t paying attention.So the “filter” doesn’t block everything — it leaks a bit, letting some things through.
When does selection occur? According to each model
- Broadbent = early
- Triesman - sometimes early , sometimes later
- deutsch and deutsch : late (no early filter)
What usually happens when distractors share some features?
the search task is more difficult ‘pop out’ is a lot less likely
Describe feature integration theory
Triesman proposed that features of objects are separable from the object itself. So what we can process is ‘attention-independent’
- then processing the whole object is slower and comes from combining the features
- attention is therefore the visual glue that binds features together into a coherent percept
What does attentional engagement theory argue against feature integration theory?
argues that search time also depends on the degree of similarity in the distracters themselves.
How is divide attention investigated ?
using a dual task methodology , doing two tasks alone and then together.
How do we manage attention across different modalities ?
- When two visual targets need processing simultaneously we cannot process both
- even if one is visual and the other is auditory , they may be different senses but they do not use dissimilar resources
- Wickens’ designed the multiple resolve model of attention
Provide evidence that capacity is not fixed
Performance on dual tasks improves with practice. Participants practiced taking dictation whilst reading short stories at the same time , over time they got much better at comprehending the short stories whilst also taking the dictation.
Explain Strayer et al. driving simulator study
Driving without talking on phone. Following car ahead brake when car brakes. Talk to confed about something interesting. Either no cars in adjacent lane or a lot
- RESULTS: performance was worse in dual task con especially in high traffic con (more accidents)
