Attention And Preformace

Question 1

Multi store model of memory : sensory memory (visual)

Answer 1

• info held in sensory registers until its perceived

Evidence: Sperling
- presents ppl with fixation point \
- then presented visual array > 3 rows and 4 letters
- then presented fixation point against + asked ppl to recall as many letters as they could
- ppl reported average 4.5 letters
- therefore not all stored in sensory info

Question 2

Sensory memory

Answer 2

Holds more than it can process
Info from sensory memory lost rapidly

Question 3

What is attention?

Answer 3

Alerting
Executive processing (goal-orientated)
Orienting

Question 4

What does attention allow us to do?

Answer 4

Selectively process some things and not others

Can selectively attend to stimuli even when presented as on top of each other

Question 5

What is the stroop effect?

Answer 5

Processing of a word = automatic
Interferes with naming colour word in printed in- we cant help but pay attention

Question 6

Bottleneck theory:

Answer 6

-division of metal resources
- mental queuing; results in bottleneck structure
-

Question 7

Capacity theory:

Answer 7

Division of. Limited mental resources

Question 8

Cocktail party phenomenon;

Answer 8

• when in room with multiple ppl talking, we can attend to one persons speech
• when ppl asked to listen to messages:
• notice difrence in gender of speaker
• did not notice change in language or played backwards mid way

Noticed only physical characteristics:
- selection = based on sensory properties, not semantics

Question 9

Early filter theory:

Answer 9

Attention = all or nothing

To control entry of info to prevent overloading of consciousness/ memory we filter out info on basis of physical characteristics of stimuli — eg pitch, tone, spatial location

Question 10

Broadbent’s theory: early filter

Answer 10

Parallel input into sensory register

Inputs then filtered on basis of physical characteristics

Filtering prevents overload of limited capacity

Limitations: sometimes we switch attention at will or involuntary to another source

Question 11

Limitations of Broadbent’s early filer theory ?

Answer 11

Sometimes we switch attention at will or involuntary to another source

Fails to account for:
- why indviduals can detect their own nae in unattended channel
- why ppl demonstrate a physiological reaction to hearing word in unattended channel if conditioned to expect they will receive electric shock if it’s presented

Question 12

Late filter theory

Answer 12

-proposes selection takes place at level of repsonce
-i.e all stimuli fully analysed, not just based on physical properties but also processed for meaning

Bottleneck occurs late
Most relevant stimuli determines what responce is made

Problems:
Not evolutionary economical

Question 13

Leaky filter theory:

Answer 13

Attenuation theory

• info in unattended channel not completely blocked out
• it is attenuated (turned down)
• unattended info is attenuated after sensory register
• although its attenuated, we can still perceive it to some degree

-if unattended info reaches certain threshold of personal importance it can leak through filter + be processed further ]

Precise location of bottleneck= more flexible than Broadbent suggested

Question 14

Lavie’s load theory:

Answer 14

Whether early or late selection takes place depends on combination of perceptual + cognitive load at any given time

Conditions of low perceptual load result in later filter - as we have more perceptual resources and can process all info around us to greater degree

Conditions of high perceptual load result earlier filter - as we have to focus on perceptual resources

Demands on cognitive load have opposite effect ;
- Lower cognitive load= earlier filter ( we have cognitive reserves to filter out irrelevant info)
- higher cognitive load= later filter ( out cognitive resources= consumed by 1 task, unable to filter out irrelevant info)

Question 15

Inattentional blindness: failure to notice gorilla

Answer 15

Ppl watched video of ppl playing basket ball
Told to count no. Of passes (easy) or count no. Do bounce passes (hard)
Gorilla walked throigh middle of game
More ppl noticed gorilla in easy condition

Question 16

Simple feature searches: pop-out effect

Answer 16

In simple feature search, distractions are rejected (eg red pill with lots of yellow pills)

If target ‘pops out’ there’s no need to fully proces pr recognise any distractors

Question 17

Conjoint search

Answer 17

Search task becomes more difficult when targets and distractions share features
Conjoint search strategy needed

Question 18

Features integration theory (FIT)

Answer 18

• features of objects= separable from object itself
• rapid initial parallel proces to identify features
• then, slower serial process to identify object from combining features

-features-combination can be influenced by stored knowledge

So, attention = visual guide, binding features togetehr into coherent percept

Question 19

Attentional engagement thery (AET)

Answer 19

• ARGUES search time depends on similarity between target + distract or + degree of similarity between distactors themselves

Question 20

Dual-task studies:

Answer 20

• do 2 tasks alone, then together
• see if prefomance degrades when dine together
• if ppl told one task is primary task- preformance on 2nd task degrades
• if told to respond as they wish - both degrade

Question 21

How we manage attention across different modalities?

Answer 21

• when 2 visual targets need to be processed simultaneously , we can’t process both
• dual -task decrement > task that use different senses do not use different resources

Multiple resourse model says:
- we have several pools of info processing resources that we draw upon simultaneously,
- still overlap in resource pools drawn upon by tasks using senses
- eg driving while talking

Prefomance on dual-tasks improves with practice