what is attention?
- mind gives consideration to one object or idea and withdraws from others
- involves focus, concentration, consciousness
what are the five features of attention?
selective, divided, limited capacity, interference, mental effort
what is selective attention?
ability to allocate limited resource to different tasks
what is intentional selection?
purposefully attending to one source while inhibiting attention to others
what is the stroop effect?
- color of words different than the color the word says
- should have a neutral and color word and should be congruent vs incongruent
how does the stroop effect interfere with intention?
- irrelevant info overpowers
- evidence that some parallel processing occurs early on in the stages of info processing
what is the cocktail party problem?
- two messages simultaneously, listener asked to mirror the message in one ear
- some unattended stimuli processed in with parallel with attended stimuli during early stimulus identification
what is inattention blindness and change blindness?
- failure to see certain visual stimuli when engaged in specific search task
- intentionally processing specific visual info leads to inability to process other visual stimuli
what is interference?
decreased ability to simultaneously perform two tasks
what are the two types of interference?
structural and capacity
what is the relationship between limited capacity and interference?
- can only give demand to the remaining capacity
- ex: walking and counting backwards –> walking may fill up 90% and counting takes up 20%, have interference and the tasks will affect each other
what is controlled (conscious) processing
- slow
- attention demanding (interference)
- serial
- volitional
what is automatic (unconscious) processing?
- fast
- not attention demanding (little to no interference)
- parallel
- not volitional
how is automatic processing developed?
- on a continuum
- develop with practice
what are theories of attention (general) and how do they differ?
theories of attention differ based on when in the IP stages and how attention is limited
what are the four theories of attention?
- single channel filter theories (early vs late)
- flexible allocation of capacity
- multiple resource theory
- action selection theory
what are the single channel filter theories?
- assume fixed capacity for IP
- attention as a single resource directed at one of a # of processing operations
- bottleneck theories –> parallel processing until you get to the limited recourse the serial processing takes over
- *one thing at a time is processed, any other info is not
what is the flexible allocation of capacity theory?
- capacity changes with changes in task, but there is a maximum capacity
- allocation of attention is not fixed and can change
- attention can be placed on more than one stimulus at a time
- influenced by motivation, need, etc
what is the multiple resource theory?
- think of attention as “multiple pools” of resources
- each handles specific kinds of IP
- tasks compete for resources
- attention can be placed on input and output stages at the same time –> skill
what is action selection theory?
- stimuli is processed in parallel early and there is selection of an action
- selection is a fundamental process of attention
- interference occurs when planning or executing movements not during processing
what is the double stimulation paradigm?
- provides insight into how processing of the second stimulus is affected by ongoing processing of the first
how do attention and movement relate?
- not all movement requires attention
- attention can be diverted to response programming of future movements
- attention towards other aspects of environment
- attention may fine tune motor movements/control
what is the secondary task technique?
- subject performs a primary task
- discrete, occasional secondary task added –> attention to movement is strongest at beginning and end
what is the difference between internal and external focus of attention?
- external focus enhanced performance across skills, levels of expertise, and age
- novice has more proximal external focus
- expert has more distal external focus
- microchoking: shift toward internal focus interferes with automaticity
