CH10 Flashcards
Selective attention is
necessary for
the performance of both simple and complex tasks. It seems that the ability to switch
attention from one stimulus to the other is an important factor in performance. Also, the
breadth of attention plays an important role in change detection, presumably because it
reduces the number of areas of the scene that need to be attentionally fixated before the
change is detected
Differences in selective attention may be
related to everyday absent-mindedness and
failures of attention. Planned, intended actions like walking to the library may be captured by
stimuli in the environment like the familiar route home such that an action is carried out
inappropriately
more absent-minded people have more difficulty inhibiting irrelevant semantic information
People high in working memory capacity showed
negative priming effects, whereas low
working memory capacity individuals did not. People who have difficulty resisting visual
capture may also be more prone to the capture of actions by stimuli in the environment.
Spearman suggested that
attentional capacity may be a source of the general intelligence
component g. Galton said that differences in basic cognitive operations underlie differences
in intelligence. However, his tests didn’t actually end up measuring intelligence.
Jensen
suggested that
mental speed is directly related to general intelligence, and attempts to
measure this have been mixed.
PET: relatively intelligent people
metabolize less
glucose while solving problems.
Some behavioural measures of mental speed have shown more stability than physiological
measures, and one of these paradigms is
inspection time. The minimum exposure time for
making a simple discrimination at a given level of accuracy is measured. A typical stimulus
consists of two lines, one obviously longer than the other, followed by a mask. The observer
repeats the task many times with different exposure times in order to determine the
exposure time at which a given level of accuracy is reached. The exposure time is then
taken as a measure of the observer’s inspection time. This seems to be a direct reflection of
mental processing, however it might not, strictly speaking, be mental speed. Performance in
the inspection time task is largely dependent on the ability to maintain attention to the task.
When inspection time scores were corrected for attentiveness, the correlations between
inspection time and IQ were reduced.
Goal neglect
is the failure to
carry out a task requirement even though the instruction to do so has been understood, and
this is often seen in patients with injury to the frontal lobes. For some healthy individuals, the
dichotic listening task is hard and they cannot switch attention. A major factor in goal neglect
is the number of instructions that have to be borne in mind, and that a new task requirement
is likely to be ignored when other requirements are already activated.
Intelligence has also been related to controlled processing, which is relatively slow, requiring
effort, and involving consciousness of one’s actions.
The question remains whether attention is
a basic ability that determines how intelligent a
person is.
The ability to flexibly allocate
attention in new situations seems to be indicative
of intelligence.
Intra-individual differences in attention
has much to do with arousal and circadian rhythms: performance of simple tasks improves
as body temperature rises (by day), although there’s often a post-lunch dip. However, tasks
with significant short-term memory components, typically show better performance in the
morning than later in the day. This is consistent with Humphreys and Revelle’s multiple-
resources model, in which sustained information transfer resources increase as a function of
arousal throughout the day, whereas short-term memory resources decrease as a function of
increases in arousal.
The morning advantage for tasks with a short-term memory component is not solely a
function of arousal, because different cognitive strategies may be adopted at different times
of day. In the morning, it’s relatively more maintenance rehearsal (simply repeating items)
and in the afternoon you use more elaborative rehearsal (form meaningful chunks of items).
The morning advantage for tasks with a short-term memory component is
not solely a
function of arousal, because different cognitive strategies may be adopted at different times
of day. In the morning, it’s relatively more maintenance rehearsal (simply repeating items)
and in the afternoon you use more elaborative rehearsal (form meaningful chunks of items).
Attentional control in children:
speed and accuracy of responding improves up to the
age of 7 years. The development of the ability to orient both the eyes and attention in
infancy is dependent on the stage of development of the brain. Children are more
sensitive to interfering information than are adults, which suggests that the ability to
narrow or broaden the attentional focus is still developing. Selective attention
(dichotic listening task) improves during childhood. Aspects of infant attention are
correlated with later measures of intelligence.
Selective attention
(dichotic listening task) improves
during childhood.
Children are more
sensitive to
interfering information than are adults, which suggests that the ability to
narrow or broaden the attentional focus is still developing.
