Chapter 7: Attention and Scene Perception Flashcards
(30 cards)
Attention
Any of the very large set of selective processes in the brain. To deal with the impossibility of handling all inputs at once, the nervous system has evolved mechanisms that are able to restrict processing to a subset of things, places, ideas, or moment in time.
selective attention
The form of attention involved when processing is restricted to a subset of the possible stimuli.
reaction time (RT)
A measure of the time from the onset of a stimulus to a response.
Cue
A stimulus that might indicate where (or what) a subsequent stimulus will be. Cues can be valid (giving correct info), invalid (incorrect), or neutral (uninformative).
Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA)
The time between the onset of one stimulus and the onset of another.
visual search
Search for a target in a display containing distracting elements.
target
The goal of the visual search
distractor
In visual search, any stimulus other than the target
set size
The # of items in a visual display.
feature search
Search for a target defined by a single attribute, such a s a salient color or orientation.
Salience
The vividness of a stimulus relative to its neighbors
Parallel search
A search in which multiple stimuli are processed at the same time.
serial self-terminating search
A search from item to item, ending when a target is found.
guided search
Search in which attention can be restricted to a subset of possible items on the basis of information about the target item’s basic features.
Conjunction search
Search for a target defines by the presence of two or more attributes
scene-based guidance
Info in our understanding of scenes that helps us find specific objects in scenes
binding problem
The challenge of tying different attributes of visual stimuli which are handled different brain circuits, to the appropriate object so that we perceive a unified object.
preattentive stage
The processing of a stimulus that occurs before selective attention is deployed to that stimulus.
feature integration theory
Anne Treisman’s theory of visual attention, which holds that a limited set of basic features can be processed in parallel preattentivley, but that other properties, including the correct binding of feature to objects, require attention.
illusory conjunction
An erroneous combination of two features in a visual scene.
Proto-object
A loose collection of unbound features that will be a recognizable object one attended.
rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP)
An experimental procedure in which stimuli appear in a stream at one location (typically the point of fixation) at a rapid rate (typically about 8 per second).
attentional blink
The tendency not to perceive or respond to the second of two different target stimuli amid a rapid stream of distracting stimuli if the observer has responded to the first target stimulus within 200-500 milliseconds before the second stimulus is presented.
repetition blindness
A failure to detect the second occurrence of an identical letter, word, or picture in a rapidly presented stream of stimuli when the second occurrence falls within 200-500 milliseconds of the first.
