Chapter 4: Attention

Question 1

Attention

Answer 1

set of processes that increase or decrease the priority of information, either sensory or internal like imagination; the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations

Question 2

2 basic properties of attention

Answer 2

(1) limited number of activities we can focus on for a fixed period of time, (2) need for being selective by focusing on some events and withdrawing from others

Question 3

What did participants notice from the unattended message during the dichotic listening task?

Answer 3

change in volume, gender of speaker, and language, nonsense words, speaker’s name

Question 4

Distraction

Answer 4

one stimulus interfering with the processing of another stimulus

Question 5

Divided attention

Answer 5

paying attention to more than one thing at a time

Question 6

Attentional capture

Answer 6

a rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a stimulus like a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement

Question 7

Visual scanning

Answer 7

movements of the eyes from one location or object to another; influenced by a person’s preferences and predictions through top-down processing

Question 8

Broadbent’s filter model of attention

Answer 8

explains how it is possible to focus on one message and why information isn’t taken in from the other message; an early selection model

Question 9

Cocktail party effect

Answer 9

ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli

Question 10

Stages in Broadbent’s filter model

Answer 10

(1) Sensory memory holds incoming info for less than a second, (2) Filter identifies only the attended message based on physical characteristics like speaker’s pitch, speed, accent, (3) Detector processes attended message to determine its higher-level characteristics like meaning, (4) Detector’s output is sent into the STM then the LTM

Question 11

Early selection model

Answer 11

the filter eliminates the unattended information right at the beginning of the flow of information

Question 12

Attenuator

Answer 12

analyzes the incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning

Question 13

Treisman’s attenuation model of attention

Answer 13

i.e. leaky filter; both messages pass through an attenuator once they have been identified but the attended message emerges at full strength while the unattended message is attenuated; an early selection model

Question 14

Dictionary unit

Answer 14

contains words, stored in memory, that each have a threshold for being activated

Question 15

Late selection models of attention

Answer 15

propose that most of the incoming info is processed for their meanings before the message to be further processed is selected

Question 16

Processing capacity

Answer 16

the amount of information people can handle with our limited ability to process incoming information

Question 17

Perceptual load

Answer 17

the difficulty of a task

Question 18

Lavie’s load theory of attention

Answer 18

low-load tasks require less processing capacity so there are resources available to process a task-irrelevant stimulus i.e. greater tendency to get distracted doing easy tasks; also dependent on strength of task-irrelevant stimulus

Question 19

Central vision vs. Peripheral vision

Answer 19

the area you are looking at, which falls on the fovea and has better detail; everything off to the side

Question 20

Saccadic eye movement

Answer 20

a rapid, jerky eye movement from one fixation to the next

Question 21

Overt attention

Answer 21

shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes, either bottom-up (based on physical characteristics) or top-down (based on cognitive factors)

Question 22

Stimulus salience

Answer 22

physical properties of the stimulus like color, contrast, movement; a bottom-up process of capturing attention

Question 23

Saliency map

Answer 23

a combination of the physical characteristics of a scene at each location like color, orientation, and intensity

Question 24

Scene schemas

Answer 24

an observer’s knowledge about what is contained in typical scenes

Question 25

"Just in time" strategy

Answer 25

eye movements occur just before we need the information they provide (for movement)

Question 26

Covert attention

Answer 26

shifting attention with the mind while keeping the eyes still; "looking out of the corner of your eye"

Question 27

Finding of Posner's precueing experiment

Answer 27

attention is like a spotlight that improves processing when directed toward a particular location by presenting a cue (e.g. an arrow pointing towards location of target)

Question 28

Same-object advantage

Answer 28

faster responding occurs when enhancement spreads within an object (or the cue and the target are on the same object)

Question 29

Attentional warping

Answer 29

the map of categories on the brain changes so more space is allotted to categories that are being searched for, even when the attended category isn't actually present

Question 30

Feature search

Answer 30

targets are defined by only one distinct feature, are found fast and automatically; search occurs in parallel and preattentively

Question 31

Conjunction search

Answer 31

targets are defined by differences in two or more features and are found slowly; search is serial (one at a time) and requires conscious and effortful attention

Question 32

Automatic processing

Answer 32

occurs without intention or automatically and at a cost of only some of a person's cognitive resources e.g. practice can lead to ability for divided attention

Question 33

Inattentional blindness/deafness

Answer 33

when people are unaware of clearly visible/audible stimuli if they aren't directing their attention to them

Question 34

Change detection

Answer 34

participants are tasked to identify the difference between one picture followed by another picture

Question 35

Change blindness

Answer 35

difficulty detecting changes in scenes; occurs because our attention is often not directed at the place where change occurs; changes are easier to identify when they are central to attentional spotlight

Question 36

Binding

Answer 36

process by which features like color, form, motion, location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object

Question 37

Treisman's feature integration theory

Answer 37

process of feature analysis occurs in two stages: preattentive stage then focused attention stage

Question 38

Preattentive stage

Answer 38

ability to hone in on a relevant event to the exclusion of all else so rapidly that you may be unaware of stimuli that has been excluded; automatic and unconscious analysis of features of objects independently in separate areas of the brain

Question 39

Focused attention stage

Answer 39

attention is focused on an object and its independent features are combined, leading to conscious awareness

Question 40

Illusory conjunctions

Answer 40

combination of features from different stimuli where one object takes on properties of another due to divided attention in the preattentive stage when features are still "free-floating"

Question 41

Balint's syndrome

Answer 41

inability to focus attention on individual objects due to damage in the parietal lobe; able to find target in feature search but not in conjunction search; symptoms are optic ataxia, simultanagnosia, ocular apraxia

Question 42

Ventral attention network

Answer 42

controls attention based on salience; something captures your attention

Question 43

Dorsal attention network

Answer 43

controls attention based on top-down processes; guides where you're looking

Question 44

Effective connectivity

Answer 44

how easily activity can travel along a particular pathway; signals in different areas are synchronized when paying attention to a visual stimulus

Question 45

Executive attention network

Answer 45

responsible for executive functions that involve controlling attention and dealing with conflicting responses; its development overlaps with other functions like inhibition, planning, task switching, working memory

Question 46

2 attention systems

Answer 46

top-down: deliberate, conscious, toward our goals; bottom-up: involuntary, captures attention, despite our goals

Question 47

Where does attention usually originate from in the eye?

Answer 47

fovea, where center of vision aligns

Question 48

Posner spatial cueing task

Answer 48

reaction times are longest in invalid trials, when the cue and the target are incongruent, due to difficulty disengaging and shifting attention from the cued area; requires effortful attentional override of habitual response to the cue

Question 49

Spatial attention

Answer 49

selective attention to an area of space

Question 50

Feature-based attention

Answer 50

selective attention to the features of an object

Question 51

Attentional sets

Answer 51

mental templates that allow us to selectively attend to a certain category of stimulus before it appears; involves holding in mind features or location of the object you're expecting; can be preattentive

Question 52

Emotional attentional bias

Answer 52

emotionally relevant information captures attention more readily than neutral information e.g. temporal order judgement task

Question 53

Hemineglect

Answer 53

disorder of attention orienting/disengagement usually caused by parietal lobe damage; patients cannot voluntarily direct attention and don't show bottom-up attention capture to half of the sensory fields (typically left side); still show precueing advantage and can attend to neglected field if the dominant field is empty

Question 54

Attentional blink

Answer 54

when people are looking for two things, they fail to notice the second 180-450 ms after seeing the first; top-down selection fails to operate because lower-level attentive mechanisms are suppressing input; reduced by high emotional arousal

Question 55

Hybrid search mechanism

Answer 55

attentional spotlight moves slowly (~500 ms); a fast but limited capacity conjunction search (serial) occurs in parallel at each location

Question 56

Mind wandering

Answer 56

shift of attention away from external environment to internal thoughts that tend to be future-oriented or related to current personal concerns; more frequent with low working memory capacity

Question 57

Are emotions better when mind wandering or when on task?

Answer 57

on task, however the mind wandering mood is not worse when thoughts are interesting and useful

Question 58

Spotlight of attention or selective integration

Answer 58

low-level features like color and orientation are integrated

Question 59

Preattentive salience or pop-out

Answer 59

attention is guided from the bottom up by contrast in the density of low-level features

Question 60

Rensink's attentional mechanisms

Answer 60

preattentive salience, lighting level or coercion by lighting, configural focus (intersections), center of gravity, high-level interest, automatic attention to eyes (except for those with autism) and meaningful words, automatic guidance by directives (e.g. arrows)

Question 61

Inhibition of return

Answer 61

covert attention inhibits fast responding to stimuli in a previously cued location, 200 ms after the cue

Question 62

Simultanagnosia

Answer 62

inability to perceive the visual field as a whole; poor gestalt of scenes

Question 63

Ocular apraxia

Answer 63

inability to control voluntary gaze shifting or limited controlled attention

Question 64

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Answer 64

deficit in executive control that is prevalent in ~5% worldwide depending on the region; low heritability and mostly influenced by interactions between genetics and environment; develops during childhood but many don't get diagnosed till adulthood

Question 65

Symptoms of ADHD

Answer 65

difficulty sustaining attention and avoiding sustained efforts, easily distracted or overwhelmed by peripheral stimuli, blurting out statements and impulsivity, lack of patience

Question 66

P300 ERP component

Answer 66

an endogenous response to a novel environmental stimulus characterized by a strong EEG signal in the parietal lobe