1
Q
how do psychologists have to define problems?
A
- operationally define problem
- helps build cognitive models/design experiments with testable hypothesis
2
Q
William James definition of attention
A
- taking possession of the mind
- implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others
- opposite of it is a confused, scatterbrained, dazed state
3
Q
what is at the centre of William James’ definition of attention?
A
concept of selection
4
Q
selection
A
- the act of tending to an object to select it apart from the unattended objects
- stimuli in environment can trigger our attention automatically
5
Q
attention is an ____ process: what does attention also refer to?
A
- active
- refers to our conscious ability to attend to the information that is relevant to our goals
6
Q
what makes it difficult to identify/attend to important information?
A
- when irrelevant information (noise) overwhelms the signal
- i.e. driving is harder while on an important phone call
7
Q
what underlying mechanisms drive attention
A
- automatic processes
- controlled processes
8
Q
automatic processes
A
- involuntarily triggered by external events
- involuntary “capture”
- operate in a fast, efficient, easy manner
9
Q
controlled processes
A
- guide attention voluntarily/consciously to objects of interest
- operate slower bc they’re assumed to require more cognitive effort
- effortful
10
Q
controlled and automatic processes in driving
A
controlled:
- choosing when to make lane changes
- change speed
- engage in convo
- change the music
automatic:
- nearby driver honks horn, we notice
11
Q
why must our attentional resources be controlled carefully?
A
- they are limited
- when demands for attention increase, we must make adjustments to compensate: otherwise, performance in all tasks is disrupted
12
Q
some cues are more noticeable and lead to stronger/quicker association: what is this called?
A
salience
13
Q
salient information
A
appears to naturally pop out at us
14
Q
second type of automatic process of attention related to learning
A
- task that used to require a lot of conscious effort becomes automatic through practice
- i.e. hard to learn driving at first, but can drive on autopilot w/ experience
15
Q
michael posner suggested this process abt visual attention
A
- suggested there is an analogous process for visual attention
- attentional spotlight only focuses on part of the environment at a time and can be consciously directed
16
Q
what can attention be impeded/hijacked by?
A
- unconscious processes that quickly grab your attention
- i.e. avoiding an oncoming speeding car when stepping off of sidewalk
17
Q
what does conscious visual attention move like?
A
- like a spotlight
- objects within our spotlight are processed preferentially (we can respond to those faster/with greater accuracy)
18
Q
how are objects within our ”spotlight” processed?
A
- faster reaction time
- higher accuracy
19
Q
how can psychologists objectively measure changes in attention in a lab setting?
A
cuing paradigms
20
Q
is the eye or attention faster?
A
- attention
- cue paradigm: takes corresponding time to look at target, even if it shows up faster than eye moves towards it
21
Q
even though our attentional spotlight moves around our field of vision, _________________________________-
A
it is still possible to miss important information
22
Q
“cocktail party effect”
A
at parties, we can focus on conversation despite crowd
23
Q
cherry’s experiment done to test auditory attention/cocktail party effect
A
- subjects asked to listen to two diff messages from two diff speakers
- asked to repeat one, not the other
- revealed that ability to separate target sounds from background noise is based on physical characteristics: gender, direction, speed, pitch of speaker
24
Q
two models of attention
A
- filter model: suppress the noise so only stimulus can be processed
- spotlight model: enhance processing of stimulus
25
what are the filter and spotlight models typically applied to?
- filter: understanding auditory attention
- spotlight: understanding visual attention
- but both can still apply across modalities
26
first filter model of attention proposed by donald broadbent in 1958?
- single filter model
- he wanted to understand air traffic control operators
27
broadbent’s early single filter model of attention
- attentional filter selects important information based on physical characteristics
- allows for that information to continue on for further processing
- information that doesn’t pass filter is assumed to be completely eliminated/unavailable for deeper analysis of meaning and semantic importance
28
how did broadbent extend cherry’s work?
using the dichotic listening paradigm
29
dichotic listening paradigm
- put headphones on, diff message directed into each ear
- participant must repeat back the message of attended ear: which is manageable + we can answer questions abt it too
- unattended ear: most process almost no information and rarely notice major changes in message (i.e. language change)
- participants rmbr nothing abt unattended ear
- not surprising as per broadbent’s attentional filter
30
limitation of broadbent’s attention model
- assumes that there’s no absolutely no processing of unattended signals: challenged by an experiment done by Von Right and colleagues
- phenomenon of breakthrough
31
experiment done by Von Right and colleagues
- suggests that some info is processed in unattended ear by passing through early filter
- first part: classical conditioning paradigm used to associate particular word with an electric shock to produce fear conditioning
- second part: dichotic listening experiment
- when participants heard word similar to sound/meaning of conditioned word in attended ear, they reacted w/ conditioned fear response as expected
- however, fear response also occurred if conditioned word presented in unattended ear
32
phenomenon of breakthrough
- participants remember unattended information
- common when unintended information is highly relevant bc it can “break through” the attentional stream
- i.e. in a party having a convo with friends so crowd is filtered out, but if someone says ur name, it breaks through and captures attention
33
treesman’s model of attention
- dual filter model
- two filters: physical and semantic
- info goes through physical filter first: evaluated based on physical cues like intensity/pitch to find most relevant signal and passes everything to semantic filter (stimuli given high/low weights based on physical cues)
- semantic filter: evaluates for meaning and relevance after taking physical filter’s weighting into account (chooses which info is attended to and rest is discarded)
34
why is treesman’s model of attention powerful?
- explains broadbands findings from dichotic listening paradigm
- explains phenomenon of breakthrough
- explains results of Von Wright and Colleagues
- semantic filter can override early filtering decisions based on physical traits by considering meaning of particular info
35
which model explains the cocktail party effect?
broadbent’s single filter model
36
which model explains cocktail party effect and breakthrough
treesman’s dual filter model
37
what is the most popular task in attention research used in over 1000 studies and was designed to test the limits of selective attention?
stroop task
38
stroop task
- participants presented with word of colour on screen with different coloured fonts
- congruent: word/colour match
- incongruent: word/colour don’t match
- researchers measure how long it takes participant to correctly identify font colour while ignore word itself
- performance much faster for congruent than non-congruent items
39
how is the stroop effect measured?
by comparing time differences on congruent vs incongruent trials
40
what does the stroop effect tell us abt attention
- paradigm requires you to attend to information on the task relevant to dimension and ignore information on task irrelevant dimension
- automatic word reading interferes with colour naming performance
- attention is facilitated by stimulus relevance
41
how do researchers measure conscious control over stroop interference?
proportion congruent manipulation
42
proportion congruent manipulation
- change ratio of congruent to incongruent trials
- i.e. high proportion: 75% congruent/25% incongruent
43
correlation between number of congruent trials and stroop effect
- more easy congruent trials: increased stroop effect = harder to do
- more difficult congruent (incongruent) trials: decreased stroop effect = easier to do
44
how might proportion congruency manipulation alter stroop effect?
- more congruent: consciously decide to attend to just the words
- more incongruent: consciously decide to ignore word and process just font colour
45
what has the stroop task allowed us to measure?
- influence of automatic/controlled processes
- automatic evidence: word reading influences performance even when word is to be ignored
- controlled evidence: people can adopt consciously controlled word reading strategies that alter stroop effect (bc of proportion congruent manipulation)
46
a stroop paradigm also exists for ______
for measuring inhibition to swearing and language ability
47
visual search tasks/experiments
- test how we use every day attention
- subjects look for target in array of distractions
- i.e. finding keys/friend in crowd
48
how to make visual search tasks harder
- increase number of items that have to be searched through (set size effect)
49
set size and set size effect
- set size: number of items to search through
- set size effect: increase in difficulty as set size increases
- pop-out effects can be seen even with large set sizes
50
pop out effect
- when the object of a visual search is easily found, regardless of set size
- easily induced by colour
51
what kind of task requires identifying a target by considering 2+ features?
conjunction search task
52
conjunction search task
- can’t use one simple feature to find target
- set size may not be uniform
- i.e. look for for green T amongst red and green I/Ts
- searching for colour and letter together makes task difficult
53
distinction to make in conjunction searches
- if target can be found by just relying on one feature, it becomes a single feature search regardless of distractions
- i.e. finding orange circle amongst purple/blue triangles (despite two sets of info, we depend on just shape)
54
unattended material in dual filter model
- attenuated by physical filter
- maybe saying someone’s name doesn’t break through bc no physical relevance BUT semantic meaning in second filter lets it break through
- unimportant info is weakened
55
when we focus attention to places based on background information
contextual cuing
56
wht effect do contextual cues have on search?
decreases time
57
single feature search
single defining feature differentiated objects in the search
58
do single feature searches always contain pop-out effect?
no
59
flashbulb memories
- highly detailed and vivid ‘snapshot’ of a moment
- vivid memories caused by salient/emotional events
- typically occurs during a time when an imp. piece of news was heard
- not always as accurate as they seem bc. of interplay btwn attention and memory
60
how is selective processing useful now? how was it useful in the past?
- now: digital world has many stimuli competing for our attention
- past: hunter-gatherer societies needed to focus on specific stimuli to hunt/find produce
61
bottom-up processing
- stimulus driven mechanism
- piece together smaller pieces of info to perceive events/stimuli
- also said to occur when our attention is captured by salient changes in environment (i.e. pay attn suddenly to police siren, vibrating phone alerts, thunder)
62
top-down processing
- memory-driven mechanism
- perceive events based on prior experiences/context (i.e. see a bird, saw a bird in past, so perceive new bird as a bird before looking at its specific characteristics
- also associated w/ cases where we have to strategically direct attn to match current goals and expectations (i.e. we know where we put keys in the evening, so in morning we only look at tht spot nd not whole house)
63
example of automatic top-down processing
- ability to read
- we quickly/automatically process each word based on past reading experience
64
how do we observe how goals shape attn in the laboratory?
- by monitoring where a subject looks via eye-tracking technology
- participants showed a painting and asked Qs abt it
- when participants asked to estimate ages: they looked at face
- when participants asked to estimate financial status: they look mostly at clothing and furniture
- when asked to rmbr positions of ppl/objects in room: they scanned all items equally
- basically: participants change eye scanning behaviour based on task at hand
- shows tht goals/prior knowledge abt an environment help us efficiently find info and achieve our goals
65
tools to measure attention in the lab
- orienting
- spatial cueing
66
orienting
- act of shifting one’s attention to something in the environment
- one classic task is Posner’s spatial cueing paradigm
67
the obvious process of looking to where you are attending
- overt attending
- i.e. all eyes move to person who fell
68
Posner’s spatial cueing paradigm: what if the onset of the cue and target is over 300 milliseconds apart?
- we are usually slower to detect the target at cued location than uncued location
- known as inhibition of return
69
inhibition of return
- generally occurs when we try to redirect our attention to a previously attended location where target was not found
- prevent out attention from revisiting location that was similar wht we’re looking for
- guided our attention to new, unsearched locations
- i.e. friend is wearing red, we look around for red things, see fire hydrant nd realize its not the friend, IOR stops us from looking there again
70
what study is used to study how we search for items in the environment?
- visual search paradigms
- asked to find items in set size (total number of items in a visual search task)
- performance measured as response time across various set sizes
71
through experience and gradual accumulation of knowledge, what can guide our search in real-world situations?
- schema: representation depicting the range of plausible objects/configurations in a particular scene
- helps us guide search for a target
72
inattentional blindness
- we miss out salient/imp things
- bc attentional resources r limited
- i.e. gorilla basketball video
73
change blindness paradigm:
"In a typical experiment, two nearly identical visual scenes are alternately presented in quick succession with an intervening blank screen. The intervening blank screen causes a visual ‘flickering’ as the display changes from one image to the other. The participant is tasked with identifying what is different about the two scenes"
- takes a long time to perceive change (esp if in peripheral/edge part of pic)
- faster if prior knowledge helps us (i.e. we know parking lots have moving cars, so we look at cars)
- faster if removing blank screen (bc blank screen = everything change, without it we depend on bottom-up processing)
74
what suggests that salient stimuli can go unnoticed?
- change blindness
- inattention blindness
psych 1x03
flashcards
Decks in class (14)
# Cards
-
research methods 138
-
research methods 236
-
classical conditioning29
-
instrumental conditioning37
-
problem solving and intelligence58
-
language60
-
categories and concepts58
-
science of learning35
-
ages12
-
attention74
-
forming impressions61
-
influence of others56
-
influence of others, pt. 281
-
development 117
