Ch.4, Attention Flashcards
Selective Attention:
ability to focus on one thing and tune out another
Distraction:
one stimulus interfering with the process of another stimulus
Divided Attention
paying attention to more than oen thing at once
Attentional Capture:
rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a sudden stimulus (loud noise, etc.)
Wundt’s View of Attention:
said we needed to withdraw from some things in order to deal effectively with others
Cocktail Party Effect:
people are able to focus on one conversation even when many conversations are happening around them
Broadbent’s Early Selection Filter Model of Attention
Broadbent’s Early Selection: proposed the filter, we block all of the other distracting streams/don’t process much at all of anything that is distracting: MULTIPLE SENSORY INPUT REACH ATTENTIONAL FILTER, WHICH PERMITS ONLY ONE CHANNEL OF SENSORY INFO TO PROCEED TO REACH PROCESS OF PERCEPTION, BUT BLOCKS ALL OTHERS
Problem: not applicable to all, we do perceive unattended messages and theyre not totally blocked
Detector:
processes the info from the attended message to determine higher level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning
OUTPUT OF DETECTOR — sent to short term memory and then transfers into long term memory, which can hold info indefinitely
Moray’s Dichotic Listening Experiment
Used attended vs. unattended method, but about a third of participants could detect their name being said in the unattended message
Treisman, Attenuation Model of Attention
Proposed that selection occurs in two stages, replaced Broadbent’s filter with an attenuator
Attenuator: analyzes the incoming message in terms of its physical characteristics, (fast vs slow) its language (how the message groups into syllables), and its meaning (how the words are meaningful )
Language and meaning can be used to separate the messages: the analysis of a message proceeds only as far as needed to identify the difference between attended message and unattended message
Called the “leaky filter” model because at least some of the unattended message gets through the attenuator, unlike Broadbent’s model
Dictionary Unit:
contains words, stored in memory, each of which has a threshold for being activated (DETECTOR DOESN’T HAVE THRESHOLD)
A listener’s name would have a low threshold, so that even a weak signal in the unattended channel can activate that word
Mackay Late Selection Model
Proposed that most incoming info is processed to the needed level of meaning before the message to be further processed is selected
Processing Capacity:
amount of info people can handle and sets a limit on their ability to process incoming information
Perceptual Load:
related to the difficulty of the task
Low Load Tasks: use a very small amount of person’s processing capacity
High Load Tasks: use much more of the person’s processing capacity
When carrying out a high load task, you are less likely to be distracted because no processing capacity remains
Stroop Effect:
names of words cause a competing response and therefore slow responding to the target
(identifying the colors of names that are spelled)
Central vs. peripheral vision
Central Vision: the area you are looking at
Peripheral Vision: everything off to the side
Saccadic Eye Movement
Saccadic Eye Movements: rapid, jerky movement from one fixation to the next
Overt Attention vs covert attention
OVERT: moving eyes, shifting attention from one place to another;
Covert attention: NO eye movements and during fixation, it can be deployed to multiple locations simultaneously. covert visual attention is related to a mental shift of attention without physical movement. Covert attention precedes eye movements and during fixation, it can be deployed to multiple locations simultaneously.
Stimulus saliency and map
Stimulus Salience: physical properties of a stimulus
Saliency Map: involves analyizing orientation, color, and intensity at each location in a scene, first fixations usually occur on high salience stimuli
Scene Schemas:
top down processing comes into play when scanning is influenced by these, an observer’s knowledge about what is typically contained in a scene
Precuing
whether presenting a cue indicating where a test stimulus will appear enhances the processing of the target stimulus (it does)
Attentional Warping:
map of categories on the brain changes so more space is allotted to categories that are being searched for; this effect occurs when the attended category isnt even present in the movie
