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Attention (Attention as Info Processing p. 87** (Broadbent 1950's - a…

- - - - Attention important in 1950's as Technology Developed during World War II - humans bombarded with info. eg pilot -cockpit - what to attend to, tested ability to take in info under different conditions.
        
        Dichotic listening presenting different stimuli to the left and right ears - can attend to one message at a time, can tell whether second message is male of female but not what was said
        
        Cocktail Party Effect- being able to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli
        
        Information passing through stages
        
        1. Sensory Memory - holds all incoming memory for a fraction of a second and then transfers all of it to the filter
        
        The filter - identifies the message that is being attended to based on its physical characteristics - things like the speakers's tone of voice, pitch and speed of talking - it lets only this attended message pass through to the detector in the next stage.
        
        The detector processes the info from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning. Because only the important attended info has been let through the filter, the detector processes all of the information that enters it.
        
        The output of the detector is sent to the short-term memory, which holds the info for 10-15 secs and also transfers info to long-term memory, which holds info indefinitely.
        
        Called a Bottleneck model - because it filter restricts the infp flow, only a little filters through even though there is alot of info. However this doesn't slow info down, filters based on physical characteristics of info eg pitch of voice - called early selection model because filter eliminates the unattended info right at the beginning of the flow of info
  - - - Other also tested using "Dear Aunt Jane" - running interference the subject still heard to the correct message.
      - The subject is switching attention from one ear to other as they seek meaning - top-down processing - TF a modification to Broadbent by Treisman - Selection occurs in 2 stages, replace filter with attenuator.
        
        attenuator - analyzes the incoming message in term of
        (1) its physical characteristics - whether it is high pitched or low pitched, fast or slow
        (2) its language - how the message groups into syllables or words
        (3) its meaning - how sequences of words create meaningful phrases
        
        it is a process not a specific brain structure
        
        Similar to Broadbent but Treisman's - Attenuation Model of Attention - language and meaning can also be used to seperate the messages - however Treisman's proposed the analysis of the message proceeds only as far as necessary to identify the attended message - eg pitch helps discriminate messages but if similar will need message.
        
        Treisman's Model - both messages pass through to attenuator, but attended messages emerge as full strength, weaker is still there. so his model has been called the "Leaky Filter" Model
        
        Final output is determined in 2nd stage, when message is analysed by dictionary unit. This contains words stored in memory, each of which has a threshold for being activiated- a threshold is the smallest signal strength that can barely be detected even when it is presented softly or is obscured by other words. eg a name has a low threshold, uncommon words have higher thresholds. TF the attended message gets through and some parts of the weaker, unattended messages.
        
        1 more item...
  - - - Eg . MacKay (1973) - ambiguous sentences with biasing words presented to the unattended ear. Then given sentences to pair with that are close in meaning. Bias words affected choice. eg River or Money for bank. TF developed Late Selection models of Attention. Which proposed that most of incoming info is processed to the level of meaning before the message to further processed is selected.
        
        Further research, researchers realised there is no one answer to what has been called early-late controversy. can both be demonstrated under different conditions depending on task and type of stimuli. - so they began focusing on understanding diff factors that control attention.
- - - - Wasy, well-practised ones, have low perceptual loads , the low-load tasks use up only a small amnt of processing capacity. High-load tasks use more processing capacity
        
        Foster and Lavie (2008) studied the role of processing capacity and perceptual load in determining distraction - press X or N when they see the letter, reaction times slower as more letters are surrounding the letter. but if irrelevant stimulus is present such as the cartoon character, the easy task response time slows more than the hard task. Explained by Load Theory of Attention - low-load there is still capacity to process left, so resources available for processing task-irrelevant stimulus, and even though the person was told not to pay attention, it gets processed and slow down responding.
        
        In a hard task , high-load task - no resources remain to process other stimuli, so irrelevant can't be processed, less likely to be distracted. Also influenced by how powerful the task-relevant stimuli is. eg. fire alarm - eg. stroop effect. Colour naming demonstration - the word yellow but colour is actually blue.
- - - - How people shift their attention by moving their eyes.: bottom-up - based on physical characteristics of the stimuli, top-down, based on cognitive factors such as the observers knowledge about scenes and past experiences with specific stimuli.
        
        Scanning based on Stimulus Salience - attention can be influenced by stimulus salience - physical properties such as colour, contrast or movement - bottom-up because depends solely on pattern of light/dark, colour and contrast eg blonde hair w/o considering meaning. A loud noise captures attention this is attentional capture to avoid danger. Saliency map is when we analyse characteristics such as colour at each location in the scene and then combine these values. after the 1st few fixation pts the the eyes begin to be influenced by top-down or cognitive processes that depend on things such as the observers' goals and expectations determined by their past experiences in observing the environment.
        
        Scanning based on Cognitive Factors Notice particular things in the picture regardless of saliency because of meaning that attracts the person's attention eg. fence, horses.There are large diff between what people will look at. This top-down processing is associated with scene schemas - the observers knowledge of what is contained in typical scenes - things that are out of place. Traffic signs as drive through computer-generated environment in a driving stimulator- more likely to see stop signs at intersections than in middle of streets.
        
        Scanning Based on Task Demands - when people are moving through the environment - eg driving or specific tasks - determined by the sequence of actions involved in the task.eg making a peanut butter sandwich - eyes will move before we need the info they will provide "just in time"
        
        Covert Attention: Directing Attention without eye movements: direct our attention while keeping our eyes stationary - important part of sports
        
        Attention to a Location: Posner (1978) asked whether paying attention to a location improves a person's ability to respond to stimuli presented there - the answer is precueing - studies showed attention is like a spotlight that improves processing when directed toward a particular location
        
        Attention to Objects we can also covertly attend to objects. (1) attention can enhance our response to objects and (2) when attention is directed to one place on an object, the enhancing effect of that attention spreads to other places on that object eg. helped when see a cue. Same-object advantage - is the faster responding that occurs when enhancement spreads within an object
- - - - Schneider & Shiffrin (1977) carry out 2 tasks simultaneously (1) Holding info about target in memory and (2) paying attention to a number of distractor stimuli and determining whether one of the target stimuli is present among these distractor stimuli.
        
        Results found it took 900 trials for performance to reach 90%, for 600 trials they had to repeat to memorise , but after 600 it became automatic and were able to respond automatically. -resulted in *automatic processing, which happens (1) WO intention and (2) at a cost of only some of the person's cognitive resources. eg locking the door
    - - However they also found that if task difficulty is increased then divided attention is not possible. eg. Driving in heavy traffic for construction ahead might have to stop talking to concentrate all cognitive resources
        
        Distractions whilst driving
        
        cell phones p. 103 The driver has fewer cognitive resources available. On the phone person is not reacting to traffic, unlike a passenger would
- - - - Tested by Simons and Chabris - Gorilla suit/passing the ball
        
        Change Detection - presenting 1 picture then another - spot the difference - change blindness - the difficulty in detecting changes in a scene - even if given clues. Continuity errors - in films such as Oceans 11
        
        What about everyday experience?Attention is necessary for perception. there is a large number of stimuli in the environment and only able to attend to a small number at any moment, we are constantly missing things.- is an important adaptive feature because focusing on what is important, is making optimal use. But we also have warning systems. We don't need all details
        
        Li (2002) - central task to stare at + and indicate if all surrounding letters are the same or diff and peripheral task is coloured discs or a scene. More accurate on peripheral on discs as easier. Peripheral can help us survive but only take in a small proportion of info. Modern additions can make life harder eg phones and driving.
- - - - Features of Integration Theory - Treisman - 2 stage process - First Step - Preattentive Stage - analysed into seperate features eg colour and shape - because each is processed in seperate area of the brain, exist independently at this stage. - happens before we become conscious of the object- the perceptual system analyses the book in terms of individual features such as lines with different orientations. Tested this through flashing 4 shapes with black numbers either side - flashed 1/5 sec - followed by dot stimuli - report numbers first and then shapes - reported saw a shape that combined 2 shaped - this was called illusory conjunctions.
        
        Focused Attention Stage The individual features are combined, perceive whole object. Repeated previous experiment with shapes and numbers but told to ignore numbers and were able to see size and colour correctly - eg. RM who had- Balint's Syndrome - symtom is being unable to focus attention on individual objects - reported illusory conjunctions - example of breakdown of the brain can reveal processes that not obvious- mostly bottom-up processing as knowledge not usually involved, however can if shape is a carrot
        
        Visual search - is something we do anytime we look for an object among a grp of other objects eg. Jennifer Hudson or Where's Wally
        
        Conjunction Search - look for the horizontal line but the look for the green horizontal line. RM can not complete a conjunction search.