Cognition Psych 213 The Varieties Of Attention (Chapter 4)

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Selective attention;Shadowing task

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attending to relavent information and ignoring irrelevant like in the dichotic listening paradigm; expose the subject to two messages simultaneously and they have to repeat one of them

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filter

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stage of info processing that admits some messages but blocks out others

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early selection theory vs late selection

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attention prevents early perceptual processing of distractors vs both relevant and irrelevant stimuli are perceived so the person must actively ignore the irrelevant stuff (the strop task often used to illustrate the latter)

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controlled versus automatic processes

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processes to which we must pay attention to execute them properly versus processes that do not require this

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DLPFC; ACC

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exerts tio down bias that favours the selection of task-relavent information; detects conflicting response tendencies like those of the of the strop task

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Attention capture; inattentional blindness

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the power of some stimuli on some occasions to elicit attention in spite of the fact that we did not intend to pay attention to them; our failure to attend to events that we might be expected to notice ( faces seem to be an exception to this )

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flanker task

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an experiment in which participants may be influenced by an irrelevant stimulus. You have to find michael jacksons scrambled name in a list while being shown a picture of bill clinton and told to ignore the face. participants took longer, showing that face processing may be mandatory regardless of if we try to ignore it

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domain specific modules

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the hypothesis that parts of the brain may be specialized for particular tasks such as recognizing faces

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Capacity model of attention

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attention is like a power supply that can only support so much attentional activity to one or more things

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structural limits model of attention

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attentional tasks interfere with one another to the extent that they share similar activities. For example it is easy to picture you living room and describe it but it is hard to read a sentence about your living room and categorize the words because both of those processes are highly verbal.

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central bottleneck model of attention

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there is only one path (to a central processor) through which information relevant to only one task at a time can pass. if this theory is true, it can be overcome by practice at divided attention

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what is a set?

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temporary top-down organizations that facilitate some responses while inhibiting others in order to achieve the persons goals, for example people prepare for action before taking overt action

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task switching; switch cost

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people must challenge from wiring on one task to working on another- usually studied in situations where the switch is voluntary; the finding that performance declines upon switching tasks

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subliminal perception. What is another word for threshold?

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cases in which a stimulus had an effect in behaviour even though it has been exposed too rapidly for a person to be able to identify it; limen- thus subliminal

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backward masking ; stimulus onset asynchrony

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presenting a stimulus called the target to the participant and then covering or masking the target with another stimulus; the time difference between the first stimulus and a masking or target stimulus. In backwards masking, the objective threshold refers to the SOA at which a participant claims not to be able to detect the stimulus

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Direct vs Indirect measures

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participants report that they have seen a stimulus vs the effects of an undetected stimulus on a subsequent task

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dissociation paradigm

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experimental strategy- first you measure conscious perceptual experience, then unconscious. if the unconscious peel shows a sensitivity to something to which the conscious level did no then we conclude that it is perception without awareness

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objective and subjective threshold

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the point at which a participant can detect a stimulus at a chance level vs the point at which he or she says they are unaware of it

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process dissociation procedure

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an experimental procedure that requires participants not response with items they have observed previously

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implicit perception

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the effect on a persons experience, thought, or action of an object in the current stimulus environment in the absence or independent conscious perception of that event

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What is attentional blink? when do we see it? why does it happen?

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-when two stimuli are presented within 200-500 milliseconds of each other the probability of the second stimulus being reported correctly is much less than it would be for longer intervals.
-this is diminished when the target and distractor stimuli are related say, semantically or categorically.
- seen in RSVP task, why? because attention is tied up with target one, (processing takes about 200 mils) when we present stimuli right after it doesn’t catch it

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why does deja vu happen perhaps? (psychoanalytic and cognitive explanations)

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psychoanalytic- perhaps it is because we unconsciously perceive something and then later consciously perceive it
cognitive- reflects similar but unidentifiable events in the past

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what does it mean to say that using word tasks is a more ecologically valid method than others?

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it generalizes to conditions in the real world

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how do they see consciousness?

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it is not just the end result of perception but feather a deliberate structuring or information so as to yield the most useful organization for us in a particular situation

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what does it mean to say that attention can be seen as an embodied entity

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cognition depends not only on the mind but also on the physical constraints of the body in which the mind resides- we can consider visual attention in the contest of the physical nature of the eyes - the light receptors, the visual cortex etc

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overt attention; covert

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attending to something with eye movements vs no eye movements

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sequential attention hypothesis

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shows the relationship between covert and overt attention- when new objects are supposed to be viewed covert attention shifts to the location first and then the eyes follow 2-3 saccades later

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pupil; lens; vitreous humous; retina; photoreceptors; fovea

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an opening in the iris that regulates how much light enters the eye; focus image on retina; fluid that fills interior of eye; contains photo; transduction; photo most densely packed here

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physiological nystagmus; regressions

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small but continuous movements that the eye makes during fixation; during reading, right to left eye movements to previously read text

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what did they find about reading and listening?

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reading a book while listening to it being read resulted in longer fixations on words resulting from increased processing demands from listening and reading

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moving window technique

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a method of determining how much visual info can be taken in during a fixation where the reader is prevented from seeing info beyond a certain distance from the current fixation

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Entry points

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the locations to which a viewer directs her or his eyes before starting to read a section in a piece of complex reading material - sometimes a heading or a picture

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when can eyes be made to move smoothly without fixations?

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smooth pursuit movements- movements allowing a moving object to remain fixated

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task related knowledge

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when an observers knowledge of the goals and the task at hand guides the eyes during a visual task- for example fixation patterns are different if people are asked to describe the setting, the people, or whats happening in a scene

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quiet eye; location suppression hypothesis

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sustained and steady eye gaze prior to an action or behaviour- like sports; an explanation for the occurrence of quiet eye that posits that in the preparation stage quiet eye occurs to maximize the info about the target object and in the location stage, vision is suppressed to optimize the successful execution of an action. with experts, having extra information while doing a task may hinder you because you do it so naturally, so you for example may look away while taking a basketball shot

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what are the different states of arousal?

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awake:
- intattentive
- attentive--attend, ignore
- automatic--reflexes

Or asleep (cycles)

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Michael Posners spotlight theory of attention; Eriksen's Zoomlens theory

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whichever part you focus on is what gets processed, everything else doesn’t;
the part that is focused on is not uniform, the things at the centre of your spotlight beam may process in more detail than at the periphery

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what are the (2) main properties of attention?

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Attention is selective - only a small portion of sensory inputs are attended
Attention has a limited capacity- difficult to attend to two things at once

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Early filter vs Late Filter model of attention

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At what stage in processing does attention act? the early filter model says that it acts on perceptual analysis stage, blocking out everything that is not being attended to- an example of this is the dichotic listening task
The late filter theory says that is acts on the semantic analysis stage, meaning we perceive everything and then have to sort it out later- an example is the stroop task
-- in reality it is both!

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additive factors logic

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performance on both tasks if we are doing them at same time will be worst that separately if the two tasks depend on a single process

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How can Divided attentional selection be broken down? (3)

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1) by what it selects (space vs objects)- units of selection ? the spotlight and zoom lens theories emphasize space, but the gorilla video says attention selects objects
- object-based attention is usually what they find
2) by type of orienting (covert vs overt)covert is the minds eye (studied using performance measures). overt attention is the attention that moves with out eyes (studied using eye tracking devices).
3) control of orienting (volitional vs Reflexive)- looking at the attentive vs automatic stages of arousal

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what are the two models of orienting? what is the relationship between them?

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volitional or endogeneous- occurs when we willfully allocate our attention to a task at hand
or
reflexive or exogenous- like when we hear a loud noise. it is quick to engage but short lasting

The two models are interdependent. volitional orienting can usually override reflexive orienting (some reflective cues are too strong however and can usially interrupt volitional). They can both be covert and overt

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what brain area is activated when our mind wanders?

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default- mode network

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Describe the models used to measure attention: cuing task (avid vs invalid); Visual search (feature search, conjunction search); RSVP rapid stream visual presentation

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1) Cuing task- used to test object, spatial selection properties of attention
- uses SOA
-valid trial = target appears at the location of the cue, and an invalid trail = target appears at some other location
- short SOA time is under 200-300 mils long is over 300

2) Visual search= studies the role of attention when you are searching for something
- uses a feature search and conjunction search p

3) RSVP: - measures temporal constraints on attention
- you have two targets mixed in with not targets in a line, and we ask people to record either one or both of the targets in order as they appear

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What is the reflexive attention effect? When is it seen/not seen?

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- reflexive attention effect- the when the SOA is short, people are faster for valid than invalid, but when SOA is long, we see the INHIBITION OF RETURN (the RT is faster for invalid than invalid) attention is inhibited from returning to places it already visited- helps us efficiently search our environment
- with reflexive attention, the cue is not informative about the target. With a volitional attention, the cue is informative about the target (say that when the cue appears in a location, the target will appear there 8 out of 10 times) once we set up expectancy like this, we get different data. Long SOA doesn’t have IOR! so the valid is faster than invalid. No change in short SOA
- attention effect (the difference in response time to respond to a valid target vs invalid)

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What is hemispatial neglect? When is it most severe? what is extinction? (4)

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- patents neglect info in contralesional space (so if they had damage in RH they will neglect things in LH)
- results from unilateral (LH or RH) damage to parietal (more severe with right hem damage!)
- occurs across sensory modalities - visual, hearing etc, so not due to visual processing impairments
-extinction is a failure to report the stimuli in contralesional field (when TWO are present). when you present one thing to their ipsilateral and one thing to their contrelateral field, the one in the contralesion field is <extinguished> and they will only report the one in their <good> hemisphere. extinction can accompany neglect or not

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Balints Syndrome: describe, 3 main characteristics, results from..., when is it most severe?

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-Patients have no idea of spatial relations, they can only see one object at a time, they cannot locate the object they report seeing, they cannot report whether something is moving towards or away from them. HAVE IMPAIRED FEATURE BINDING

-3 main:simultagnosia (inability to perceive multiple objects at one time, functionally blind), optic ataxia (problems controlling voluptuary motor movements), optic apraxia (problems in eye movements)

-results from bilateral (both LH and RH) damage to the parietal lobe.
- both neglect and Balint patins symptoms will be most severe right after injury but then they will begin to regain functioning

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How does attention affect sensory processing?(3) How can we measure this?

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- attention increases sensory processing of attended stimuli in corresponding sensory processing brain areas

- it also attenuates those things that we are not attending to
- the effects depend on the mode of orienting - two distinct cortical networks are implicated in the reflex control of reflexive and volitional orienting. Subcortical structures like the SC are also implicated
- we can measure this with Eegs, looking at the P1 peak which is for sensory processing 100 ms after event

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Differentiate between feature search and conjunction search (visual search task) what does this exemplify?

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feature- people have to find one feature out of the distractors- for example a circle that is a different colour. This uses parallel processing - you look at the whole set together if you were to increase the size of the figures, it wouldn't slow you down

conjunction search- the distractors have two properties and you must find a specific target like a blue circle amongst red and blue circles and squares. This uses serial processing, you look through each one and compare- this means reaction time gets slower if you increase the size