Chapter 4 Attention

Question 1

Paying Attention

Answer 1

a process- deciphering a specific target

Question 2

Can we pay attention with all our senses?

Answer 2

Yes- sight, smell, taste, touch, auditory

Question 3

attention

Answer 3

concentrating effort on a mental or environmental stimulus or event

Question 4

4 meanings of attention

Answer 4

1. Alertness and Arousal
2. Orienting and searching
3. Filtering and selecting
4. mental resources and conscious processing

Question 5

Can we control our attention?

Answer 5

NO- there is automatic processing that happens

-we pay attention to what is important

Question 6

Attention and focus for learning is in what part of the brain?

Answer 6

Frontal lobe when being learned but after you learn it the basal ganglia lights up

Question 7

Atkinson and Shiffrin Model

Answer 7

• suggested 3 boxes that respreset memory
  1. Sensory Memory
  2. Short Term Memory
  3. Long Term Memory
• box and arrow model

Question 8

What type of information do we deal with best?

Answer 8

Positive information (answers that are YES)

Question 9

Types of dependant variables

Answer 9

Reaction Time

Accuracy

Question 10

Types of Attention Tasks

Answer 10

1. Selective Attention- require subject to focus on a target & ignore other stimuli occurring (distractor task)
2. Divided Attention- ask participant to do at least two tasks at once

Question 11

Divided Attention Tasks

Answer 11

Performance suffers greatly when attention is divided.

Grad student in Portland juggling and riding a unicycle people on cell phones did not see it

Question 12

Edward C. Tolman

Answer 12

Developed concept of a cognitive map

Question 13

General attention themes

Answer 13

• always more information than we can pay attention to
• serious limitation in our attention capacity
• we can perform learned skills with no attention
• practice allows us to pay less and less attention to a given task

Question 14

HOw do we focus or shift attention?

Answer 14

• ask someone to pay attention

- reflexive shifting

Question 15

Reflexive shifting

Answer 15

signal that you react to causing you to shift attention

Question 16

Priming and attention

Answer 16

Brain has a tendency to create other things that were not there ex) word list, seeing the cow after MOO being written on the board)
Powerful way to help understand

Question 17

Visual Orienting

Answer 17

Diagram 
Exogenous-  bottom up (reflexive)
Endogenous- top down (voluntary) 
Overt Gaze Shift (eye movement) 
Covert Attention Shift (attention)

Question 18

Reflexive Control Task

Answer 18

DV- RT of valid neutral or invalid decision
Results- RT lower for valid trials than invalid
Deal with Positive information better than negative
(boxes lighting up/arrow)

Question 19

Triesman & Gelade 1980

Answer 19

-search for shapes or colours 
Varied number of items in the display 
What happens to reaction time as # of items in the display increases?
(1,,5,15,30) 
IV1- 2 levels 
disjunctive (find shape OR colour) 
conjunctive (item must have BOTH) 
IV2- 4 levels #of items 
1 5 15 30 
Results- 
Disjunctive- Negative trial when object is not there (much longer) 
Conjunctive- #of items does have an effect on reaction time especially long if target is not there

Question 20

Selective Attention

Answer 20

trying to pick out the target

Question 21

Dichotic Listening Task Study

Answer 21

DV- are the people able to shadow the target message ie-repeat it as you hear it
Accuracy
IV- different distractor messages
-recall something from distractor message?
4 levels:
1. Control male voice only no distractor
2. Same voice in both channels- diff distractor
3. same voice in both channels- similar distractor
4. different voice different message

Question 22

Results of Dichotic Listening Task

Answer 22

-shadowing was possible
Order of difficulty
1. Same voice- same message (HARD)
2. Same voice- different message
3. Different voice- different message (EASY)
-could not remember anything about the message

Question 23

Further Dichotic Listening Task

Answer 23

Vary middle segment of distractor 
4 IV's 
1. Control: male voice no change 
2. Female voice: english words 
3. Male Voice- reversed speech 
4. 400Hz 
RESULTS- could identify change from male to female, tone stimulus 
-no recall of any information

Question 24

Further Dichotic Listening Task led to..

Answer 24

A proposed filter model (information is filtered at some stage)

• both messages get into sensory register, sound is processed but not content
• only one message get processed through for a response.

Question 25

Sequence of Shadowing Task

Answer 25

Incoming msg-> sensory analysis (physical processing-> Gramatical & semantic analysis-> awareness-> response

Question 26

Moray Experiment

Answer 26

Repeat same word 35 times- poor recall | Subjects could recall their own name though

Question 27

Triesman Study

Answer 27

Dichotic listening task sentence switched ears and the subject switched ears as well Therefore there is evidence of semantic processing and the original filter model must be tossed out

Question 28

Corteen and Wood (Clever Methodology) | Phase 1

Answer 28

Test to see if distractor is processed Phase 1: Classical Conditioning- mild shock when a city name is heard CS (cityname) + US (shock) DV- skin response (can record changes in how much electricity you conduct, EDR=electrodermal skin response)

Question 29

Cotreen and Wood Phase 2

Answer 29

Dichotic Task- present city names in both messages do they show a skin response?

Question 30

Corteen and Wood Results

Answer 30

EDR was equal in both messages Conclusion: must be processing distractor message to a semantic level -could not remember the city names were in the distractor -means there is automatic processing for auditory stimulus to the level of its meaning

Question 31

Mackay 1973

Answer 31

Subjects shadow ambiguous sentences ex) she threw stones at the bank -distractor message resolved ambiguity Memory Task- recognize target sentences that included correct or incorrect definition that they had received in the distractor message Distractor Message=priming tesll us information in distractor message is being processed Therefore filtering occurs later in the process

Question 32

Pertinence Model

Answer 32

- no early filter - example of alte selection model - selection happens late in the processing - move away from idea of sequential processing

Question 33

Kahneman's 1973 Model of attention and effort

Answer 33

Switch from box to processing model - resources allocation model - attention requires resources - no specific sequence

Question 34

COST/Benefit analysis of early processing

Answer 34

COST- loss of information that could be useful | B- reduces amount of processing that you have to do (speed vs. accuracy trade off)

Question 35

Cost/Benefit analysis of late processing

Answer 35

C- increased processing demands -process more information B- more information to guide your choice

Question 36

Is late or early processing better?

Answer 36

- ^ processing demands are minimal - late is kind we want to have - no need to specify when it happens more important to pick what we remember and what to pay attention to

Question 37

Limited Resources

Answer 37

- if capacity not exceeded we can perform 2 or more tasks at once - if exceeded then at least one task will suffer - we can consciously allocate resources

Question 38

Posner & Boies 1971 Method

Answer 38

2 tasks at once Primary letter-black-letter (match yes/no) Secondary- tone press button when hear a tone

Question 39

Results

Answer 39

- not much attention demand for reading 1st letter - huge cost in reaction time when attention capacity is exceeded ex) driving and come to after a short period of not knowing what happened

Question 40

Strayer and Johnson (2001)

Answer 40

Hyp- distracted drivers miss stimuli while talking on a cell phone higher processing resources needed for cellphone use than listening to the radio Method- used a driving simulation computer program with a joystick