1
Q
What is selective attention?
A
Selective attention is the ability to focus on one stimulus while ignoring others.
📌 Example: Roger focusing on his math homework while ignoring people talking nearby.
2
Q
What is distraction (in attention research)?
A
Distraction occurs when one stimulus interferes with the processing of another.
📌 Example: Roger finds the talking distracting while playing an easier game.
3
Q
What is divided attention?
A
Divided attention is the ability to attend to more than one thing at once.
📌 Example: Roger listens to the conversation while playing a game on his phone.
4
Q
What is attentional capture?
A
Attentional capture is a rapid, involuntary shift of attention caused by a sudden stimulus (e.g., noise, movement, bright light).
📌 Example: Roger’s attention shifts to the commotion when a book cart overturns.
5
Q
What is visual scanning?
A
Visual scanning refers to eye movements from one location or object to another.
📌 Example: Roger scans the room, looking at people’s faces to see if he recognises anyone.
6
Q
According to William James, what is attention?
A
William James (1890) defined attention as taking possession of one out of several possible objects or thoughts, and withdrawing from others to deal effectively with that focus.
7
Q
What key idea does William James’ definition of attention emphasize?
A
Withdrawal from some things to deal with others — attention requires selectivity.
8
Q
Why is William James’s definition of attention considered incomplete today?
A
It does not fully capture the diversity of attention phenomena, such as divided attention, attentional capture, or visual scanning.
9
Q
What does Roger’s experience in the library illustrate?
A
It illustrates multiple types of attention, including selective attention, distraction, divided attention, attentional capture, and visual scanning.
10
Q
Why does the chapter on attention begin with historical research?
A
Because early attention research helped establish the information-processing approach, which became central to cognitive psychology.
📌 [Linked to Learning Objective 6: Key Experimental Methods]
11
Q
What technique did Colin Cherry use to study attention in the 1950s?
A
Dichotic listening — presenting different auditory messages to each ear and asking participants to shadow (repeat aloud) one message.
12
Q
What is shadowing in attention research?
A
The task of repeating aloud what one hears in the attended ear during dichotic listening.
13
Q
What were Cherry’s key findings from dichotic listening experiments?
A
• Participants could shadow the attended message easily.
• They could detect basic physical features (like gender of speaker) in the unattended ear.
• They could not report the content of the unattended message.
📌 [Linked to Learning Objective 6: Key Experimental Methods]
14
Q
What is the cocktail party effect?
A
The ability to focus on a single conversation in a noisy environment — shows how we can selectively attend to one source of information.
15
Q
What is Broadbent’s filter model of attention?
A
A flowchart model (1958) proposing that:
1. Sensory memory briefly holds all info.
2. A filter selects the attended message based on physical characteristics.
3. A detector processes the meaning of the selected input.
4. The result is sent to short-term memory and possibly long-term memory.
📌 [Model: Broadbent | Learning Objective 2]
16
Q
What type of attention model is Broadbent’s filter model classified as?
A
An early selection model — it suggests that unattended information is filtered out before processing for meaning.
17
Q
What was the strength of Broadbent’s model?
A
It offered testable predictions about selective attention, which encouraged experimental research.
📌 [Learning Objective 5: Strengths and Limits of Basic Models]
18
Q
How did Neville Moray’s 1959 experiment challenge Broadbent’s model?
A
Moray found that participants noticed their own name in the unattended ear, suggesting that some unattended information is processed for meaning.
19
Q
Why is Moray’s finding (recognising one’s name in unattended ear) important?
A
It shows that Broadbent’s filter is not absolute — some meaningful unattended info can still be processed, contradicting early selection theory.
📌 [Learning Objective 5: Why Basic Models Are Insufficient]
20
Q
How does the “hearing your name at a party” phenomenon support Moray’s findings?
A
It demonstrates attentional leakage, where personally relevant information breaks through even when you’re focused elsewhere.
21
Q
What did Gray & Wedderburn’s 1960 “Dear Aunt Jane” experiment demonstrate?
A
Participants combined info from both ears to create a meaningful message (“Dear Aunt Jane”), showing that selection can be influenced by meaning — evidence of top-down processing.
22
Q
What is Treisman’s attenuation model of attention (1964)?
A
A two-stage early selection model proposing that the attenuator weakens unattended messages rather than filtering them out completely, allowing some meaningful unattended info to be processed.
23
Q
How does the attenuator in Treisman’s model analyze incoming messages?
A
- Physical characteristics (e.g., pitch, speed)
- Language (syllables and word groupings)
- Meaning (phrases and semantic content)
Analysis continues only as far as needed to identify the attended message.
24
Q
How is Treisman’s model different from Broadbent’s?
A
Unlike Broadbent’s all-or-nothing filter, Treisman proposed a leaky filter, where unattended information is weakened but not blocked entirely.
25
What is the “dictionary unit” in Treisman’s model?
A mental system containing stored words, each with a different activation threshold. Words are detected when incoming signal strength exceeds their threshold.
26
What kind of words have low thresholds in the dictionary unit?
Common or personally important words (e.g., your name) — these can be activated even by weak unattended signals.
27
Why is Treisman’s model called a leaky filter model?
Because some information from the unattended channel (especially important or common words) can still be processed.
28
How does the attenuator determine which message to strengthen?
It identifies the attended message using available cues (physical, linguistic, or semantic), and reduces the strength of the unattended input.
29
In regards to Treisman’s attenuation model of selective attention : What determines whether a word from the unattended message will be noticed?
Whether the word’s signal strength exceeds its threshold in the dictionary unit — low-threshold words (like your name) are more likely to be noticed.
30
Why are Broadbent’s and Treisman’s models both called early selection models?
Because they propose that filtering occurs before meaning is fully processed, though Treisman’s model allows for partial processing of unattended info.
31
Why are these early attention models considered foundational in cognitive psychology?
They helped define core attention phenomena and framed attention as an information-processing problem, influencing modern cognitive theory.
32
What did Donald MacKay 1973 experiment demonstrate about attention?
Even when biasing words (e.g., money, river) were presented to the unattended ear, they influenced how ambiguous sentences were interpreted — showing that unattended info is processed for meaning.
33
What are late selection models of attention?
Theories proposing that most incoming information is processed to the level of meaning, and selection occurs later, just before the information is brought into conscious awareness or response selection.
34
How did MacKay’s experiment challenge early selection theories?
It showed that unattended input could affect interpretation even when participants were unaware of hearing it — contradicting the idea that filtering happens before meaning is processed.
35
What conclusion emerged from the early vs. late selection debate?
There is no single point of selection — whether selection is early or late depends on the task and stimuli. Attention is flexible and context-dependent.
36
What is processing capacity in attention research?
It refers to the total amount of cognitive resources a person can use to process incoming information — this limits how much can be attended to at once.
37
What is perceptual load?
The difficulty of a task, which determines how many attentional resources it consumes.
• Low-load tasks: Use few resources
• High-load tasks: Use many resources
38
What does Nilli Lavie’s Load Theory of Attention propose?
When performing a low-load task, there are spare attentional resources, so distracting stimuli are more likely to be processed.
In high-load tasks, the task consumes more capacity, leaving fewer resources for distraction.
39
What did Forster and Lavie (2008) find about distraction in easy vs. hard tasks?
• Easy tasks: More affected by irrelevant stimuli (e.g., cartoon characters), because spare capacity allows distraction.
• Hard tasks: Less distraction, because capacity is fully engaged.
40
How does load theory explain why Roger was distracted by the conversation only during his phone game and not during math homework?
The phone game was low-load, so Roger had spare capacity to process the irrelevant talking. During high-load math, no capacity remained for distraction.
41
According to load theory, why do task-irrelevant stimuli slow reaction time more in easy tasks?
Because unused attentional capacity is available to process irrelevant input, involuntarily capturing attention.
42
What happens to attention when all processing capacity is used in a high-load task?
No capacity remains to process irrelevant stimuli, making a person less likely to be distracted.
📌 Example: Roger wasn’t distracted during a hard math problem.
43
44
What happens when a task is low-load and there’s spare processing capacity?
The leftover capacity can process task-irrelevant stimuli, increasing the likelihood of distraction.
📌 Example: Roger was distracted by conversation while doing an easy phone game.
45
Besides task difficulty, what else determines whether we’re distracted by irrelevant stimuli?
The strength or salience of the irrelevant stimulus.
📌 Example: A loud siren could still capture Roger’s attention even during a hard task.
46
What is the Stroop effect?
A demonstration that task-irrelevant stimuli (e.g., printed words) can be so automatic and well-practiced that they interfere with the task (e.g., naming ink color).
47
Why is the Stroop effect a strong example of attentional conflict?
Because reading is an automatic process, and it competes with the task of naming the ink color, causing slower responses and increased errors.
48
What does the Stroop effect suggest about attention and automatic processing?
Some processes (like reading) are so deeply automatic that they are difficult to suppress, even when irrelevant — showing that attention has limits.
49
How does the Stroop effect relate to load theory?
It shows that highly automatic stimuli can capture attention even during focused tasks — suggesting that some distractions are hard to suppress, regardless of load.
50
What is one limitation of models focused only on sustained attention (e.g., Broadbent, Lavie)?
They don’t account well for attention shifts that happen constantly in real-world scenarios, like when we move our eyes or mentally switch focus.
51
What topic follows sustained attention in the chapter?
Shifting attention — either by moving the eyes or mentally shifting focus without moving the eyes.
52
What does William James say about attention?
Attention involves withdrawing from some things to effectively deal with others.
53
Why do we need to scan a scene to identify objects or people?
Because good detail vision occurs only for things we are looking at directly, due to the fovea's role in central vision.
54
What is central vision?
Central vision is the area of the visual field you are directly looking at, which falls on the fovea.
55
What is peripheral vision?
Peripheral vision encompasses everything in the visual field that is not in central vision, with less detailed processing.
56
What is a fixation in visual attention?
A fixation is when your eyes briefly pause on a particular object or location.
57
What is a saccadic eye movement?
A saccadic eye movement is a rapid, jerky movement of the eye from one fixation point to another.
58
How often do we make eye movements during free viewing?
We move our eyes about three times per second, even when not searching for anything specific.
59
What is overt attention?
Overt attention is attention that involves eye movements and can be observed by tracking where the eyes are looking.
60
What are the two main factors that influence how we shift attention by moving our eyes?
Bottom-up factors (physical characteristics of the stimulus) and top-down factors (cognitive influences such as knowledge and past experience).
61
What is stimulus salience, and how does it influence attention?
Stimulus salience refers to physical properties of a stimulus—such as color, contrast, that influence attention through bottom-up processing.
62
Why is attention based on stimulus salience considered a bottom-up process?
Because it depends solely on physical characteristics of the stimulus, not on cognitive factors or prior knowledge.
63
What is a salience map in visual attention research?
A salience map represents the combined intensity, color, and orientation values across a scene, predicting where high-salience fixations will occur.
64
How do fixations change after the first few in a visual scene?
After initial fixations guided by salience, attention shifts due to top-down factors such as goals, interests, and prior knowledge.
65
What evidence shows that scanning isn't based only on salience?
People often ignore highly salient features like bright areas and instead focus on meaningful elements based on interest or goals, e.g. statues over architecture.
66
How do scene schemas influence visual attention?
Scene schemas are cognitive templates for typical environments that guide attention to expected or unexpected items (e.g., looking longer at a printer in a kitchen).
67
What did Vo and Henderson (2009) demonstrate about attention and context?
People look longer at out-of-place objects (e.g., a printer in a kitchen) because these violate typical scene schemas and attract attention.
68
What did Shinoda et al. (2001) find about attention and driving?
People detected stop signs more easily at intersections than in the middle of a block, showing attention is influenced by learned environmental regularities.
69
What determines when and where people look during a task like making a sandwich?
Eye movements are determined primarily by the sequence of actions involved in the task, closely linked to upcoming motor actions.
70
What is the 'just-in-time' strategy in attention?
It refers to eye movements occurring just before we need the information they will provide, typically preceding motor actions by a fraction of a second.
71
How do task demands influence visual scanning?
People fixate on relevant objects or areas in sequence as needed by the task, ignoring irrelevant ones.
72
What commonality do scanning based on cognitive factors and task demands share?
Both are influenced by the observer's predictions about what will happen next.
73
What is covert attention?
Shifting attention without moving the eyes, allowing researchers to study attention without the interference of eye movements.
74
Why is covert attention useful in research?
It allows for the study of mental shifts in attention independently of observable eye movements.
75
What is overt attention?
Overt attention is attention associated with eye movements that can be observed directly.
76
What is covert attention?
Covert attention involves shifting attention without moving the eyes, i.e., with the mind.
77
Why is covert attention useful in research?
It allows researchers to study mental attention shifts without interference from eye movements.
78
How does attention improve response to a location, according to Posner?
Paying attention to a location improves information processing and speeds up responses to stimuli at that location.
79
What is pre-cuing?
Pre-cuing is a procedure where attention is directed to a location before a stimulus appears, to test attentional effects.
80
How does attention affect object-based processing?
Attention enhances response not only to the cued location but also spreads to other locations within the same object.
81
What is the same-object advantage?
The same-object advantage is the faster responding to stimuli located within the same object as the attended location.
82
Why was reaction time faster at point B than C in the experiment with the rectangles?
Because B was within the same object as the cued location A, and attention spread within the object.
83
What does William James' phrase 'in clear and vivid form' suggest about attention?
It suggests that attending to an object makes it more clear and vivid, meaning attention affects perception.
84
How does attention affect the perception of objects?
Attended objects are perceived as bigger, faster, more richly colored, and having better contrast than non-attended objects.
85
What is the effect of attention on brain activity?
Attention increases activity in areas of the brain that represent the attended location.
86
What did Datta and DeYoe's 2009 study demonstrate about attention and the brain?
Their study showed that directing attention to a specific area of space activates a specific area in the brain, forming an attention map.
87
How accurately could researchers predict a participant’s attended location based on fMRI data in Datta and DeYoe's study?
With 100% accuracy, using the attention maps created from the fMRI data.
88
What did Çukur et al. (2013) study reveal about attention and object representation?
Attention alters how different types of objects are represented across the brain depending on what is being searched for.
89
What does the term 'attentional warping' refer to?
It refers to how attention changes the brain’s category map, allocating more space to the searched-for categories and related stimuli.
90
How does searching for people versus vehicles affect brain activity?
Searching for people increases activity for categories like people and body parts, while searching for vehicles increases activity for vehicles and related categories like roads and movement.
91
What happens in the brain when a person is looking for a category not currently present in the scene?
The brain still shows heightened activity for that category, preparing to respond strongly if it appears.
92
What is divided attention?
Divided attention is the distribution of attention among two or more tasks simultaneously.
93
What factors influence the ability to divide attention?
Practice and the difficulty of the tasks involved.
94
What was the task design in Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) divided attention experiment?
Participants had to remember a set of target stimuli while monitoring rapidly presented frames for those targets.
95
What did Schneider and Shiffrin find about performance over time in their experiment?
Performance started at 55% and improved to 90% after 900 trials; the task became automatic after about 600 trials.
96
What is automatic processing?
A type of processing that occurs without intention and uses only some cognitive resources.
97
Give an example of automatic processing from everyday life.
Locking a door without realizing it or driving to a location without remembering the trip.
98
Why can performance suffer when paying conscious attention to an automatic task?
Because conscious attention can disrupt the smooth execution of tasks that are usually automatic, such as typing or playing the piano.
99
What does Schneider and Shiffrin's research suggest about divided attention and task difficulty?
Divided attention is possible for well-practiced tasks, but becomes difficult when task demands increase or targets/distractors overlap.
100
Why does divided attention become harder in Schneider and Shiffrin’s experiment when letters are used for both targets and distractors?
Because automatic processing is no longer possible; the increased similarity and unpredictability make the task too complex even with practice.
101
How does driving illustrate the limits of divided attention?
Driving becomes more difficult when road conditions change or hazards arise, requiring full attention and leading to the suspension of other tasks like talking or listening to music.
102
What did the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study reveal about attention and crashes?
In 80% of crashes and 67% of near crashes, the driver was inattentive in some way 3 seconds before the event.
103
What was one of the most distracting activities identified in the 100-Car Study?
Interacting with a cell phone or similar device, such as pushing buttons, was among the most distracting activities.
104
What did Strayer and Johnston (2001) find in their simulated driving experiment regarding cell phone use?
Participants talking on the phone missed twice as many red lights and had slower reaction times, regardless of whether the phone was handheld or hands-free.
105
Why is hands-free phone use still considered dangerous while driving?
Because it consumes cognitive resources needed for driving, showing it's not about having two hands, but about divided attention.
106
Why do some drivers underestimate the dangers of multitasking while driving?
Many believe they are unaffected, especially younger people who learned to drive with phones, despite research proving otherwise.
107
How much more likely are truck drivers to crash when texting, according to the Virginia Tech study?
They are 23 times more likely to cause a crash or near crash while texting.
108
What did the AAA Foundation find about infotainment systems in cars?
Voice-activated systems were more distracting than hands-on or hands-free cell phones, showing that non-visual distractions are still unsafe while driving.
109
What percentage of college students report using their phone for texting, browsing, or social media during class?
92% of college students report using their phone for such activities during class time.
110
According to Rosen et al. (2013), how long did students typically stay on task during a 15-minute study session?
Less than 6 minutes before interrupting studying to engage in unrelated activities.
111
What is 'experience sampling' and how is it used in attention research?
Experience sampling involves contacting participants at random times to ask about their current activity, helping researchers study daily behaviors like phone usage or mind wandering.
112
How does operant conditioning explain compulsive phone checking?
Intermittent reinforcement—rewards (like messages) appear unpredictably—strengthens the habit of checking phones.
113
What is continuous partial attention and why is it problematic?
It refers to constantly switching between tasks, which reduces focus and impairs performance (Rose, 2010).
114
What are the potential consequences of excessive texting or internet use on students?
Lower academic performance, possible internet addiction, and negative effects on social, emotional, and family life.
115
What advice does Pinker (2010) offer regarding technology distractions?
Develop self-control strategies rather than bemoaning technology.
116
What is mind wandering and how often does it occur according to Killingsworth & Gilbert (2010)?
Mind wandering involves internal thoughts unrelated to the current task and occurs 47% of the time.
117
What is 'mindless reading' and how is it related to mind wandering?
It's when you continue reading without processing the content due to mind wandering, showing attention has shifted away.
118
Which brain network is typically active during mind wandering?
The default mode network (DMN), which becomes active when a person is not engaged in a specific task.
119
Can mind wandering have benefits, and if so, what are they?
Yes. Mind wandering can help with planning for the future and enhancing creativity.
120
What does the swimming pool accident in Pella, Iowa illustrate about attention?
It shows that attention is a limited resource—even with many observers, critical events like drownings can go unnoticed due to the difficulty of visually scanning for rare events among similar-looking distractors.
121
What is inattentional blindness?
It is the failure to notice clearly visible stimuli when attention is directed elsewhere, even if the missed object is right in front of the observer.
122
What experiment by Cartwright, Finch, and Lavie (2007) demonstrates inattentional blindness?
Participants focused on comparing the length of cross arms and failed to notice a square added to the display on the sixth trial, showing how attention to one task can prevent awareness of new stimuli.
123
How does the Simmons and Chabris (1999) study demonstrate inattentional blindness?
While observers focused on counting basketball passes by one team, nearly half failed to notice a woman with an umbrella or a person in a gorilla suit walking through the scene.
124
Why is inattentional blindness significant in real-world settings?
It highlights how people can miss important events—even those in plain sight—when their attention is occupied, which has implications for safety-critical roles like lifeguarding or driving.
125
What is inattentional deafness?
Inattentional deafness is a phenomenon where focusing on a difficult visual task impairs the ability to hear other stimuli, such as a tone.
126
How was inattentional deafness demonstrated by Raveh and Lavie (2015)?
Participants did a visual search task while tones were played. Detection of the tone was significantly lower during difficult visual tasks, showing that high visual load reduced auditory awareness.
127
Why is inattentional deafness significant in attention research?
It shows that attention-related limitations can affect multiple sensory modalities and supports Lavie's load theory by demonstrating that high-load tasks increase the chance of missing other stimuli.
128
What is change detection?
Change detection is a procedure where participants view two alternating images and must detect the difference between them, revealing how attention affects perception.
129
What is change blindness?
Change blindness is the difficulty in detecting differences between two visual scenes, even when the change is large and obvious once pointed out.
130
Why does change blindness occur?
Change blindness occurs because attention is often not directed at the specific location where a change happens, so the difference goes unnoticed.
131
What are continuity errors in film and how do they relate to change blindness?
Continuity errors are unnoticed changes between film shots (e.g., character’s hair length or object positions). They illustrate how viewers can miss major changes due to attention being focused elsewhere.
132
What did Rensink et al. (1997) find using a flicker paradigm for change detection?
They found that detecting changes between alternating pictures with a blank screen in between often required several repetitions, highlighting the challenge of change detection.
133
What do inattentional blindness, inattentional deafness, and change blindness all demonstrate about attention?
They show that attention plays a critical role in perception. We often miss clearly visible or audible stimuli when our attention is focused elsewhere.
134
Why is our perceptual system considered adaptive despite missing many environmental details?
Because it focuses on what's important, making optimal use of limited processing resources, and includes a warning system for sudden, potentially dangerous stimuli.
135
How does our perceptual system alert us to potential danger?
It uses a warning system that responds to motion or intense stimuli, causing rapid attention shifts to potential threats like a loud noise or fast-approaching object.
136
What role do schemas play in our perception during everyday activities?
Schemas allow us to 'fill in' our understanding of environments based on past experience, reducing the need for constant detailed perception.
137
Why might modern activities like texting while driving be especially dangerous?
Because our perceptual system did not evolve to handle such simultaneous, complex tasks, leading to a higher risk of attention failure and accidents.
138
What is the 'binding problem' in attention research?
It is the question of how the brain combines features like color, shape, motion, and location into a single, coherent perception of an object.
139
How does our brain manage to perceive a rolling red ball as a unified object?
Though different brain areas process features like shape, color, and motion separately, attention binds these features into a coherent perception of the ball.
140
What theory addresses how features of objects are bound together in perception?
Feature Integration Theory, proposed by Treisman, addresses how attention helps bind individual features into a unified perceptual experience.
141
What are the two stages of Feature Integration Theory (FIT) proposed by Treisman?
1. Pre-attentive stage: Features are processed automatically, unconsciously, and independently. 2. Focused attention stage: Attention is focused on the object, and features are combined into a coherent perception.
142
What are illusory conjunctions, and when do they occur?
Illusory conjunctions are perceptual errors where features from different objects are incorrectly combined, typically occurring during the pre-attentive stage when attention is divided or impaired.
143
How does top-down processing influence feature integration?
Top-down processing can reduce illusory conjunctions by using prior knowledge (e.g., familiar object-color associations) to guide accurate feature binding.
144
What is a conjunction search, and how does it support Feature Integration Theory?
A conjunction search involves finding a target defined by a combination of features and requires focused attention. It supports FIT because patients with Balint's syndrome struggle with conjunction searches, indicating the need for attention in feature binding.
145
How does the case study of RM support Feature Integration Theory?
RM, a patient with Balint’s syndrome, showed high rates of illusory conjunctions and could not perform conjunction searches, highlighting the necessity of focused attention for feature integration.
146
What are the ventral and dorsal attention networks responsible for?
The ventral attention network controls attention based on stimulus salience (bottom-up), while the dorsal attention network controls attention based on top-down processes like task demands or scene schemas.
147
What is effective connectivity in the context of attention?
Effective connectivity refers to how easily activity can travel between brain regions, and it changes based on task demands, enhancing communication between relevant areas.
148
What role does synchronization play in effective connectivity?
Synchronization, as shown in monkey cortex studies, improves communication between brain areas by aligning neural signals when attention is directed at a stimulus.
149
What is the executive attention network responsible for?
The executive attention network manages executive functions, including controlling attention, resolving conflicts, and supporting cognitive control and willpower in decision-making.
150
How does the Stroop test illustrate the executive attention network at work?
The Stroop test requires ignoring conflicting information (word meaning) to focus on ink color, demonstrating the executive attention network's role in inhibitory control and attention regulation.
PSY310 Learning & Cognition
flashcards
Decks in class (14)
# Cards
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Chapter 1 Introduction191
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Introduction To Cognitive Psychology98
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Attention150
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JA - Driver (2001) Attention166
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Visual Perception206
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Short Term Memory266
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LTM: Structure281
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LTM: Encoding, Retrieval. & Consolidation162
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Language233
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Rendall (2021) Aping Language152
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Innate Behaviour And Non-associative Learning322
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Operant Conditioning230
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Classical Conditioning506
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Observational Learning0
