Attention!

Question 1

phenomenon–> __________ –> _______________

Answer 1

–> model –> hypothesis
- tho u may broadly understand the phenomenon of attention in an informal sense, u r also now quite familiar with the idea that as psychs, we need to operationally define the problem to build cognitive models & design experiments with testable hypotheses.

Question 2

Flashbulb Memories

Answer 2

A highly detailed and vivid ‘snapshot’ of a moment.
–> have a ‘lively’ & emotional quality to them, almost as if we r looking at a snapshot of some salient or shocking moment
- Typically occurs during a time when an important piece of news was heard.
–> Not always as accurate as they may seem –> can be way off
–>Ex, textbook author has a very vivid memory of him & his friends when he found out Princess Diana had died –> he vividly rmrs what he ate, wore, was doing, etc –> but when he saw a photo of that day, he was wrong

• flashbulb memories are fallible cuz they rely on an interplay between both attention & memory.
• We rmr what we pay attention to, but our attention is also shaped by what we rmr

Question 3

operational definition of attention

Answer 3

• One which suits our purposes is from the 19th century psych William James
• he stated, “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear & vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible
  objects or trains of thought…It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, & is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state.”
• At the center of this def is the concept of selection.

Question 4

selection is

Answer 4

attending to an object to select it apart from the unattended objects
- The act of attending to something causes the
object of attention to be selected apart from the rest of the unattended objects
–> Ex, When u first put on
ur clothes, u can feel the fabric as it touches your skin. —> As u go on with ur day, u r no longer aware of these sensations as they fade into the background noise of stimuli competing for ur
attention–> unless of course something triggers u to pay attention to the feeling of ur clothes again.

• Some stimuli in the environment can trigger ur attention in an automatic fashion.–> Ex, if a light flashes in ur periphery, as one just did, u can’t help but have ur attention drawn to it

Question 5

Textbook: Selective Processing

Answer 5

• ‘Selection’ refers to the act of focusing or homing in on a subset of available info deemed most important.
  –> Being selective about the info we process allows us to sift through the wealth of info available to us.–> cuz it would clearly be impossible (& overwhelming) to simultaneously process all info in ur environment

–> This ability comes in handy in a digital world where many stimuli r constantly competing for our attention. –> Ex, while driving in the dark trying to find an unfamiliar addresses, I tend to lower the volume of the radio so I can better focus on the visual task at hand.

–> Ex, Hunters presumably needed to focus on relevant visual, olfactory, & auditory stimuli that directed them to their prize, while also being wary of distant sounds & cues that could indicate predators or enemies lurking in the background.

Question 6

Attention also refers to our __________ ability to…

Answer 6

conscious
…attend to the information that is relevant to our goals.
–> When u walk down a crowded sidewalk, drive through busy traffic, or try to find a particular product
on the grocery store shelf, u r actively selecting where to focus ur attention.

Question 7

Irrelevant information in the environment acts as ________. Elaborate

Answer 7

noise
- Even tho we r remarkably adept at distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant information in the environment (noise) , sometimes the noise overwhelms the signal & u get distracted.

• Ex, ur leisurely walk down a crowded sidewalk becomes more difficult when u’re looking for a lost friend in the crowd
  –> drive through busy traffic becomes more difficult as u engage in an important call on ur cell phone
  –> finding ur favourite groceries becomes harder when u r in a foreign market filled with strange new foods.

Question 8

Considering how much potential info there is in our environment, how do we select what items to attend to?

Answer 8

• Attention researchers often describe a two-way flow of info
  –> raw data r gathered through the senses= bottom-up processing, & these incoming data interact dynamically with info already stored in memory= top-down processing

Question 9

Bottom-up processing

Answer 9

The raw data gathered by our senses
- refers to a stimulus-driven mechanism whereby we perceive events or stimuli by piecing together smaller pieces of sensory info.

–> Ex, Imagine that I show u a pic of an animal u have never seen before. –> ur processing of this image might be considered bottom-up if u inspected each individual feature (e.g., the legs, the tail, etc.) until eventually u infer that the animal is acc a peculiar type of bird.

• Bottom-up processing is also said to occur when our attention is ‘captured’ by salient changes in the environment. –> Ex, if u fall of ur chair on a date, even tho there r other interesting sights, sounds, & smells happening all over the restaurant, for the moment, the crash instantly captures the attention of ur date
• Similarly, bottom-up processing is sometimes said to automatically capture ur attention in a reflexive manner to alert u to a police siren, vibrating phone alert, or the clap of thunder.

Question 10

Top-down processing

Answer 10

Using a combination of our memories, biases, & heuristics to interpret info
- refers to a memory-driven mechanism whereby we perceive events or stimuli more holistically based on prior experiences or context.

–> Ex, ur processing might be considered top-down if u had recently seen a similar looking bird in the past, & so quickly perceived the novel animal to be bird-like before having to examine its individual features.
–> it’s as tho the brain ‘fills in the blanks’ through top-down processing, generating expectations based on prior experiences to guide perception. –> if u saw the animal pecking at the ground for food, this form of context might be sufficient to make u quickly perceive it as a bird.

• Top-down processing is also said to occur when we direct our attention consciously or deliberately based on our current goals & expectations –> Ex, selectively searching for keys in places where we usually keep them

Question 11

In the earlier example near the start of this chapter, ur task was to focus on reading the words in bold type while ignoring the italicized words. This example nicely illustrates the interplay between bottom-up & top-down processing.

Answer 11

top-down processing
- u were given a specific goal (i.e., focusing only on the bold words) such that u could strategically guide ur attention to only the most relevant info

bottom-up processing
- u still probably still processed some of the italicized words & the context of the rest of the passage as part of ur normal monitoring process.
–> if ur name happens to be Monica, u may also have noticed the 3rd line of the passage that contains info of personal significance
–>3rd line= Monica should THIS stop reading BY the FOCUSING bold type face ATTENTION (assume capital= bold)

Question 12

_______________ & ____________ processes influence attention in diff ways.

Answer 12

Automatic, controlled

Question 13

Automatic processes

Answer 13

• r triggered involuntarily by external events which often trigger the “capture” of attention
  –> Ex, when ur attention quickly gets directed toward the sirens of an ambulance.
  -Automatic Processes= “Involuntary ‘capture
• they r assumed to operate in a fast, efficient, & obligatory manner.

Question 14

is bottom-up processing always automatic & is top-down processing always controlled?

Answer 14

• tho it may be tempting to think of bottom-up processing as automatic & top-down processing as controlled, this view is oversimplified.
  –> Ex,1 well-known ex of automatic top-down processing is our ability to read. –> Chances r u r currently reading this sentence not by examining each individual letter, but rather by quickly & automatically processing each word as a whole based on all ur prior reading experiences. –> Tihs aslo exlpians yuor ability to raed this seentnce eevn tohugh the letetrs are miexd up!
  –> so even tho it Is top-down processing, it’s automatic
• In short, it is sometimes useful to think about bottom-up & top-down processing in terms of automatic or controlled processing, but we should be careful not to conflate these diff concepts.

Question 15

controlled processes

Answer 15

• guide attention
  voluntarily & consciously to objects of interest.
• Controlled Processes= Conscious attention, are Slow & effortful
• they operate more slowly cuz they r assumed to require more cognitive effort.

Question 16

Controlled Processes: the task of driving a car through busy traffic.

Answer 16

• u consciously choose to pay attention to many aspects of the environment to guide this goal-directed behaviour.
• Here, u r using flexible controlled processes
  involved in conscious attention as u choose when to make lane changes, speed up, slow down, engage in a convo or change the radio station.
• notice that when driving conditions r made more challenging (like when looking for an address in an new neighbourhood or making an important driving decision in poor weather)–> u turn down the music & slow down ur convo with a passenger?
  –> This demos that it’s difficult to consciously attend to many aspects of the task-
  environment @ the same time cuz the resources for controlled processes r limited.
  –> Listening to the radio & talking on ur cell phone consumes some of these resources, & so, as the demands for attention increase, u must make adjustments to compensate; otherwise, performance in all tasks will be disrupted.

Question 17

Automatic Processes: the task of driving a car through busy traffic.

Answer 17

• Automatic processes of attention r intimately linked with concepts we covered in our discussion of learning in 2 ways:

1) recall that some cues seem to be more noticeable & lead to stronger & quicker association when paired with
events. –> This is the notion of salience.
- A salient piece of info is one that appears to naturally pop
out at u. –>Ex , it’s hard to miss the loud sound of a nearby driver honking their horn. –>This info just seems to automatically capture ur attention whether u intended it to or not.

1) a task which formerly required a great deal of conscious effort to perform has become automatic through practice. (this can also happen for some simple cognitive skills, such as word recognition) –> when first learning to drive, every step took a lot of ur effort to do all of the required tasks that make up these skills in the correct sequence. –> However, practice has helped u to automate complex actions so they can be executed with little attention. –> For some, driving skills have been learned to the point that they can operate on “auto pilot” & report having automatic driving experiences where they set out to drive to 1 location, but accidentally end up @ another

Question 18

A salient piece of info is

Answer 18

one that appears to naturally pop out at u.

Question 19

Orienting

Answer 19

The act by which attention moves across a scene.
- refers to the act of shifting one’s attention to something in the environment

• 1 classic task for studying orienting is Posner’s spatial cueing paradigm (Posner, 1980), which allows us to measure shifts in attention in the absence of eye movements. –> It may @ 1st seem strange that attention can move in the absence of eye or head movements cuz most of the time u look directly where u r attending = overt attending
  –> However, u can also attend to things without necessarily looking @ them= covert orienting

Question 20

Overt attending

Answer 20

• The obvious process of looking to where u r attending.
  –> Ex, falling from chair @ restaurant –> attention was automatically directed to the location of the accident, & this was accompanied by the movement of every set of eyes in the restaurant to pinpoint the source of the commotion

Question 21

Covert orienting

Answer 21

Attending to something without looking @ it–> describes ‘invisible’ shifts of attention
- Ex, as u wait for ur friend Waldo ur gaze may be politely focused on Wilma who is in convo with u, but ur attention covertly shifts toward the door in anticipation of Waldo’s arrival. –> This will make u notice Waldo faster when he finally does arrive.

Question 22

We can formally measure this covert orienting using…

Answer 22

…Posner’s spatial cueing paradigm where covert attentional shifts r measured as the efficiency with which target stimuli r detected.
- In a typical experiment, the participant is told to continually stare @ a ‘+’ symbol @ the center of a display flanked by 2 boxes on either side.

–> On each trial a brief visual flash appears in 1 of the 2 boxes, & almost immediately following this flash (usually less than 300 ms), a target stimulus is presented in 1 of the 2 boxes.
–> The participant’s task is to quickly press either a left or right key based on where the target appeared.

• The key finding is that people tend to detect the target faster when it is presented where the flash also appeared, suggesting a covert shift in attention that helped them more efficiently process the target stimulus.
  –> cuz the interval between the cue & target presentation is too brief for eye movement to occur, the shift in attention must be independent of eye movement.

Question 23

Inhibition of Return

Answer 23

• aka IOR
  IOR tends to prevent ur gaze (& attention) from revisiting a previously attended location.
  –> In turn, this promotes orienting towards new & previously unsearched locations, which should result in a more efficient search.

–> if the time between the onset of the cue & the target is more than 300 milliseconds (which gives u sufficient time to direct an eye gaze), u r usually slower to detect the target @ the cued location than @ the uncued location!

• Generally, IOR occurs when u try to redirect ur attention to a previously attended location where the target was not found.

Question 24

IOR example

Answer 24

• imagine searching for ur friend Waldo in a large crowd.
  –> yk that Waldo will be wearing his lucky red hat & so u scan the crowd for red items.
  –> As a red blur catches the bottom right of ur visual field, u turn to look but quickly realize it is acc a red fire hydrant. –> As u continue searching, IOR tends to prevent ur attention from revisiting the location of the fire hydrant.
• In turn, this guides attention towards new, unsearched locations, perhaps resulting in a more efficient search—so long as ur friend Waldo doesn’t later stand by that same red fire hydrant!

Question 25

The spotlight model: visual attention

Answer 25

- According to psych Michael Posner, there’s an analagous process for visual attention. --> Just as a physical spotlight illuminates only part of the stage at a time, ur attentional spotlight focuses on only part of the environment @ a time. - As ur attention moves around ur field of vision, objects falling within the spotlight r processed preferentially: meaning u can respond to objects faster & with greater accuracy. - the model explains the key results from Posner’s spatial cueing task - However, this model by itself does not adequately explain findings from more complex spatial tasks. - Attention can be consciously directed across the visual scene as u look for ur friend @ the crowded after-party. -It can also be hijacked by unconscious processes that can quickly grab ur attention so u can avoid an oncoming speeding car as u step off the sidewalk.

Question 26

How can psychs objectively measure these changes in attention?

Answer 26

- 1 way that we can examine attention in a lab is by using cuing paradigms that try to determine whether manipulating attention can influence behaviour. I --> In 1 such experiment, u r asked to fixate on the center of a computer monitor, & to determine whether a star appears in the box to the left or right. --> Before the star appears, 1 of the 2 boxes flashes. Here's the twist: the box that flashes may or may not be the 1 that will subsequently contain the star. - The box that flashes is determined randomly & isn't predictive of where the star will appear. --> but when the star appears in the box that flashed, participants tend to respond more quickly than when the star appears opposite to the flashing box. --> suggests that the flashing box automatically attracts the attentional spotlight to the cued location. --> If target appears in the cued location, then attention will amplify the perceptual processing of that target & it will be detected quickly.--> if a target appears in the uncued (& therefore unattended location) the target will be detected more slowly cuz the attentional spotlight will have been directed away from the acc target location. - This translates into a measurable diff in target detection in the cued & uncued trials. - this effect remains even tho the cue appears on the screen for so little time that they eye has not had time to look In its direction. --> It would thus appear that attention can shift faster than the eye ---> tho ur attentional spotlight moves around ur field of vision (even before ur eye gaze shifts), it is still possible to miss important info. --> think of spot the diff photos

Question 27

Colin Cherry

Answer 27

- attending a fancy cocktail party, u r surrounded by many diff sounds competing for ur attention. --> Yet, despite all the noise, u r still able to single out the specific voice of ur convo partner. - Colin Cherry simulated this experience in a controlled, experimental setting. --> In the classic experiments on the so-called cocktail party effect, subjects were asked to listen to 2 diff messages played from a single loudspeaker at the same time. - Subjects tried to separate the messages, repeating 1 but not the other, as a "shadowing" task. --> Cherry’s work revealed that the ability to separate target sounds from background noise is based on physical characteristics, such as the gender of the speaker & the direction, pitch, or speed of the speech.

Question 28

selective attention

Answer 28

Leads to attended items being better rmred when compared to unattended items. --> This scenario is also commonly referred to as the cocktail party effect

Question 29

Cocktail Party Effect

Answer 29

- Despite competing background noises, a listener can focus on a single channel of info (e.g., having a convo amidst many other people talking in the background).

Question 30

Filter Models: Auditory attention

Answer 30

- Cherry’s work inspired the cognitive models that compare attention processes to a filter which sifts away distractions & only allows important info through. - Importantly, filter & spotlight models propose very diff mechanisms for attention.

Question 31

Let’s consider the subtle diff in how these models approach the simple challenge of examining a particular flower in a field of grass.

Answer 31

- The spotlight model suggests that attention would enhance the processing of visual info from the single flower relative to the grass. - Alternatively, filter models suggest that attention helps us ignore or ‘block’ the visual info from the grass, allowing the single flower to continue on for further processing. - In general, filter models r readily applied to understand auditory attention, while the spotlight model is readily applied to understand visual attention; however, both types of models can still be applied across modalities.

Question 32

The first filter model of attention was proposed by __________________________.

Answer 32

- Donald Broadbent in 1958 - was keenly interested in practical problems such as the challenges faced by air traffic control operators receiving multiple channels of communication simultaneously. - used data from behavioural experiments to infer the functional stages of cognitive processing.

Question 33

Broadbent’s early Single Filter Model

Answer 33

- the attentional filter selects important information on the basis of physical characteristics (e.g., colour, shape, size), & allows that info to continue on for further processing. - Incoming info the encounters a bottleneck, which selects only a limited amount of the info based on physical characteristics to pass on for further processing. - Info that does not pass through the early physical filter was assumed to be completely eliminated & unavailable for deeper analysis for meaning & semantic importance. - Broadbent’s model is often described as an early-selection theory - Broadbent’s filter model is noteworthy cuz it was the 1st to describe humans as info processors, & it stimulated a lot of interesting research

Question 34

bottleneck

Answer 34

Only a limited amount of attentional info can be passed on for further processing.

Question 35

early-selection theory

Answer 35

Our attentional filter is located early in the process. --> Info is filtered out early before any semantic processing has occurred. --> This theory was proposed by Broadbent. --> Broadbent’s model is often described as an early-selection theory - Recall textbook discussion of the dichotic listening task where participants noticed the physical properties of the unattended messages, but not necessarily their meaning. --> These results clearly support an early-selection theory of attention processing cuz the unattended info was filtered out prior to semantic processing.

Question 36

Broadbent extended Cherry's work using the______________ ____________________. Elaborate

Answer 36

dichotic listening paradigm - in experiment, u put on headphones & listen to a diff message directed into each ear --> job would be to shadow the message in the attended ear by repeating back the message. --> typically manageable due to selective attention, & u can even answer questions concerning the content of the attended message-->the semantic content of message is also rmred - what about message in the unattended ear? --> Most participants seem to process almost no info from the message in the unattended ear. -->participants rarely noticed even major changes in the message in the other unattended ear,like changing the language from English to German, & even playing the speech backwards. - Textbook: our memory for unattended items can be vague, often containing details about physical characteristic but nothing about semantics or meaning. --> According to Broadbent's theory, this is not surprising, cuz the attentional filter allows only info arriving through the attended ear to proceed to deeper processing.

Question 37

Textbook- dichotic listening paradigm: Does this imply that the meaning of the unattended message went unprocessed?

Answer 37

Not necessarily - in study, MacKay, used the typical dichotic listening paradigm but presented an ambiguous message to the attended ear. --> Ex, “They threw stones @ the bank yesterday”, where “bank” could mean the side of a river or a financial institution. -Participants shadowed this message by writing it verbatim without delay or mistakes - Meanwhile, the message presented to the unattended ear contained either the word “river” or “money”. - Later, participants were asked which sentence was closest in meaning to the sentences they shadowed: “They threw stones @ the side of the river yesterday” or “They threw stones @ the financial institution yesterday”. --> those who heard “river” in the unattended ear were more likely to pick the sentence about the river, & those who heard “money” in the unattended ear were more likely to pick the sentence about the financial institution. - yet they reported no memory for the unattended message content! --> This illustrates how semantics can be processed pre-attentively, or before attention is selectively deployed. - in another ex, using the dichotic listening paradigm, when their name was a part of message in unattended ear, they detected it--> led some researchers to propose that some highly relevant stimuli (such as ur own name) r special cuz they can automatically capture ur attention irrespective of ur current goal.

Question 38

____________________ & ____________________ suggest salient stimuli can still go unnoticed.

Answer 38

Inattention blindness, change blindness

Question 39

Inattentional Blindness

Answer 39

Our limited attentional resources can result in missing out (not noticing) some very important or salient things. - Simons & Chabris (1999) used a selective looking paradigm where participants were asked to focus on 1 aspect of a video portraying multiple things.--> visual analog to dichotic listening paradigm - video had 6 basketball players, 3 in white & 3 in black - each team had own basketball that they passed to each other & players were in circle, alternating by team. --> The task of the participant was to count the # of times the team dressed in white passed the basketball. --> they were quite good @ this --> but about half failed to see a large black gorilla that walked through the center of the circle during the middle of the game. -->participants were often shocked, with some even exclaiming, “I missed that?!”

Question 40

Change Blindness

Answer 40

A perceptual phenomenon where a change has occurred in a visual scene, but the observer does not notice or cannot identify it. - In the lab, we can test factors that prevent people from detecting change using the change blindness paradigm --> In a typical experiment, 2 nearly identical visual scenes r alternately presented in quick succession with an intervening blank screen. --> causes a visual ‘flickering’ as the display changes from 1 image to the other - participant is tasked with identifying what is diff about the 2 scenes (usually a single addition, deletion, color change, or location change) as quickly & accurately as possible. --> It takes long time to identify the changing part of the image, especially if it is in a peripheral part of the scene (like the presence or absence of a cloud). --> The change blindness paradigm thus illustrates the critical role of attention in perceiving change

Question 41

Change blindness paradigm: We’re faster @ detecting the change if...

Answer 41

... prior knowledge helps us pinpoint approximately which part of the image is changing, demoing the benefit of top-down processing. --> Ex, in an image of a parking lot, u might be quick to notice that a car is missing in 1 of the images, at least in part cuz we r familiar with parking lots where cars constantly come & go. - We also tend to detect the change much faster if the intervening blank scene is removed cuz of bottom-up capture of attention.--> when the blank screen intervenes between the 2 images, everything seems to change between flickers cuz the images r so diff from the blank screen, thus preventing automatic capture of attention. --> but, when the blank screen is removed, the single change in the modified scene becomes more obvious & is thus more likely to automatically capture attention.

Question 42

How can we prevent our mind from wandering when studying?

Answer 42

- reworking the content in light of previous knowledge, making it novel or exciting, drawing pics or writing bizarre stories that incorporate the material, etc - It is also usually wise to rework material in a way that is more self-relevant. --> next time u’re studying several bunch terms & concepts, try to use them to tell a funny story that somehow relates to an experience u’ve had. --> Make it about u, and ur mind likely will not wander as much!

Question 43

One limitation of Broadbent’s model

Answer 43

- it assumes that there is absolutely no additional processing of unattended signals --> experiment by Von Wright & colleagues suggests that in fact some info is processed even in the unattended ear. - 1st part of the study= fear conditioning --> a classical conditioning paradigm is used to associate a particular word with an electric shock to produce fear conditioning. - 2nd part= CS presented --> was conducted as a dichotic listening experiment. --> When they heard a word similar in SOUND or MEANING to the conditioned word in their attended ear, they reacted with a conditioned fear response as would be expected. --> this conditioned response occurred even if the conditioned word was presented in the unattended ear --> suggests that clearly some info about sound & meaning is able to pass through the filter, a finding that Broadbent would not predict.

Question 44

breakthrough

Answer 44

- occurs when participants remember unattended info - when participants r able to notice important info in an unattended stream - particularly common when the unattended info is highly relevant. -->Ex, @ a loud party having a convo with an old friend. --> There r many distracting sounds from other convos, so u must filter out all but ur own convo. --> but if someone happens to say ur name aloud in the crowd, this info is likely to break through & capture ur attention.

Question 45

textbook definition: breakthrough effect

Answer 45

- When relevant info from an unattended channel is heard, such as someone calling your name at a busy party.

Question 46

Treisman’s Dual Filter Model

Answer 46

- proposes 2 filters: 1 physical & 1 semantic. - Info 1st passes through the physical filter --> info is evaluated based on physical cues, such as intensity or pitch to find the most relevant signal --> Treisman’s physical filter weights the importance of incoming stimuli based on these physical cues & passes along all the info to the semantic filter. --> So brighter or louder stimulus will be given a higher weight than a dim or quiet stimulus. - As the info passes through the semantic filter, it is evaluated for meaning. --> takes into account the weights assigned by the physical filter, considers the deeper meaning & relevance of the stimuli, & chooses which info will be attended to, while the rest of the info is discarded.

Question 47

Textbook: Attenuation Theory

Answer 47

- proposed by Treisman --> aka Treisman's dual filter model Unattended info is not completely filtered out, as proposed in the single filter model, but rather ‘turned down’ or attenuated. - The attenuator replaces the filter in Broadbent’s model, allowing all info to pass but with diffly assigned weightings depending on whether the info is physically similar to the target or not. - This model is therefore sometimes described as a ‘leaky filter’ model cuz the unattended message still gets through, albeit dampened --> Treisman further proposed that some of this ‘weak’ info is more likely to draw attention if it is semantically relevant to us or semantically similar to the target info

Question 47

Textbook: Late-Selection Model

Answer 47

- aka late filter model Suggests filtering occurs after physical & semantic analysis & only selected info goes on for further processing due to limitations in processing capacity. --> the late filter is based on personal relevant - However, due to our limited processing capacity ( short-term working memory), only selected info can be maintained. --> so unselected info fades - Like the attenuation theory, a late-stage filter model could also account for why our memory can be influenced by the meaning of unattended info. --> bank & river thing I think - Both this model and the attenuation model can adequately explain the breakthrough effect.

Question 48

Recap: Broadbent’s single filter model & Treisman’s dual filter model

Answer 48

- Broadbent’s single filter model explains the cocktail party effect cuz it assumes that sensory info is filtered based on physical characteristics --> @ party, u might be able to selectively focus on that convo by filtering out irrelevant auditory inputs that differ from the speaker’s voice in terms of volume, pitch, etc --> model assumes that any filtered info cannot be processed further, & so it does not adequately explain the breakthrough effect - Treisman’s dual filter model better accounts for the breakthrough effect cuz it assumes that the early filter only attenuates or ‘weights’ the incoming sensory info based on physical characteristics, then the late filter processes the resulting info in terms of meaning or semantics to determine what ultimately gets selected for attention. --> @ party, in middle of convo, & ur name is mentioned @ a lower volume in a nearby convo, the early physical filter might weight it lower. --> But cuz ur name carries such an important meaning to u, the late semantic filter might nonetheless allow it to proceed & become attended to.

Question 49

which is better? Broadbent or Treisman filter model

Answer 49

- Treisman’s Dual Filter! - This model is very powerful cuz it explains Broadbent’s findings from the dichotic listening paradigm & also explains phenomena such as breakthrough & the results of Von Wright & colleagues. - Importantly, the semantic filter can override the early filtering decisions based on physical traits by considering the meaning of particular info

Question 50

The Stroop Task: background

Answer 50

- paradigm designed to test the limits of selective attention. - it's 1 of the most popular tasks in attention research, having been used in well over 1000 published studies since the task was first described in 1935 - One of the most fascinating aspects of the Stroop Task is that it produces an effect that’s almost impossible to avoid. --> this is cuz like driving, word reading is another classic example of automation within a complex process.

Question 51

The Stroop Task

Answer 51

- participants r presented with a word on a screen, & asked to state aloud the colour the font is displayed in. -->The trick is that the word is written in a colour - there r 2 types of test items participants r presented with. --> Congruent= where the word & the colour it’s displayed in r matched.--> Ex, the word red displayed in red font. --> Incongruent= where the word & the colour it is displayed in do not match.--> Ex, the word blue displayed in green font. - Researchers measure how long it takes a participant to correctly identify the font colour while trying to ignore the word itself. --> performance is much faster for congruent than incongruent items. --> the automatic process of word reading is said to have interfered with the ability to name the coloured in

Question 52

So what can the Stroop effect tell us about attention?

Answer 52

- The paradigm requires u to attend to info on the task-relevant dimension (font colour) & to ignore the info on the task-irrelevant dimension (the word itself) - diff in performance between incongruent & congruent trials can serve as an empirical measure of processes involved in selective attention. --> On congruent trials, the word & font colour match, & so word reading facilitates colour naming performance. -->On incongruent trials, the word & font colour mismatch, & since word reading proceeds relatively automatically, then in this case the automatic word-reading interferes with colour naming performance.

Question 53

Controlling the Stroop Effect

Answer 53

- To measure conscious control over Stroop interference, researchers use a proportion congruent manipulation that changes the ratio of trial type. --> Ex, in a high proportion congruent condition, participants might see 75% congruent & 25% incongruent trials. - Interestingly, this condition which has more “easy” congruent trials, leads to an increased Stroop effect. - In contrast, when presented with a greater # of the more difficult, incongruent trials, experimenters observe a decreased Stroop effect.

Question 54

Proportion Congruent Manipulation

Answer 54

- change the ratio of congruent to incongruent trials

Question 55

why the proportion congruent manipulation may alter the Stroop effect.

Answer 55

- in experiment where a high proportion of trials r congruent, u notice that on most trials, the words that u read match the colour they r displayed in. --> u therefore decide to adopt a strategy: since words seem to semi-reliably predict font colour, u will consciously attend to just the words. --> this strategy leads to a genuine improvement in ur reaction times for congruent trials--> that is, when u receive the stimulus that u were expecting — since word reading is a fast automatic process --> but when u compare the congruent vs incongruent trials, the strategy u adopted to focus on word reading instead of looking @ colour, will lead to INCREASED stroop effect - in an experiment where very few trials r congruent, u may begin to notice that on most trials, the words that u read don't match the colour they r displayed in. --> u'll adopt an alternative strategy to actively ignore the word & instead process font colour on its own --> basically, the infrequent benefit that u receive from reading the word on congruent trials doesn't justify how often it leads u astray on incongruent trials, & so u opt to take the slightly slower yet Stroop-reduced route. --> that is, consciously suppressing ur tendency to read the word, & instead promoting the processing of font colour, which leads to a smaller Stroop effect. - This shows that we can exert some control over automatic processes like word reading.

Question 56

The Stroop Task: Automatic & Controlled

Answer 56

- Taken together, Stroop task allows us to measure the influence of both automatic & controlled processes of attention. --> Word reading= a relatively automatic process that occurs in the absence of a voluntary intention. --> it influences performance even when the word is to be ignored --> However, the proportion congruent manipulation demos that people can gain conscious control over an automated process. =controlled - controlled: evidence= people can adopt consciously controlled word reading strategies that modulate the stroop effect - The Stroop Effect may be one of the most robust findings in all of science. --> Among its many interesting research applications, there's a Stroop paradigm for measuring inhibition to swearing & language ability.

Question 57

Visual search experiments

Answer 57

- designed to test how we use everyday attention. - In a visual search task, subjects look for a target in an array of distracters. - Their task is to respond as quickly as possible, indicating whether they think the target is present or not.--> Performance is measured as response time across various set sizes. - visual search task is aka visual search paradigm - This task is analogous to tasks u perform every day: from looking for ur keys, locating ur friend in a crowd, & scanning ur study notes for a certain key word.

Question 58

Visual Search Paradigm:

Answer 58

A task where the participant is required to locate a target among a set of distractor items. - aka visual search task - measures how long it takes to detect a target amid distracters as a function of set size (i.e., the # of items in the display).

Question 59

How to make a visual search task more difficult?

Answer 59

- One way is to increase the # of items u have to search through. --> trying to find letter T amongst 10 Is vs 20 Is. = set size effect --> tho u may find that finding T in the an array of Is is still pretty easy, regardless of set size

Question 60

Set Size is

Answer 60

the # of items to search through

Question 61

Set Size Effect is

Answer 61

Increase in difficulty as set size increases

Question 62

a single feature search task is

Answer 62

where u only have to look for 1 particular feature to identify the target. --> Ex, in this case, a horizontal line which distinguishes a “T” from the field of “I”s. - In this case all the distractors r uniform, or identical, which makes the target easier to identify. - If u have typical colour perception, colour can be used as search feature that seems to pop out from the page.--> Ex, try to find the green I in an array of red Is

Question 63

pop-out effect

Answer 63

- When the object of a visual search is easily found, regardless of set size. - Easily induced by colour --> For those with typical colour vision, despite the fact the set size in this ex (finding green I in array of red Is) was rather large, u probably still found the task of searching for a colour to be very easy.

Question 64

Pop-out effect: Textbook definition

Answer 64

The bottom-up capture of attention driven by a salient physical property of the target during a visual search task. - If a target “pops-out”, search time is unaffected by set size cuz the processing of the whole set of items seems to happen simultaneously or in parallel - only happens in single feature searches I think

Question 65

A conjunction search task

Answer 65

- involves identifying a target by considering 2 or more features. --> ex, finding a green T in array of red Ts & green Is - cuz u were unable to use one simple feature to find the target, this task was harder --> If u used the colour green alone, the green I’s would distract u, but if u used the letter T alone the red Ts would distract u. --> searching for the colour green and the letter T together makes the task significantly more difficult. - for conjuctive search, response time increases as a function of set size cuz there is a time cost for processing each additional distracter item. - 1 important distinction to be made here is that if the target can be found by relying on just 1 feature, it becomes a single feature search, regardless of the distractors! -->Ex, trying to find an orange circle in a set of blue & purple triangles, even tho each item in this set has 2 features (colour & shape), we only have to rely on either colour or shape to find our target, & we effectively ignore the other feature in order to conduct our search.

Question 66

Question 2: Which one of the following visual searches do you expect takes the shortest time to complete? A) Finding a single green "Q" in a field of 50 red "O"s. B) Finding a single red "Q" in a field of 20 red "O"s. C) Finding a single red "Q" in a field of 50 red "O"s.

Answer 66

The correct answer is A: “Finding a single green "Q" in a field of 50 red "O"s.” - Regardless of set size, pop-out searches r very fast as the target appears even in the presence of distractors.

Question 67

If conjunction search is so difficult to complete, how r we able to do visual search tasks in our everyday lives? After all, most of the targets we search for in real life r defined by multiple features.

Answer 67

- In fact, we r very good @ day to day visual search, thanks to effects such as contextual cueing.

Question 68

Contextual Cueing

Answer 68

- the context of the search task can serve as a cue to help u search more efficiently. - Context can come from any # of sources, but in general we gain it by knowing something about our world. - If u know that u usually put ur keys on the right side of ur desk, u’ll probably start by looking there, enabling u to find them much more quickly. - u can integrate context cueing to simplify ur life by creating a designated space for ur keys, phone, wallet & other essential items that u need each time you leave ur home (ideally by ur door). --> Searching for these important items can then be focused on one location rather than a frantic & undirected search everywhere.

Question 69

Schema

Answer 69

In the context of visual search, it is a representation depicting the range of plausible objects & likely configurations of those objects within particular scenes. --> We can use these unchanging structural properties of the visual environment to guide our attention, thereby allowing for the efficient search of familiar environments - It can help guide ur search for a target.

Question 70

The critical role of context can be observed experimentally using the contextual cueing paradigm. Elaborate

Answer 70

- (Chun & Jiang, 1998) --> u might be asked search for a ‘T’ amid a display of randomly oriented ‘Ls’ of various colours that act as the distractor items--> location & orientation of the target “T” continually changes across trials. - unknown to the participants, sets of distractors repeat on some trials. --> Over successive trials, participants tend to find the target “T” more & more quickly on trials with a familiar distractor display relative to trials with novel distractor displays. --> This is presumably cuz their memory for the global, spatial configuration of the repeated distractor displays provides a helpful source of context, essentially guiding attention away from the distractors & toward the target. --> this occurs even when participants r unaware that any displays r repeated!

Question 71

Attentional errors

Answer 71

- Attentional errors can lead to minor everyday inconveniences, like when u forget to put the milk back in the fridge. - Chronic attentional errors can play a role in psychological problems like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, insomnia, depression & obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Question 72

Textbook conclusion: memory & attention

Answer 72

- recall that a highly salient or emotional events might capture our attention & lead us to believe that we have an especially vivid or accurate memory for those events. --> u now realize that the story is not as simple as a unidirectional flow of info where attention determines what we focus on & rmr. --> Instead, attention & memory r inextricably linked - as we saw with the ideas of top-down processing, contextual cueing, & the breakthrough effect, the flow of info seems to be bidirectional cuz what we have stored in memory partly determines what we pay attention to.