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PSYC 2265 - Cognitive > Attention (Chapter 4) > Flashcards

Attention (Chapter 4) Flashcards

1
Q

Define attention.

A

-the ability to focus on specific things

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2
Q

What two processes does attention include?

A

-conscious and unconscious

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3
Q

What is the conscious aspect of attention?

A

-links past to present, helps us adapt, planning and control of future actions

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4
Q

What are the preconscious aspects of our attention?

A

-they lie outside our conscious awareness, some may be made conscious, some not

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5
Q

What is priming?

A

-exposure to one stimulus influences the response to a subsequent stimulus

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6
Q

What is positive priming? Example? (2)

A

-exposure to a stimulus speeds up the processing of later stimuli
Example: If you see the word doctor and later respond faster to the word nurse than to an unrelated word

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7
Q

What is negative priming? Example? (2)

A
  • exposure to a stimulus slows down the response to a subsequent stimulus
    Example: if you’re asked to ignore an object, a red pen) and then later respond to it, pick out the red pen, you might do so more slowly.
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8
Q

What is selective attention?

A

-ability to focus on one message and ignore all others

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9
Q

Describe the experiment by Cherry known as the cocktail party effect experiment.

A

-used a method called dichotic listening, in which participants were presented with two different auditory messages, One of the tasks given to participants was to shadow (or repeat out loud) the message they heard in one ear while ignoring the other.

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10
Q

What was the result of Cherry’s experiment?

A

-it showcased selective attention, Participants were able to focus on one message (shadowed message) and successfully repeat it, but they had very limited awareness of the content of the other message (non-shadowed message) playing in the other ear.

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11
Q

What is subliminal perception?

A

-process by which individuals are exposed to stimuli below their conscious awareness, meaning they cannot consciously perceive or recognize these stimuli, yet these subtle signals can still influence thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

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12
Q

Tell me about Vicary’s experiment?

A

-he said he was using subliminal messaging in his movie theatre to get more popcorn sales but he ended up saying he was lying

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13
Q

What is blindsight?

A

-individuals with damage to the primary visual cortex (V1) can respond to visual stimuli without consciously perceiving them.

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14
Q

What is divided attention?

A

-attending to two or more things at once

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15
Q

What are supertaskers?

A

-can perform multiple tasks simultaneously without any decline in cognitive performance

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16
Q

What was the experiment by Schneider and Shiffrin?

A

-they got people to memorize a signal number and then flashed a bunch of letters at them and they had to see if the number was in that group

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17
Q

What are consistent mapping conditions?

A

-targets in attention experiments and distractors are always from different categories, one is number the other is letter

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18
Q

What is an automatic task?

A

-occurs without intention, often with practice

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19
Q

Why is an automatic task helpful?

A

-requires less cognitive power to do, you don’t have to think about it

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20
Q

What is a varied mapping condition?

A

-rules keep changing from trial to trial, like one trial you look for a p and the next you look for a T which is hard because they look similar

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21
Q

What did Schneider and Shiffrin find in their second experiment?

A

-they had to show the frames for a longer period of time for people to achieve the same performance, because it increased the cognitive load and was controlled processing rather than automatic

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22
Q

What is controlled processing?

A

-you have to pay attention at all times, requires more cognitive resources

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23
Q

What did the naturalistic driving study show about inattentive driving?

A

-67% of near crashes involved inattentive driving in 3 seconds prior to event

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24
Q

What is experience sampling?

A

-in the experiment discussed, they used an app to text participants at random times during the day to ask them to report on a behavior

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25
Why are we so tied to our cell phones?
-operant conditioning and being rewarded for everything
26
What is continuous partial attention?
-you never fully concentrate on what you're doing and you break the continuity of what you're doing
27
What is mind wandering?
-day dreaming
28
What is inattentional blindness?
-a stimulus that is not the focus is not perceived even though a person might be directly looking at it, think Hershey kiss under cup
29
What is inattentional deafness?
-you're listening to something specific and do not hear other things
30
What is change blindness?
-if shown two versions of a picture, differences between them are not immediately apparent
31
What is change blindness called when it is about a film?
-continuity error
32
What is exogenous attention? Driven by what and top or bottom processes?
-automatic attention to something that makes a noise suddenly or moves unexpectedly, driven by stimulus and bottom-up processes
33
What is endogenous attention? Driven by what and top or bottom processes?
-deliberately direct our attention from one thing to another, goal driven and top-down
34
Do both endogenous and exogenous attention have overt attention?
-yes
35
What is the binding problem? Use an example to describe
-how an object's individual features are bound together to give a single percept, things like shape, movement, colour etc are processed by different areas of the brain but are still brought together to be perceived as one object like a ball rolling
36
What is feature integration theories posit by Treisman?
-attention allows us to perceive an objects visual features as belonging together
37
What are the two stages in feature integration theory? (2)
-pre attentive stage -focused attention stage
38
Describe the diagram for Treisman's feature integration theory.
-an **object** is first looked at through the **pre attentive stage** and analyzed into features and then goes into the second stage **focused attention stage** where we combine the features and then we perceive the object.
39
What is the preattentive stage?
-automatic, object analyzed into features without effort or attention
40
What is the focused attention stage?
-attention to object and features are combined
41
What did the flashing demonstration in class support?
-Treisman's feature integration theory
42
What are illusory conjunctions?
-where a person mistakenly combines features from different objects into a single percept. This occurs when the brain misattributes or blends characteristics such as color, shape, size, or location from separate objects. Example: the example in class with shapes flashed
43
What are illusory conjunctions evidence of?
-pre-attentive stage in the feature integration theory
44
Which version of Treisman's experiment supported the focused attention stage?
-ignore black numbers of example and focus on colourful shapes
45
What is Balint's syndrome?
-neurological condition caused by stroke and cause illusory conjunction 23% of the time
46
Does FIT use mostly bottom or top? Describe how both are used. (2)
-uses mostly bottom-down -top-down processes influenced processing when participants are told what they would see
47
What is a visual search? Example? (2)`
-active scan of environment for particular thing -looking for someone in a room
48
What is vigilance? (different than search)
-waiting and watching for a target to appear
49
What influences how hard a visual search is?
-number of distractions
50
What are the two types of visual searches? (2)
-feature search -conjunction search
51
What is a feature search? Example (2)
-the target is defined by a single feature, we don't have to do much visual searching it pops out at us Example: red tulip in yellow tulip field in class
52
What stage does a feature search use, the pre-attention or focused attention?
-pre-attention
53
What is a conjunction search?
-when a target is defined by two features, like different letters and different colours
54
Define autism
-developmental disorder in which one of the major symptoms is the withdrawal of contact from other people
55
What have they found with eye contact for people with and without autism? (2)
-without autism, they look at eyes for emotional reaction -with autism, they don't look at eyes as often more mouth or other places
56
What is spatial or hemineglect disorder? Example (2)
-in which a person is unaware of objects, people, or even their own body on one side of their visual field, typically the left side. Example: draws only half the numbers on a clock or half a house
57
What are the three categories for ADHD? (3)
-inattention -hyperactivity -impulsivity
58
What are the subtypes for ADHD? (3)
-inattentive -hyperactive impulsive (usually for children under 6) -combined (after 6)
59
What does the broadbent filter model or (bottle-neck model) explain? What does it posit? (2)
-it explains how humans process and filter information, particularly in situations where multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously. -posits that The brain uses a filter to select information based on physical characteristics, preventing information overload.
60
At what stage does the filter operate in Broadbent's model?
-it filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning
61
What happens to unattended information according to Broadbent's model?
-It is completely blocked and not processed for meaning.
62
What is the "sensory memory" in the Filter Model?
-It's the stage where all incoming stimuli are briefly held and processed at a physical level.
63
How does the filter in Broadbent’s model select information?
-Based on physical characteristics, such as voice intensity, pitch, or location.
64
What phenomenon challenges Broadbent's model? (3)
-The Cocktail Party Effect, where personally relevant information (like hearing your name) can break through the filter. -the ability of people to pick up some information from the unattended ear during a dichotic test -you can practice and get better at detecting stuff from the unattended ear
65
What is the attended message?
-stream of information that is selected by the brain's filter for further processing based on its physical characteristics
66
What is the detector?
-The detector takes the attended message (the information that made it through the filter) and analyzes it at a semantic level, meaning it processes the content to extract its meaning
67
What receives the output from the detector?
-receives output from detector, hold for 10-15 seconds then transfer to long term memory
68
Explain Broadbent's theory using an example of someone having a conversation with a friend at a party. (4)
Sensory Memory: You hear lots of sounds at the party. Filter: Your brain filters out the irrelevant sounds (other conversations, music) and focuses on your friend’s voice. Detector: The detector processes the meaning of your friend’s voice, allowing you to understand the conversation. Short-Term Memory: The conversation is stored in your short-term memory, so you can respond or recall it later.
69
What does Treisman's Attenuation Theory modify from Broadbent's model?
-It suggests that unattended information is attenuated (weakened) rather than completely blocked.
70
What is the attenuator in Treisman's theory?
-A flexible filter that weakens unattended stimuli but still allows some information to pass through at reduced strength.
71
What is the dictionary unit in Treisman's Attenuation Theory? What role does the dictionary unit play in attention? (2)
-The dictionary unit is a mental mechanism that stores words, each associated with a different activation threshold. -It helps determine which words or stimuli are recognized based on their activation threshold after passing through the attenuator.
72
What is an activation threshold in the context of Treisman's theory?
-The activation threshold refers to how much signal strength a word needs to be recognized or processed consciously.
73
What determines the threshold of a word in the dictionary unit?
-Words that are personally significant or contextually relevant have a lower threshold and are easier to activate, even in weak or unattended messages.
74
Which models are considered early selection? Which are late selection models? (2)
Early: Broadbent and Treisman Late: McKay
75
Describe the diagram for Broadbent's filter model (bottleneck model).
All messages go into **sensory memory** which then go into **filter** and then only the attended message goes into the **detector** which is then stored in short term memory.
76
Describe the diagram for Treisman's attenuation theory.
All of the messages go into the **attenuator** and then the attended message which is much stronger and the unattended message which is much weaker go into the **dictionary unit** which then go to memory.
77
What are early selection models? What are late selection models? (2)
Early: filtering of information occurs before any meaningful processing, based only on physical characteristics like volume, pitch, or location. Late: all incoming information is processed for meaning, but selection occurs later, based on what is most relevant for a response.
78
What was the setup of Mckay's experiment?
-Participants listened to different messages in each ear (dichotic listening), focusing on one message while ignoring the other, which contained contextually related or unrelated words.
79
What were the key findings of Mckay's experiment?
-Participants' interpretations of the attended message were influenced by the unattended words
80
What did Mckay's experiment demonstrate about semantic processing?
-It showed that even unattended information can be processed for meaning, indicating that semantic processing occurs for both attended and unattended messages.
81
Define processing capacity?
-the amount of information people can handle
82
Define perceptual load.
-the amount of cognitive resources needed to carry out a particular cognitive task, low loads use small amounts and high loads use large amounts
83
What does the Load Theory of Attention posit?
-A theory proposing that the ability to filter out distractions depends on the cognitive load of the primary task being performed.
84
What happens to distractor processing in high load conditions?
-Distractors are less likely to be processed because cognitive resources are fully utilized by the primary task.
85
What happens to distractor processing in low load conditions?
-Distractors can interfere more because there are spare cognitive resources available to process them.
86
What is an example of Load Theory in practice?
-While performing a difficult math problem (high load), distractions like background noise are less likely to be noticed compared to when doing an easy task (low load), where distractions are more noticeable.
87
What is the interference effect and what is an example? (2)
-when one task or stimulus negatively impacts performance on another task Example: Stroop Effect: In a classic experiment, participants are asked to name the color of the ink in which a word is printed (e.g., the word "red" printed in blue ink). The conflicting information between the word and the ink color leads to slower response times and more errors, illustrating interference.
88
What is facilitation effect and what is an example? (2)
-when one task or stimulus positively impacts performance on another task. Example: Priming: In a priming experiment, if participants are shown the word "bread" before being asked to complete the word "butter," they are more likely to respond with "butter." The initial exposure to "bread" facilitates the processing of related information.
89
What is attentional capture? Example? (2)
-certain stimuli in the environment automatically draw an individual's attention Example: A classic example is the appearance of a sudden, bright flash of light or a loud noise while you are focused on reading a book.
90
What is visual scanning? Example. (2)
-process by which individuals move their eyes to gather visual information from their environment. Example: When searching for a friend in a crowded park, you might visually scan the area by moving your eyes rapidly across the crowd
91
What are fixations?
-short pauses on points of interest (small dots of interest under 3 sec)
92
What are saccades?
-rapid movements of the eyes from one place to another (lines between dots)
93
Define stimulus salience.
-areas that stand out and capture attention due to physical characteristics
94
What is a scene schema?
-knowledge about what is contained in typical scenes
95
What demands override stimulus salience?
-demands of task
96
What is covert attention?
-the ability to mentally focus on something without directly looking at it.
97
What is precueing?
-directing attention without moving the eyes
98
What is object-based attention?
-attention being directed to one place on an object
99

PSYC 2265 - Cognitive (11 decks)

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