Exam 2 Flashcards
(155 cards)
Attention
Process of focusing on some objects while ignoring others
Covert attention
Attention without looking directly at the object
Overt attention
Attention while looking directly at the object
Posner’s Precueing experiment
Showed that attention can enhance processing of a stimulus
Precueing
Presenting a cue indicating where a test stimulus will appear enhances the processing of a target stimulus
Treisman’s feature integration theory
an object is broken down into separate features and then the features are recombined to create our conscious perception of the object.
Treisman’s preattentive stage
Objects are analyzed into separate features
features exist independently, before conscious awareness, automatic and effortless
Treisman’s focused attention stage
Features are combined and we perceive the object
conscious awareness, influenced by attention
Divided attention task
Participants must pick out several features from an image after viewing for a limited time
results in illusory conjunctions
Illusory conjunctions
incorrect combination of features from different objects
Balint’s syndrome
parietal lobe damage that causes the inability to focus attention on individual objects
How does top-down processing prevent illusory conjunctions
we use our knowledge of what features common objects have to avoid mixing up features between objects
Visual scanning
moving the eyes to focus attention on different locations on objects or in scenes
Visual fixations
When the eyes stop moving to focus on something
Visual saccades
Eye movements between fixations
Corollary discharge theory
Explains why we don’t perceive the world as moving when we move our eyes
Takes eye movements into account, considers signals from the retina and eye muscles
Motor signal (MS)
(Corollary discharge theory)
command the brain sends to the eyes telling the eyes to moves
Corollary discharge signal (CDS)
Copy of the motor signal that goes to a different part of the brain to alert that the eyes are moving
Image displacement signal (IDS)
signal sent when image on the retina has changed
Comparator
Receives IDS and CDS
Hypothetical model that has not been localized in the brain
What happens when CDS and IDS occur at the same time
the brain knows the eyes are moving, not the scene
what happens when either CDS or IDS is received by the comparator?
Movement is perceived
Salience
physical characteristic of a stimulus that makes it stand out
ex. color, motion
Attentional capture
involuntary shift in attention caused by a salient stimulus