w3 Flashcards
(42 cards)
what is attention
a resource that you distribute
why is attention necessary
the amount of information coming down the optic nerve ar exceeds what the brain is capable of fully processing and assimilating into conscious experience
how does attention help the brain to process stimuli
Attention reduces this information overload and determines what we perceive
what is inattentional blindness
We overestimate how
much of the world we are
actually aware of- even very salient (i.e.
attention-capturing) things can be missed
can inattentional blindness be induced in healthy patients?
yes easily
what affects inattentional blindness
- Occurs more frequently if
the display is transparent - Depends on the difficulty
of the task. The more the
primary task occupies
attention, the less likely
they are to see the
gorilla/umbrella
what study provides evidence for inattentional blindness
Simons & Chabris, 1999
- video style either opaque or transparent
- counting task either hard or difficult
- watch teams passing a ball and have to count passes, miss that a gorilla is in the video
what does the central capacity theory suggest
attention is a single central capacity that can be used flexibly, the single pool is shared between multiple tasks
what is the attentional blink
We can make something invisible by
showing it to people very quickly after
showing them something else that is
important to them
key ingredients of the attentional blink:
– Rapid visual stimuli (at ~10 Hz)
– Participants asked to look out for
TWO targets and report if they saw
them at the end of each trial
– The first target is referred to as T1,
and the second target as T2
– Masks (i.e. distractors) need to follow
T1 and T2 for the effect to work
what happens when your brain accesses the meaning of almost any stimulus
we see a negative event-related potential, called the N400
what does the N400 reflect
cognitive processes related to accessing the meaning (semantics) of a stimulus
what can N400 be used for
a sign (or marker) that someone’s brain is processing meaning, without them
telling us with their behaviour
what did Luck (1996) find
even when attentional blink occurred, there was an N400 after T2, meaning it was unconsciously processed
what does interference theory of the AB (Shapiro, 1994) propose
- T1, T2 and their masks are all encoded into a temporal buffer
- The AB is competition for retrieval among all items in short-term
memory
what evidence is there for the interference theory to explain the AB
Isaak (1999) reported that the AB increases with increasing
numbers of task-irrelevant competitors (distractors)
how does a unified model explain the AB
- Due to the mask following T1, increased attention is required to
process T1.
– This leaves less attention for processing of T2, which leaves T2
vulnerable to decay or interference from distracter
what is the cocktail party problem
A familiar voice is easier to pay
attention to AND easier to ignore
what did Cherry (1953) find
Unattended auditory information is processed to a lower level of complexity than attended information
what goes into the sensory register according to Broadbent’s (1958) Theory
parallel input
what happens after input into the sensory register in Broadbent’s (1958) Theory
Inputs are then filtered on the basis of its physical characteristics
– Filtering prevents overloading of the limited capacity mechanism
– Inputs remaining in the buffer after filter are available for later [semantic] processing
who proposed attention as late selection
Deutsch and Deutsch (1967)
what does attention as late selection propose
All stimuli are fully analysed
– The bottleneck occurs late,
before the response
– The most relevant stimulus
determines what response is
made
what does Treisman (1960) leaky filter propose
Unattended information is attenuated/filtered after the sensory
register
