L7 + L8 - Attention Flashcards
(34 cards)
Define visual attention
The process of selecting from sensory information to observe certain material and ignore others
What is attention?
Directing perception to certain parts of sensory input
What are the known attention phenomena?
Limited capacity
automatic orienting
intentional selection
overt/covert
What are the neuronal bases for attention?
Arousal
selective attention
divided attention
spatial neglect
Outline Triesman’s feature integration model
Input is split into colour, orientation, size and stereoscopic distance. The required traits are then highlighted and integrated by an attentional filter. This is then given a place, time and relationship and stored in the recognition network
What are the types of attentive processes?
Arousal alertness
pre-attentive processing
attentive processes
What is arousal alertness?
Regulates the state of sleep and awakeness like a continuous scale
What level of arousal are we normally at?
Normally we are at a medium level of arousal in which we are fully awake and can process all sensory information
What are the states of arousal?
Asleep - Deep Sleep and Light Sleep
Awake - Low, Medium and High
What is pre-attentive processing?
Processing which does not require the directing of attention
Describe a test for pre-attentive processing
The pop out test in which the observor is asked to find the red A. In the pop out screen there will only be one red letter, in the conjunction screen there will be many.
What are attentive processes?
Processes which require focus, are selective and we only have a limited capacity for these.
Thse can be flexible and vigilant
What are the research problems regarding attention?
How does the brain select among stimuli?
Where is the bottleneck localised?
What mechanisms control automatic shifts of attention?
Which processes are parallel and which are serial?
Which brain mechanisms are involved in the control of attention?
Outline the filter model of broadbent
Relevant stimuli and irrelevant stimuli –> sensory processes -> STM processes –> selective filters –> Neglected or Limited capacity processes –> reception of the selected stimuli
Outline an experiment that tests selective acoustic attention
the subject has headphones, they should ignore one ear and attend the other. Afterwards they can only remember the content of the attended ear, suggesting a limited capacity system.
What is the cocktail party effect, moray 1959?
That you will hear your name when mentioned in a room full of chatter
Which elements of information presented to the ignored ear interupt the process in the selected ear?
Familiar foreign language - a bit
Spoken foreign language -a little
Different semantic content - a medium amount
similar semantic content - alot
What is the attenuation model?
It states that the ignored channel is not turned off merely attenuated
What is the late selection model?
The ignored channel is filtered out after short term memory
Outline a demonstration of the Possner paradigm (spatial cueing)
A subject is looking at a screen, upon which a cue is flashed up for ms then an object appears. The cue is either valid, invalid or neutral. It’s found that the arrows substantially altered response time, to locating the object. So the attention is shifted to the cued location
Outline another Possner experiment which uses different types of cues
After finding that attention shifts to the cued location, Possner experimented with different styles of cues.
Exogenous cues - where the spatial position is indicated by a sudden onset cue, such as a plus in the box. This is fast, automatic bottom up attention
Endogenous cues - symbolic cue indicates position, e.g. arrows. This is slow, intentional, top-down cueing
What is the Stroop effect?
When you ask people to name the colour of the word, they often read the colour that is printed. It takes much longer for them to identify the colour of the word, if the word itself is another colour.
What is the Flanker-Paradigm?
Where subjects were asked to respond depending upon the middle letter, so A and O responded with left hand and E and U responded with right hand. It was found that when the letters were incompatible, e.g. EAE, response time increased
What does performance in dual tasks depend upon?
Similarity between tasks
Practice
Difficulty
