Exam #5 Review (Last Exam during the semester bulk) Flashcards
(49 cards)
What is the definition of Attention?
It doesn’t have a “set” definition, it’s contested!
What are the two types of Attention?
Selective Attention and Divided Attention
What is Selective Attention?
Our ability to focus processing power on particular things and ignore everything else (focusing all our attention on one thing)
What are three problems/parts/things to note of Selective Attention?
Attention Capture, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Vigilance
What is Attention Capture?
A failure of Selective Attention, often due to a salient event (like losing your focus on something because the door slammed)
What is Attention Deficit Disorder and how can it affect Attention?
It’s an abnormal inability to maintain focus on a selected item/event (a problem with selective attention); some Attention Capture is good, but at this point it’s more like every little thing will capture their Attention
What is Vigilance in Attention?
Our ability to hold our focus on a selected item over time (sustained attention)
What is Divided Attention?
Our ability to process multiple things at the same time (like giving on a lecture while also gaging people’s faces for confusion)
What was the basic premise of Theeuwes et al.’s Attention Capture of Eye Movement study?
A subject would come in, be given a target (like telling them what letter/number was on the non-red dot), given a placeholder so they know where the dots are (like a black dot with the circles surrounding it), and then they’d be given a new slide (coloring all but one dot red) and would have to report what the non-red dot was! But there was two conditions! One was an on-set distractor (so they would add an extra red dot in the circle), and they would change the times that they would add the onset distractor in there (so, some it’s immediate with the other dots, some it’s more miliseconds away)
What technology did Theeuwes et al. use in their Attention Capture of Eye Movement study?
An Eye Tracker!
What was the Eye tracker in Theeuwes et al.’s Attention Capture of Eye Movement study used for?
To track where the subjects moved their eyes during the onset of the new display
What is the significance of having the onset distractor pop in a few miliseconds later than the rest of the irrelevant dots?
The eye takes time to move (about 100 something ms), so by the time that the eye moved the onset distractor would already be in their view
What did the Theeuwes et al. Attention Capture of Eye Movement study show?
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What do we get from Attention?
Information, task efficiency, and awareness
What does Attention to a location do?
It speeds up our processing of information at that spot
What does Attention to a pattern do?
It enhances the perceived contrast of that pattern
Why does Attention to pattern enhance the perceived contrast in that pattern?
Because our Selective Attention makes the features of an object become more accessible
What is needed for us to “reach awareness” about objects?
Attention! It’s only things that we attend to that become objects we can interact with
What does Attention do to a neuron’s receptive field?
Attending to a stimulus restricts a neuron’s receptive field to that stimulus
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What is the stimulus for Audition?
Mechanical Energy
What is the Mechanical Energy that’s the stimulus for Audition?
Pressure Waves
What is a Pressure Wave?
A chain of molecular collisions resulting in the introduction of mechanical energy to a medium
Why is knocking on a table louder than knocking on water?
Since the table is a solid it’s more molecularly dense, which means more collisions, which means more sound!
