What is attention?
“The process of focusing conscious awareness, providing heightened sensitivity to a limited range of experience requiring more extensive information processing” - Select certain things
Why is attention necessary?
- Finding small targets, more than what can be processed - Allocating tensions - Nightclub -> Attention is the bouncer
William James
“Attention is the taking possession by mind, clear and vivid form.. withdrawel from some things to deal effectively with others” - Objects can be allocated to physical objects and thoughts
How does attention shape what we experience and what we don’t experience?
- Experts looking at useful information on a scan - Attention is limited and listening to road rules
General model of attention
- Sensory input - Sensory memory with automatic and preattentive processing with the TOP DOWN CONTROL OF SELECTOR towards working memory - Attention is proposed as the gate between sensory processing and awareness - All sensory input enters the sensory memory store where it is processed pre-attentively - Some is selected to pass through the gate into consciousness
How does attentional mechanisms affect us?
They decide what information reaches awareness and thus the focus of our thoughts and actions
What is involved in the dichotic listening task?
Headphone played in two different ears. You are required to ignore one input and attend to the other input. A big consequence to the unattended ear, they do not notice as a switch in language, fowards/backwards but can detect male/female voice in sensory aspect - Inspired Broadbent
What are key aspects of Broadbent’s (1958) Filter Model?
- Suggests information is selected based on early sensory properties - Input -> Sensory Store -> Selective filter (based on features) -> Higher Level Processing -> Working memory - Attention restricts information available for further processing - Info selected based on physical characters (PREATTENTIVE PROCESSING) - Complete annihilation of irrelevant stimuli
What is preattentive?
Anne Treisman - finding slanted line and colour, orientation - Conjunction search with 2 features slows the target - Feature search can be done preattentively
What is the feature integration theory?
- Where certain basic features are processed quickly in parallel - Attentions serves to bind simple features together i.e. colour and orientation - Binding process is slow and serial
What are some problems with the Filter Model?
- Does not explain why hearing one’s name will grab attention - Participants shift shadowing between ears when it makes more (semantic) sense i.e dichotic - Information can be selected on the basis of non-physical features! - The Preattentive Semantic Analysis
What is Treisman’s Attenuation Theory?
Sensory sore -> Attenuating filter -> Bottleneck reduces some stimuli -> Hierarchy of analysers -> Working memory Fire! Help! in an unattended channel. Would be attenuated, but would then be amplified due to semantic value.
When is information filtered in attention?
- Early selection: physical features - Late: based on meaning, meaningfulness, semantics
What is involved in the late selection model?
- All stimuli are processed to the level of meaning - Relevance determines further processing and action (when they become the focus of attention)
Filter Models
- Early selection (broadbent) - Attenuation (treisman) - Late (Deutsh)
What is the Capacity Theory of Attention
- Mental effort, attention as a capacity and resource - Attention is prescribed on difficulty of task
- Demanding: controlled processing - Undemanding: automatic processing
What is the droop effect?
- Identifying coloour of letters, not the words - Effortful to block out automatic attention
What is bottom up selection?
- Stimulus properties that capture your attention e.g. flash of light, loud noise
What is top-down selection?
- Goal driven selection of information e.g. finding keys on cluttered desk, where’s wally
How is visual attention guided?
- Space based - Bottom up - Top down - Feature based
What are some failure of attentions?
Inattentional blindness video Change blindness - Colour changing card tgrick - Changes occurred off frame - Failure to retain/compare information - Videos - Abrupt changes attract attention - Observer must search for change
Why does change blindness occur?
- Abrupt changes ie visual transients in the visual scene attracts attention BUT global disruption mask the visual transient corresponding to the sought-for-change
How can we track attention?
In eye tracking study, Attention can move when eyes don’t - Overt and covert attention
What is inattentional blindness?
Failure to notice a fully-visible but unexpected event/object when attention is engaged on another - Allocating attention one task diverts others
