Exam 1-Part 2 Flashcards
(21 cards)
Visual Neglect
Usually caused by damage to right parietal lobe; patient “neglects” contralateral hemi-space; may also “neglect” (or deny) contralateral side of the body
CAPGRAS syndrome
Face recognition is intact, but patients have no GSR differences to familiar vs. unfamiliar faces–claim that spouses or pets are imposters
Capgras
Seen in brain injury, schizophrenia, and dementia; faulty connections between the temporal lobe (face recognition), limbic system (emotion and memory), and frontal cortex (decision making)
What is attention?
Ability to focus on specific stimuli/locations AKA the interface between memory systems
Cherry (1953)
One of the first dichotic listening studies; asked subjects to shadow the message coming to one ear and ignore the other. Subjects did very well shadowing the attended ear.
What do people tend to remember about the message presented in the unattended ear?
Basic physical attributes; male vs female, loud vs quiet; did not realize voice was speaking in a different language or repeating on word 35 times
Central Assumption
Attention is a limited-capacity system. We cannot process all information at once.
Broadbent (1958) Filter Model
Sensory memory holds info for fraction of second and passes it to filter; Filter ids message that is being attended based on physical characteristics, determines one message that will receive further processing; Detector process info from attended msg to determine higher level characteristics
Moray (1959): The cocktail party effect
Some information (e.g., the subject’s name) “sneaks through” the unattended ear and is recognized
Treisman’s Attenuation Model of Attention
1) Attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS and LANGUAGE and MEANING
2) Attended & unattended msgs get identified and pass through attenuator, but unattended msgs are weak-“leaky filter”
3) Dictionary Unit contains words stored in memory, each with a threshold for being activated
- Word with low threshold detected if presented softly, obscured (such as name)
- Word with high threshold need strong signal to be detected (like an unknown word)
MacKay (1973) Late Selection Model of Attention
Most of the incoming info is processed to the level of meaning before the msg to be further processed is selected
- “They were throwing stones at the bank”
- River or money?
Difference between the early- and late-selection approaches to selective attention?
Early selection is based on physical characteristics (Broadbent); late selection is based on meaning (MacKay); Treisman falls in between the two
Processing capacity
Amount of info people can handle. LIMITED!
Perceptual load
Related to task difficulty
- Low load tasks: use only small amount of cap; Easy, well-practiced (driving)
- High load tasks: use more processing cap; Difficult, not well-practiced
Lavie’s Load Theory of Attention
Distractors will ONLY slow down processing in LOW-load tasks
- -Low-load: there is SPARE CAPACITY, so resources are available to process irrelevant stimuli
- -High-load: all processing capacity is already being used, no resources are left over to process irrelevant stimuli
- No effect on performance
Kahneman (1973) Capacitt Theory
Predicts that we can do multiple tasks if we do not exceed capacity. Allocation of capacity is flexible under some strategic control.
Overt attention
Shifting attention from 1 place to another by MOVING the eyes
Covert Attention
Shifting attention from 1 place to another while keeping eyes stationary
Stimulus salience
Physical characteristics of stimulus; bottom-up processing
Attentional capture
When attention due to stimulus saliency causes involuntary shift of attention
Blindsight
Loss of conscious vision but still able to make accurate discriminations and judgments about blind area
