Gen Psych Chapter 5: Attention

Question 1

Definition of attention

Answer 1

Focusing awareness on a specific stemuli.

Question 2

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 2

A failure to perceive stimuli because one’s attention is directed elsewhere, particularly when stimuli is unexpected.

Question 3

What is change blindness?

Answer 3

A failure to detect large-scale changes from one scene to the next like the door experiment.

Question 4

What is the allusion of attention?

Answer 4

People think they will notice more than they actually do.

Question 5

What is the one exception to the allusion of attention?

Answer 5

Expertise in a certain field.

Question 6

What is hemispheric neglect?

Answer 6

Unawareness of sensory input from half of the visual field.

Question 7

What causes hemispheric neglect?

Answer 7

Brain damage to the right preorital lobe.

Question 8

What are cognitive resources?

Answer 8

A kind of mental currency or mental resource that can be depleted.

Question 9

What is a cognitive load?

Answer 9

The amount of cognitive resources that a task takes.

Question 10

What is automatic processing?

Answer 10

The more you practice a task, the less concentration it takes.

Question 11

Which parts of brain influence focus and auto-pilot?

Answer 11

The pre-frontal cortex is focus and the basal ganglia is auto-pilot.

Question 12

What is divided attention?

Answer 12

Distributing attention across multiple tasks a.k.a multi-tasking.

Question 13

What is task modality?

Answer 13

Same-modality tasks compete for cognitive resources.

Question 14

What is executive control?

Answer 14

A set of specialized mechanisms that sets priorities, choose strategies, and directs attention.

Question 15

What is feature integration theory?

Answer 15

When we see something our perception works in two stages.

Question 16

What are the two stages of feature integration theory?

Answer 16

(1) Pre-attentive stage: We break down the object into components. (2) Attention stage: Attention binds all of these features together to create a unified image.

Question 17

What are illusory conjunctions?

Answer 17

When we mistakenly combine features from two different objects.

Question 18

What is Balint’s Syndrome?

Answer 18

Trouble focusing on objects.

Question 19

What do non-autistic people focus on?

Answer 19

They pay attention to other people’s eyes and where they are looking. They also pay attention to where people are pointing.

Question 20

What is the Theory of Mind?

Answer 20

The ability to understand that other people’s mind are different from their own, and the ability to distinguish what someone else might be thinking.