Chapter 4: Attention

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

focusing on specific features, objects, or locations or on certain thoughts or activities

Question 2

Selective Attention

Answer 2

the ability to focus on one message and ignore all others

Question 3

Distraction

Answer 3

occurs when one stimulus infers with attention to or the processing of another stimuli

Question 4

Divided Attention

Answer 4

the ability to pay attention to, or carry out, two or more difficult tasks simultaneously

Question 5

Attentional Capture

Answer 5

a rapid shifting of attentions, usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light or sudden movement

Question 6

Visual Scanning

Answer 6

movement of the eyes from one location or object to another

Question 7

Filter Model of Attention

Answer 7

model of attention that proposes a falter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli

Question 8

Dichotic Listening

Answer 8

the procedure of presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear

Question 9

Shadowing

Answer 9

the procedure of repeating a message out loud as it is heard, shadowing is commonly used in conjunction with studies of selective attention that use the dichotic listening procedure

Question 10

Cocktail Party Effect

Answer 10

the ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli, especially at a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations

Question 11

Filter

Answer 11

in Broadbent’s model of attention, the filter identifies the message that is being attended to based on it’s physical characteristics (things like the speaker’s tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, and accent), and lets only this attended message pass through to the detector in the next stage

Question 12

Detector

Answer 12

in Broadbent’s model of attention, the detector processes the information from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning

Question 13

Early Selection Model

Answer 13

model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering out of the unattended message

in Broadbent’s early selection model, the filtering step occurs before the message is analyzed to determine its meaning

Question 14

Attenuator

Answer 14

in Treisman’s model of selective attention, the attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning

attended messages pass through the attenuator at full strength, and unattended messages pass through with reduced strength

Question 15

Attentuation Model of Attention

Answer 15

Anne Treisman’s model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages; in the first stage, an attenuator analyzes the incoming message and lets through the attended message, and also the unattended message, but at a lower (attenuated) strength

Question 16

Dictionary Unit

Answer 16

a component of Treisman’s attenuation model of attention

this processing unit contains stored words and thresholds for activating the words

helps explain why we can sometimes hear a familiar word, such as our name, in an unattended

Question 17

Late Selection Models of Attention

Answer 17

a model of selective attention that proposes that selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning

Question 18

Processing Capacity

Answer 18

the amount of information input that a person can handle, this sets a limit on the person’s ability to process information

Question 19

Perceptual Load

Answer 19

related to the difficulty of a task, low-load tasks use only a small amount of a person’s processing capacity, high-load tasks use more of the processing capacity

Question 20

Low-Load Tasks

Answer 20

a task that uses few resources, leaving some capacity to handle other tasks

Question 21

High-Load Tasks

Answer 21

a task that uses most or all of a person’s resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks

Question 22

Load Theory of Attention

Answer 22

proposal that the ability to ignore task irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out

high-load tasks result in less distraction

Question 23

Stroop Effect

Answer 23

an effect originally studied by J.R. Stroop

using a task in which a person is instructed to respond to one aspect of a stimulus, such as the colour of ink that a word is printed in, and ignore another aspect, such as the color that the word names

the Stroop effect refers to the fact that people find this task difficult when, for example, the word “Red” is printed in blue ink

Question 24

Fixation

Answer 24

in problem solving, people tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution

in perception and attention, a pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene

Question 25

Overt Attention

Answer 25

shifting of attention by moving the eyes

Question 26

Stimulus Salience

Answer 26

bottom-up factors that determine attention to elements of a scene examples are color, contrast, and orientation the meaningfulness of the images, which is a top-down factor, does not contribute to stimulus salience

Question 27

Saliency Map

Answer 27

map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the scene

Question 28

Covert Attention

Answer 28

occurs when attention is shifted without moving the eyes commonly referred to as seeing something "out of the corner of one's eye"

Question 29

Precueing

Answer 29

a procedure in which participants are given a cue that will usually help them carry out a subsequent task this procedure has been used in visual attention experiments in which participants are presented with a cue that tell them where to direct their attention

Question 30

Same-Object Advantage

Answer 30

occurs when the enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object, so that attention to one place on an object results in facilitation of processing at other places on the objects

Question 31

Attentional Warping

Answer 31

occurs when the map of categories on the brain changes to make more space for categories that are being searched for as a person attends a scene

Question 32

Automatic Processing

Answer 32

processing that occurs automatically without the person's intending to do it, and that also uses few cognitive resources, automatic processing is associated with easy or well-practiced tasks

Question 33

Experience Sampling

Answer 33

a procedure that was developed to answer the question; "what percentage of the time during the day are people engaged in a specific behavior?" one way this has been achieved is by having people report what they are doing when they receive signals at random times during the day

Question 34

Mind Wandering

Answer 34

thoughts that come from within a person, often unintentionally, in early research this was called daydreaming

Question 35

Inattentional Blindness

Answer 35

not noticing something even though it is in clear view, usually caused by failure to pay attention to the object or the place where the object is located

Question 36

Visual Search

Answer 36

occurs when a person is looking for one stimulus or object among a number of other stimuli or objects

Question 37

Inattentional Deafness

Answer 37

occurs when inattention causes a person to miss an auditory stimulus for example, experiments have shown that it is more difficult to detect a tone when engaged in a difficult visual search task

Question 38

Change Detection

Answer 38

detecting differences between pictures or displays that are presented one after another

Question 39

Change Blindness

Answer 39

difficulty in detecting changes in similar, but slightly different, scenes that are presented one after another, the changes are often easy to see once attention is directed to them but are usually undetected in the absence of appropriate attention

Question 40

Continuity Errors

Answer 40

in film, changes that occur from one scene to another that do not match, such as when a character reaches for a croissant in one shot, which turns into a pancake in the next shot

Question 41

Binding

Answer 41

process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create perception of a coherent object

Question 42

Binding Problem

Answer 42

the problem of explaining how an object's individual features become bound together

Question 43

Feature Integration Theory

Answer 43

an approach to object perception, developed by Anne Treismann, that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object

Question 44

Pre-attentive Stage

Answer 44

the first stage of Treismann's feature integration theory, in which an object is analyzed into its features

Question 45

Focused Attention Stage

Answer 45

the second stage of Treismann's feature integration theory, according to the theory attention causes the combination of features into perception of an objects

Question 46

Illusory Conjunctions

Answer 46

a situation, demonstrated in experiments by Anne Treismann, in which features from different objects are inappropriately combined

Question 47

Balient's Syndrome

Answer 47

a condition caused by brain damage in which a person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects

Question 48

Conjunction Search

Answer 48

searching among distractors for a target that involves two or more features, such as "horizontal" and "green"

Question 49

Feature Search

Answer 49

searching among distractors for a target item that involves detecting one feature, such as "horizontal"

Question 50

Ventral Attention Network

Answer 50

a network that controls attention based on stimulus salience

Question 51

Dorsal Attention Network

Answer 51

a network that controls attention based in top-down processing

Question 52

Effective Connectivity

Answer 52

how easily activity can travel along a particular pathway between two structures

Question 53

Synchronization

Answer 53

occurs when neural responses become synchronized in time, so positive and negative responses occur at the same time and with similar amplitudes it has been proposed that synchronization is a mechanism responsible for enhanced effective connectivity and enhanced communication between two areas that accompany shifts of attention

Question 54

Executive Functions

Answer 54

a number of processes that involve controlling attention and dealing with conflicting responses

Question 55

Cognitive Control

Answer 55

a mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli related to executive function, inhibitory control, and willpower

Question 56

Inhibitory Control

Answer 56

a mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli related to executive function, inhibitory control, and willpower

Question 57

Willpower

Answer 57

a mechanism involved in dealing with conflicting stimuli, related to executive function, inhibitory control, and cognitive control

Question 58

What is attention?

Answer 58

the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations in our environment

Question 59

What is selective attention?

Answer 59

attending to one thing while ignoring others we do not attend to a large fraction of the information in the environment we filter out some information and promote other information for further processing

Question 60

What is divided attention?

Answer 60

paying attention to more than one thing at a time

Question 61

What is the research method of dichotic listening?

Answer 61

one message is presented to the left ear and another to the right ear participant "shadows" one message to ensure he is attending to that message can we completely filter out the message to the unattended ear and attend only to the shadowed message?

Question 62

What are the results of dichotic listening?

Answer 62

participants could not report the content of the message un unattended (overshadowed) ear, knew that there was a message, knew the gender of the speaker however unattended ear is being processed at some level: cocktail party effect, change in gender is noticed, change to a tone is noticed

Question 63

What are the models of selective attention?

Answer 63

early selection model intermediate selection model late selection model

Question 64

What is the early-selection model?

Answer 64

filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning

Question 65

What is sensory memory?

Answer 65

holds all incoming information for a fraction of a second transfers all information to next stage

Question 66

What is a filter?

Answer 66

identifies attended message based on physical characteristics (e.g. pitch of the speaker's voice) only attended message is passed on to the next stage

Question 67

What is a detector?

Answer 67

processes all attended information to determine higher-level characteristics of the message

Question 68

What is short-term memory?

Answer 68

received output of detector holds information for 10-15 seconds and may transfer it to long-term memory

Question 69

What are some things that Broadbent's model could not explain?

Answer 69

participant's name gets through (cocktail party phenomenon) participants can shadow meaningful messages that switch from one ear to another effects of practice on detecting information in unattended ear (you can't be trained to detect in unattended ear, based on the meaning of the message)

Question 70

What is the immediate-selection model?

Answer 70

attended messages can be separated from unattended message early in the information-processing system selection can also occur

Question 71

What is an attenuator?

Answer 71

analyzes incoming messages in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning

Question 72

What is Treisman's Attenuation Theory?

Answer 72

attended to message is let through the attenuator at full strength unattended message is let through at a much weaker strength

Question 73

What is a dictionary unit?

Answer 73

contains words, each of which have thresholds for being activated words that are common or important have low thresholds uncommon words have high thresholds

Question 74

What is the late-selection model?

Answer 74

selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after information has been analyzed for meaning

Question 75

What was the McKay (1973) experiment demonstrating late selection models?

Answer 75

in attending ear, participants heard ambiguous sentences, "they were throwing stones at the bank" in unattended ear, participants heard either "river" or "money" the participants had to choose if the word "bank" in the sentence referred to a river bank or a money bank the meaning of the biasing word affected participants' choice participants were unaware of the presentation of the biasing words

Question 76

What is processing capacity?

Answer 76

how much information a person can handle at any given moment

Question 77

What is perceptual load?

Answer 77

the difficulty of a given task

Question 78

What are high-load perceptual tasks?

Answer 78

use higher amounts of processing capacity

Question 79

What are low-load perceptual tasks?

Answer 79

use lower amounts of processing capacity

Question 80

What is the Stroop task?

Answer 80

not only the load but also the property of the irrelevant stimulus or dimension name of the word interferes with the ability to name the ink color cannot avoid paying attention to the meanings of the words

Question 81

What is an explanation of the Stroop effect?

Answer 81

observers (especially college undergraduate) have automatized the process of reading thus, the color names of the words are always processed very quickly, regardless of the color of the ink on the other hand, identifying colors is not a task that observers have to report on very often and, because it is not automatized, it is slower the fast and automatic processing of the color name of the word interferes with the reporting of the ink color

Question 82

What is overt attention?

Answer 82

eye movements, attention, and perception saccades: rapid movements of the eyes from one place to another fixations: short pauses on points of interest studied by using an eye tracker

Question 83

What is stimulus salience?

Answer 83

areas that stand out and capture attention bottom-up processes depends on characteristics of the stimulus color and motion are highly salient

Question 84

What are scene schemas?

Answer 84

knowledge about what is contained in typical scenes help guide fixations from one area of a scene to another

Question 85

What is precueing?

Answer 85

directing attention without moving the eyes participants respond faster to a light at an expected location than at an unexpected location even when eyes kept fixed

Question 86

What are attentional cues?

Answer 86

focus visual attention to an area by using a cue, "spotlight" or "zoom lens" measure time to identify target item when: observer does not know where item will appear, and the observer does know where item will appear cue is briefly presented arrow indicate where the item will appear

Question 87

What are exogenous cues?

Answer 87

outside generating low-level "reflexes" sudden changes (e.g. flash or movement) draws attention automatically bottom-up control of attention based on what's actually happening in the environment

Question 88

What are endogenous cues?

Answer 88

inside generating high-level control instruction (via some kind of visual sign or pattern) sends attention to requested location top-down control of attention based on what observer believes

Question 89

What is location-based visual attention?

Answer 89

moving attention from one place to another

Question 90

What is object-based attention?

Answer 90

attention being directed to one place on an object

Question 91

What was the Egly et al. (1994) study on object-based visual attention?

Answer 91

participants saw two side-by-side rectangles, followed by a target cue reaction time fastest when target appeared where indicated reaction time was faster when the target appeared in the same rectangle

Question 92

How can attention be based on the environment?

Answer 92

static scenes or scenes with few objects

Question 93

How can attention be based on a specific object?

Answer 93

dynamic events

Question 94

What is divided attention?

Answer 94

practice enables people to simultaneously do two things that were difficult at first automatic processing occurs without intention and only uses some of a person's cognitive resources

Question 95

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 95

a stimulus that is not attended is not perceived, even though a person might be looking directly at it

Question 96

What is change blindness?

Answer 96

if shown two version of a picture, differences between them are not immediately apparent task to identify differences requires concentrated attention and search

Question 97

What is the explanation of why change blindness occurs?

Answer 97

attention is need to see change because without it, observers are "change blind" the impression we have of rich sensory representations us illusory, actual sensory representations are sparse, little is retained over time

Question 98

What is binding?

Answer 98

the process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object

Question 99

What is the preattentive stage?

Answer 99

automatic no effort or attention unaware of process object analyzes into features

Question 100

What is focused attention stage?

Answer 100

attention plays key role features are combined

Question 101

What is Balient's syndrome?

Answer 101

inability to focus attention on individual objects high number of illusory conjunctions reported

Question 102

What is the physiology of attention?

Answer 102

attention enhances neural responding attentional processing is distributed across a large number of areas in the brain

Question 103

How is attention processing distributed across the cortex?

Answer 103

using fMRI to detect cortical activity during a search task attention to an expected direction of motion caused brain activity to increase in a number of brain areas

Question 104

What was studied in the attentional blink Coglab?

Answer 104

if visual search reflexes the spatial properties of our attention, attentional blink reflexes the temporal properties of our attention by looking at recognition of the second target as a function of separation between the two targets, we can estimate the time required to focus and break attention for stimuli