Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is attention?
refer to the brain’s ability to attend to and process information.
is the ability to direct the perceptual, cognitive, and motor activities associated with performing skills.
We cannot attend to all stimuli represented so our brains have to decide which stimuli is the most important to focus on. It is a choice.
One of the key factors in attention is the issue of?
deciding what information is important, and therefore what information should be attended to and processed (and what should not).
The CNS is limited in its ability to?
process information (its attentional resources are finite).
Focusing attention helps to?
Direct resources.
(for example, concentrating on your golf swing, your next dive or your next tumbling routine).
What is Perceptual Blindness?
in a sense you really didn’t see (i.e., perceive) what was right in front of you the whole time. In effect, your eyes “saw” what was going on, but your brain did not.
your brain was so busy focusing on another task (counting the number of passes), that it literally ignored other sources of information that were present in your visual field
Examples of different sources of information that may or may not (depending on the situation) have to be attended to while driving:
Road signs (to indicate speed, exits, lane use, distance, attractions, etc.)
Pedestrians and other vehicles
Road conditions (visibility, ice)
Speed
Traffic lights
How to prepare and position your vehicle correctly (being in the proper lane) to make turns, merge onto highways, etc.
Heading/direction (i.e., paying attention to the route you need to take to get to your destination)
Other activities such as listening to the radio, talking to passengers, talking to your kids in the back seat, etc.
What is the Central Resource Theory?
the theory states that the brain has a single (central) pool of resources that it uses to “pay” for all its attentional demands. Once the finite pool of resources has been used up, it is not possible to pay attention to anything else (you can substitute paying attention to one thing at the expense of another, but you can’t attend to more than what your capacity permits).
Analogy for Central Resource Theory?
To use an analogy, imagine going to a store with $100. You can buy one item for $100 or 4 items at $25 each, but once your $100 is used up you can’t buy anything else. In the context of attention, the $100 item demands all of your available resources (i.e., you can only buy/attend to one thing because it demands all the resources you have), but the smaller items allow you to buy/attend to more than one thing, because each one individually uses less of the total.
What is the Multiple Resource Theories?
the basic idea of a pool of resources is slightly different, in that the brain has several different pools of resources that it can use and that the extent to which you can multitask depends on whether the demands must be paid from a single pool or from different pools.
Analogy for Multiple Resource Theories?
The analogy here is like having 4 gift cards of $25 each for 4 different stores. You can buy 4 items as long as you stay under $25, but you can’t get two items from one store if they add up to more than $25. In this case, you would have exceeded your capacity.
What is the Kahneman’s Model of Attention?
This model suggests that the capacity limits of the central pool are flexible, and therefore attention can vary depending on different factors pertaining to the individual, the task and the situation.
The different factors that influence the amount and allocation of available resources are?
Arousal
Task demands
Enduring dispositions
Momentary intentions
What is arousal?
this refers to the general level of emotional, mental and physiological arousal (activation or readiness). Physiologically, high levels of arousal are mediated by the endocrine system (i.e., the adrenaline hormones) in what is known as the “fight or flight” response.
What is task demands?
refers to the evaluation of demands in relation to capacity; for example, do you have sufficient capacity to be able to play the piano and sing at the same time? One of these things (usually playing the piano) has to be almost automatic (which causes less of a demand on your attentional resources) before you can do the other.
What is enduring dispositions?
this refers to circumstances that demand your involuntary attention; e.g., looking up and being distracted when someone’s cell phone goes off during an exam.
What is momentary intentions?
this refers to the individual decisions you make and/or the instructions you’re given about how or where to direct your attention; for example, the instructions given in the awareness test about counting the number of passes by the individuals in white shirts.
What is Wicken’s Theory?
an example of a multiple resource theory. It consists of three separate resource pools (each of which has a specific function) from which the brain’s attentional cost (the cost of attending to and processing information) can be paid.
The three resource pools of Wicken’s are?
Modalities
Stages of information processing
Processing codes
What is Modalities?
this refers to sensory modalities; i.e., a pool of resources which is used to process the different kinds of sensory information (e.g., vision, auditory, touch, etc.).
What is Stages of information processing?
this refers to a pool of resources whose purpose is to pay the cost associated with moving information through different stages of processing; for example, several stages include perception, memory, decision making, response selection, etc.
What is Processing codes?
this refers to a pool of resources that is used to process different kinds of coded information; for e.g., visual codes, auditory codes, spatial codes, etc.
An example of visual codes is the “decoding” that takes place when you read; i.e., the brain maps specific shapes on the page to letters and words that have specific meanings. The same is true of language. If you don’t have the right “codes” (i.e, the mental constructs that allow you to decode what the sounds mean), then the sounds you hear are perceived as random noises that don’t make any sense (think about hearing a language you don’t understand).
In Wickens’ theory, successful multitask performance depends on?
whether attention demands are directed to similar or different resource pools. If a task demands attention from different pools, you will be more successful than if one resource pool is needed and subsequently overloaded.
