Attention Pt. 2 Flashcards
(31 cards)
Bottleneck Theories
Filter –> Bottom-up processing (choosing what to/not to be processed)
Deutsch and Deutsch Model (1963)
Reported that selection occurred after pattern recognition, this model is called a late-selection model
- Combines Treisman’s model
1. All incoming stimuli are recognized
2. Stimuli are quickly forgotten unless they are importnat
3. Selection for further processing is based on both importance and the amount of activation
What do capacity theories emphasize?
Capacity theories are concerned with the amount of mental effort required to perform a task (how you divide your attention)
Kahneman (1973)
- Suggested there is a limit on a person’s capacity to perform mental work (cognitive misers)
- This capacity model was designed to add to bottleneck theories
Bottleneck and Capacity Theories on Interference
Both types of theories predict that simultaneous activities are likely to interfere with each other, but they attribute the interference to different causes
Capacity Model & Interference
Interference occurs when the demands of two activities EXCEED AVAILABLE CAPACITY, NOT because the two tasks are using the same mechanism
Bottleneck Model & Interference
Interference between tasks is specific and depends on the degree to which the tasks use the SAME mechanisms
Allocation of Capacity & Arousal
The amount of capacity available varies with the level of arousal
- Moderately high arousal –> more capacity is available
- Low arousal –> less capacity
- Very high arousal –> interfere with performance
Arousal
How much attention you’re giving to a task
Enduring Dispositions
Things that happen in our environment that pull out our attention w/o our control/awareness
- Pass through the filter model that you might not be paying attention to but are forced to
Examples of Enduring Dispositions
- A loud noise, alarm going off, the cocktail party effect
Momentary Intentions
Reflect our specific goals at a particular time –> we can control these and how much attention we place on them
Examples of Momentary Intentions
Watching TV, chatting with a friend, choosing to pay attention in class
Folk et al (1992) Experiment
Participants were told that a symbol would appear in one of four boxes and the task was to rapidly respond whether the symbol was an “x” or an “=”
- Before the symbol appeared, a cue randomly highlighted one of the four boxes
Results of Folk et al (1992)
- Regardless of knowing that the cue was useless, participants paid attention to the cue
- Response time was faster when the target was in the cued box relative to when it was not
- The cue is an example of an enduring disposition, bc we pay attention involuntarily to things that are different or out of the ordinary
Johnston & Heinz Theory (1978)
Used selective listening tasks to develop their theory, so a bottleneck would be likely to occur
- Proposed that the listener has control over the location of the bottleneck
Johnston & Heinz Experiment (1978)
A light signal occurred randomly (the subsidiary task) and participants were instructed to respond to it as quickly as possible by pushing a button
- Prediction: the more attention a person had to pay to the listening task, the slower they would be at responding to pushing the button
Conditions of Johnston & Heinz (1978)
- Each ear heard a different category and the participants had to focus on one or the other
- Condition #1: Distinctive voices
- Condition #2: Same voice in both ears
Results of Johnston & Heinz (1978)
- Use of the selection, rather than a sensory filter, should therefore cause slower reaction times to the light signal/multiple lists, and more errors on the selective-listening task
- (For Condition #1): When there are distinct voices, people are able to utilize their filter (sensory based) to pay attention to a specific voice
- (For Condition #2): When people listen to the same voice they are going to be slower at doing the secondary task bc they can’t rely on their filter, must use selection
Implications of Johnston & Heinz (1978)
- Selective attention requires capacity and that the amount of capacity required increases from early to late modes of selection
- Combined, this suggests that a person can increase breadth of attention but only at a cost of capacity and accuracy
Multimode Theory
- Although a listener can attempt to understand the meaning of two simultaneous messages by adopting a late mode of selection, the use of a late mode is achieved at a cost
- The comprehension of the primary message will decline as the listener tries to process a secondary message more fully
- Use your filter bc it is the easiest and least mentally exhaustive
Automatic Processing
- Performing mental operations that require very little mental effort / w/o conscious awareness
- Some argued that much of what we do is determined not by deliberate choices but by features of the environment that initiate mental processes
- Posner & Synder (1975)
Why is automatic processing advantageous?
- A lot of things we do are automatic
- We are freeing up a lot of mental effort and space (we don’t need to consciously think)
What are examples of automatic processing?
Walking, riding a bike, reading
