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Attention - Coggle Diagram
Attention
Attention & Visual Processing
Overt Attention
Darting eyes
Saccades
Fixation
Stimulus saliency
Familiar stimuli
Meaningful stimuli
Determinants of Eye Movement
Bottom-Up
Stimulus salience
Determined by stimulus characteristics!
Colour
Motion
Top-Down
Scene schema
Determined by task!
Covert Attention
E.g. Peripheral vision (still eyes)
Pre-cueing
Location-based
Object-based
Attention + Visual Perception
Inattentional blindness
Unattended object
E.g. did you notice the gorilla?
Extends to auditory perception
Change blindness
E.g. Spot the Difference
Difference identification tasks require concentrated attention + search
Attention, Perceiving Objects + Experiencing a Coherent World
Binding
Combining features to create our perception of a coherent object
Treisman's Feature Integration Theory (FIT)
Pre-attentive stage
Unconscious
Analyse into features
Focused attention stage
Combine features
Illusory conjunctions
Mostly aligned w/ Bottom-Up processing
Sensory stimulation drives explanation
Component parts are key in perception and perception errors
Top-Down processing?
Influences accurate perception
Particularly when we have an expectation of what we'll see
Combines w/ feature analysis to help accurate perception
Attention as Info Processing
Types of attention
Divided
Overt
Covert
Selective
Selective Attention
Dichotic listening
Couldn't report message content
Noticed change in gender and tone
Cocktail party effect
Noticed name mention
Shadowing
Models of Selective Attention
Early Selection Model
Early in processing
Broadbent's filter model
Based on physical characteristics!
Messages
Sensory Memory
Filter
Attended message
Detector
Doesn't explain...
How your name gets through and picked up immediately
The Cocktail Party Effect
Shadowing messages that follow a story when switched from one ear to other
Effects on practice on detecting info in unattended ear
Intermediate Selection Model
Treismen's Attenuation Theory
Attended message separated from unattended message early in info-processing system
Filter messages using
Physical characteristics
Language
Meaning
Don't necessarily need all 3
Attenuator (filters)
Unattended message = weak strength
Attended message = full strength
Both messages analysed in the dictionary unit
Dictionary Unit
Words have activation thresholds
Common/Important words/Your Name = low thresholds
Uncommon words = high thresholds
Late Selection Model
Select stimuli/messages based on meaning
Filter before selection
Process info first, filter unimportant out
Process physical characteristics + meaning!
Processing Capacity & Perceptual Load
Task Load & Selective Attention
Load Theory of Attention
Processing capacity
Perceptual load
High load
Difficult (full load)
Needs higher amounts of processing/perceptual capacity
Less susceptible to distractions
Low load
Easy (partially full)
Needs lower amounts of processing/perceptual capacity
More susceptible to distractions
Indiv differences b/n what's considered high/low-load
Selective attention ability influenced by...
Task load
Experience/training
Early or late selection model?
High load experiments
Support early selection model
Need all our capacity to engage in high-load task
Low-load experiments
Support late selection model
Extra capacity available to interpret/processing meanings
Distractions!
Influenced by...
Task load
How powerful the distractor stimulus is!
The Stroop Effect
Names of words interfere w/ ability to name colour of ink
We can't avoid paying attention to printed words
Highlights how automatic + practised reading is!
Automaticity
Allows flexibility to divide attention
BUT hard to reverse
The Physiology of Attention
Colby et al. (1995)- Monkey studies
Fixation only (fixation light dimmed)
Fixation + attention (peripheral light dimmed)
Neuron in parietal cortex recorded
Increased activity when paying attention to something in periphery
Attention Processing Distributed Across the Cortex
Schulman et al. (1999)- Dot Motion Search study
Cortical activity during a search task
Divided Attention
Practice
Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)
Over time- became better able to divide attention = better at task
Peak performance: ~600th trial
Automatic processing occurs w/o intention and only uses some cog resources
More practice
Tasks become automatic
Use less cog resources = low load task
E.g. reading subtitles during a movie
Task Difficulty
Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)
Controlled Processing
Search was slow and controlled so they didn't make mistakes
Varied Mapping Condition
Rules changed from trial to trial
Participants never achieved automatic processing (because they had to pay close attention to do well)
There is no automatic processing for difficult and highly complex tasks!!!