Introduction to Attention Flashcards
What are the two types of attention?
Covert attention : paying attention to one thing whilst appearing to pay attention to another
Overt attention: turning head to look at something
What did HARROLD PASHLER (1998) say about attention
No one know what attention is, and there may not even be an ‘it’ to be known about
What is the cocktail party effect
Even though there is a lot of noise we are able to filter it out and focus on the person we are talking to
What is voluntary attention?
Intentional
Goal driven
Knowledge used to guide information processing
What is reflexive attention
Unintentional
Stimulus driven
Something catches our attention
What did the study by Cherry (1953) do
Gave ppts two streams: one unattended and another attended
Were able to repeat what was said in attended stream
Could identify some properties of unattended stream such as gender if voice or if it was a human versus musical instrument
Draw the diagram from Donald BROADBENT (1958) that looks at the bottle neck if attention
- ——-> ——————>
- ——-> ————–>
- ——-> ——————>
Draw the diagram from BROADBENT that show the process of early selection
Input > detection > > recognition >
> detection > x
Draw the POSNER cuing paradigm - endogenous cuing
Valid trial >. + *
Invalid trial. <>. +*
Describe the results from POSNERs cuing paradigm
When it was a valid trial the ppts responded quicker than when it was an invalid trial
What is the problem with early selection theories?
We can often recall our own name or highly relevant information from unattended channel
Describe the study by MACKAY (1973) that looks at ambiguous sentences in a dichotic listening task
Ppts given ambiguous sentence string
Also given a bias word in unattended channel
The bias word influenced their interpretation if ambiguous sentence
Draw the diagram of late selection as seen in DEUTSCH and DEUTSCH
Input > detection > recognition > >
> detection > recognition > x
What evidence is there to support early selection from event related potential
FMRI studies show evidence for attention effects in primary visual cortex activation
What did the study by WOJCIULIK et al (1998) show
Shows FMRI evidence for modulation of higher level visual processing by attention
What has neurobiology shown for attention
Can generate both early and late in the visual processing stream
What does high perceptual load mean?
Current task doesn’t leave any attention for distractors
What does high perceptual load support
Early selection
What does low perceptual load mean
Current task leave attention for distractors
What type of selection does low perceptual load support
Late selection
What are the effects of cognitive load on visual cortex activation
High cognitive load = worse focused attention
Why do perceptual load and cognitive load have an opposite effect on attention
Slower reaction time with low perceptual load
Faster reaction time with low wm load
This is because perceptual = bottom up and cognitive = top down
What does this mean for attention (the fact that perceptual and cognitive loads have different effects)
It has a limited capacity and can only process a subset of sensory inputs
Attention can be early or late
How does attention decide what gets into consciousness?
(Duncan and DESIMONE (1995) : biased competition model
Items compete for attention
Top down bias signals select which stimulus wins attention
