Chapter 4 Attention

Front 1

Attention

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The mental process of concentrating effort on a stimulus or mental event; the limited mental energy or resource that powers the mental system

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Explicit Processing

Back 2

Involving conscious processing, conscious awareness that a task is being performed, and usually conscious awareness of the outcome of that performance

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Implicit Processing

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Processing in which there is no necessary involvement of conscious awareness (reflex)

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Orienting Reflex (Orienting Response)

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The reflexive redirection of attention that orients you toward the unexpected stimulus (ex. Sudden noise in a quiet library)

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Habituation

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A gradual reduction of the orienting response back to baseline with repeated stimulation (ex. Getting used to the noise of the fan in the library)

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Spotlight Attention

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The covert focusing of attention that prepares you to encode stimulus information

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Inhibition

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A mental process that restrains behaviour or impedes another mental process; we are slower to return to a location where attention has recently been drawn to move to a new location

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Foveation

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An eye movement that places the region of a scene that requires fine, detailed processing onto the sensitive fovea

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Controlled Attention

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The deliberate, voluntary allocation of mental effort or concentration

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Selective Attention

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The ability to attend to one source of information while ignoring or excluding ongoing messages

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Filtering (Selecting)

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Especially in auditory perceptions, unwanted, unattended messages are filtered or screened out so that only the attended message is encoded into the central processing mechanism (e.x. Broadbent's filter theory)

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Dual Task Procedure

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A method in which two tasks are performed simultaneously, such that the attentional and processing demands of one or both tasks can be accessed and varied

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Shadowing Task

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A task in which the subjects hear a spoken message and must repeat the message out loud in a very short time; often used as one of the two tasks in a dual task method

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Pertinence

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The momentary importance of information, whether caused by permanent or transitory factors, especially in Norma's theory of selective attention

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Attentional Blink (Psychological Refractory Period)

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Temporary slow-down in mental processing due to having recently and actively processed another task relevant event

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Automatic, Automaticity

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Occurring without conscious awareness or intention and consuming little if any of the available mental resources; that point where an instance always win the race with the algorithm

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Priming

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Mental activation of a concept by some means, or the spread of that activation form one concept to another; also, the activation of some target information by action or a previously presented prime; sometimes loosely synonymous with the notion of accessing information in memory (seeing the colour red)

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Hemineglect (Hemi-inattention)

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A disorder of attention in which half of the perceptual world, often the left, is neglected to some degree or cannot be attended to

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Interference

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The incongruent condition (RED) is slower than the neutral/ control condition (XXX)

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Facilitation

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The congruent condition where (GREEN) is faster than the neutral/ control condition (XXX)