{"id":4486,"date":"2018-10-07T01:06:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T05:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/?p=4486"},"modified":"2018-10-07T01:11:20","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T05:11:20","slug":"attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/cognitive-psychology\/attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"
Four interrelated ideas of attention <\/strong><\/p>\n 1.We are constantly confronted with much more information than we can okay attention to<\/p>\n 2.There are serious limitations in how much we can attend to at any one time<\/p>\n 3.We can respond to some information and perform some tasks with little if any attention<\/p>\n 4.With sufficient practice and knowledge, some task become less and less demanding of our attention process<\/p>\n Four meanings of attention<\/strong><\/p>\n -Alertness and arousal<\/p>\n -Orientation and searching<\/p>\n -Filtering and selecting<\/p>\n -Mental resources and conscious processing<\/p>\n Basics of attention <\/strong><\/p>\n Attention as a mental process<\/strong>: attention can be though of as the mental process of concentrating effort on a stimulus or a mental event<\/p>\n -Attention is an activity that occurs within the cognitive system \u2013 a process<\/p>\n -Attention is a mental process that focused your eyes on the figure and encoded the photograph into your visual system, attention focused on driving your mental event of remembering, searching for information stored in your long term memory, attempting to comprehend<\/p>\n Attention as a limited mental resource <\/strong>Pmental fuel)<\/p>\n Attention is the limited mental energy or resource that powers the mental system -> used to run the cognitive system<\/p>\n Notion of limitations: <\/strong>attention is limited Pto attend to stimuli, to remember events, to remember things we are supposed to do)<\/p>\n Alertness and arousal <\/strong><\/p>\n -Basic capacity to respond to the environment, nervous system must be awake, responsive and ready to interact with the environment, nervous system must be aroused in order to pay attention<\/p>\n -Arousal is at least partly a function of the reticular Activational system (RAS)<\/strong><\/p>\n -Certain stimuli can impinge Pimpact) us and arouse us Pan alarm clock) \u2013 can last long periods of time or change gradually; such changes are referred to as tonic<\/strong>: sleep \u2013wakefulness cycles is the best known tonic changes in alertness and arousal, another example of tonic change in arousal is the fatigue or loss of vigilance we encounter when performing a task Plike driving) for long periods of time<\/p>\n Phasically:<\/strong> controls alertness and arousal, an example of phasic arousal might occur when a sudden unexpected change in the environment is detected, for example a drop in vigilance after a long trip, you may get drowsy while stopped at a red light and the driver behind you beeps, the loud horn will cause an abrupt, phasic increase in your state of arousal Pheart rate will increase) ALSO phasic change in alertness and arousal can be produced voluntarily as when you use a warning signal to prepare to encode and respond to an upcoming target stimulus<\/p>\n Explicit processes:<\/strong> are those involving conscious processing, conscious awareness that a task is being preformed and usually conscious awareness of the outcome of performance. PWordlist remember then name them back)<\/p>\n Implicit processing <\/strong>Popposite): processing with no necessary involvement of conscious awareness Preread something you\u2019ve already saw more quickly, even if you don\u2019t remember) -An example read lists of words to patients before and during surgery, then asked then if they remember 24 hour later, patients still remembered the words even if they were unconscious during surgery \u2013 based on an implicit memory task Pthe word stem completion task<\/strong>), patients completed the words stems more frequently with words they had heard during surgery the presurgery- patients had implicit memory of the word lists they had heard while they were under the anesthesia<\/p>\n Orientating and searching <\/strong><\/p>\n Orienting refers to the alignment of information pickup mechanism with a source of information<\/p>\n 2 types: sometimes referred to bottom up and top down processing Reflexively: <\/strong>in response to sudden change in the environment<\/p>\n Voluntarily:<\/strong> in response to our own actions<\/p>\n Voluntary orientation<\/strong> or reflexive control<\/strong> orienting involves may involve overt responses such as eyes and head movement or in absence of an observable behavioral response, orientating may involve an internal mental change that is called covert orienting<\/strong> of attention Pmental changes)<\/p>\n Reflexive orienting <\/strong><\/p>\n -loud noise grabs your attention and involves a reflexive turning of your head towards the source Orienting reflex or orienting response: the reflexive redirection of attention that orients you towards the unexpected stimulus, Peye and head movements)<\/p>\n -Is initiated by external stimulation and involved the redirection of sensory receptors towards the source of stimulation<\/p>\n Overt reflexive orientating<\/strong> When such an orienting reflex can be observed in the behavior of the organism<\/p>\n Covert reflexive orienting:<\/strong> orienting of attention without the assistance of an overt response, when ones eyes and head remain stationary unexpected events can elicit reflexive redirection of attention in the form of internal Pmental) adjustments of information processing,<\/p>\n -Orienting is a preparatory response one that preps the system for further voluntary processing<\/p>\n -Orienting focuses the organism so it can devote deliberate attention to the stimulus if warranted -> Voluntary attentive processes<\/p>\n Cowan<\/strong>: believes there are two categories of stimuli that trigger the orienting reflex:<\/p>\n 1.Stimuli that are significant to the person Prock thrown at head)<\/p>\n 2.Stimuli that are novel Pdifferences that stick out)<\/p>\n Voluntary orienting<\/strong><\/p>\n Situations we choose the objects o locations in space that we want to analyze or pay attention to<\/p>\n -The advantage on valid relative to neutral trails is known as benefit<\/p>\n -So the spot light attention is the covert focusing of attention that prepares you to encode stimulus information<\/p>\n -Attention is facilitated by the cue – Confusing 329 ask friends<\/strong><\/p>\n Visual search<\/strong><\/p>\n Top-down and bottom-up control of attention Pexample when your looking for a pen on a desk must used top down attention and bottom up attention for your representation of the pen) -Spotlight attention in terms of visual search and pattern recognition, example like in the book \u201clook for bold letter T\u201d. Another example is by Treisman<\/strong> look for a letter that is either blue or an S, the search for a simple feature was called disjunction condition<\/strong> Peither blue or S) in the conjunction condition<\/strong> they had to look for both.<\/p>\n Treisman\u2019s two conditions<\/strong> provided a clear evidence of both a very quick, automatic attentional<\/strong> process Pessentially the capture of attention due to pop out)- and the much slower, serial<\/strong> and more deliberate attention the type needed for the conjunction.<\/p>\n -Top down and bottom up processing make prevent re-inspection by using the activation map<\/strong> that controls orienting<\/p>\n Filtering: voluntary control of selective attention <\/strong><\/p>\n Control attention:<\/strong> refers to forms of processing in which there is a deliberate, voluntary allocation of mental effort or concentration<\/p>\n Research in action, inhibition of return: facilitates research by discouraging re-inspection Inhibition of return (IOR)<\/strong>: facilitates serial search by discouraging attention form revisiting previously inspected objects or regions of the search display<\/p>\n -IOR should be present at the locations if items following serial search when the target was absent Pbecause attention would have visited the location of each of these items- following a research for a target that pops out, IOR should not be present because attention is not needed to find the target in this kind of search<\/p>\n For IOR to facilitate research, it must have the following properties:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.IOR is not retinotopic<\/strong> Prelative to the current fixation point) but rather is coded environmentally when an eye movement intervenes between a cue and target and is coded in object coordinates when the item that was cued moves before the target is presented<\/p>\n 2.IOR should be graded, such that the inhibited regions are neither too small nor too large to be useful<\/p>\n 3.IOR would be relatively useless as a search facilitator if only one object or location could be inhibited, Pratt and Adams found that up to five locations could be simultaneously inhibited when they used an eight item array<\/p>\n 4.The duration of IOR must be long enough to be effective over the duration of a typical visual search P3 seconds)<\/p>\n 5.IOR must being very quickly after attention has inspected an item in a search array<\/p>\n -Neuroscientific data suggests the IOR is present from the onset of the cue; its impact on performance may not be strong enough to overcome the early facilitation from reflexive attention until attention has been removed from the cued location<\/p>\n Selective attention and the cocktail party affect<\/strong><\/p>\n Filtering or selecting: <\/strong>the mental process of eliminating those distractions, eliminating unwanted messages<\/p>\n -When you try to ignore the many stimuli or events around you so you can focus on just one, the ones you are trying to ignore are distraction that must be eliminated or excluded<\/p>\n Dual task procedures <\/strong><\/p>\n -Two tasks or massages are presented such that one task or message consumes the person\u2019s attentional resources as completely as possible<\/p>\n Shadowing experiments <\/strong><\/p>\n -Cherry\u2019s findings that selective attention was easy when various physical differences existed between the messages<\/p>\n Selection models <\/strong><\/p>\n Stage 1 selection<\/strong>: early selection, to some of the earliest phases of perception, an acoustic analysis based on the physical features of the message, sensory information \u2013 based on loudness, location of the sound, pitch and so on<\/p>\n Broadbent\u2019s filter theory <\/strong><\/p>\n This theory claims that subjects could somehow tune their auditory mechanism to one message and ignore the other to propose a filter theory of auditory perception<\/p>\n -In Broadbent\u2019s view, the auditory mechanism acts as a selective filter, filtering one message at a time, the filter can be tuned or switched to any one of the messages, based on characteristics such as loudness or pitch, this one message is sent along a filter into the \u201climit- capacity decision channel\u201d-> <\/strong>leads to response of long term memory store \u2013 THIS APPROACH HAS SOME<\/p>\n SERIOUS PROBLEMS<\/p>\n -For example we often notice information from message we are not attending ie. When we hear our name Punattended info can slip through the filter) some small part of attention can be attributed to unattended stimuli<\/p>\n Treisman\u2019s attenuation theory<\/strong><\/p>\n The basis for the selection however was not any physical characteristic of the message instead, subjects now performed their selection on the basis of the message content, what the message was about rather that what it sounded like<\/p>\n -This is called stage 2 selection\/middle selection: in which grammatical and sematic Pmeaning) features are the basis for selection<\/p>\n -Early selection is based on sensory features; middle selection is based on understanding -The shadowing task example when the meaning\/ second half of the sentence switched ears.<\/p>\n -Although subjects did not continue to shadow the wrong ear for very long, when the meaningful sentence switched to the other ear, they also switched.<\/p>\n -There must be some consideration of the unattended message, unlike the prediction from Broadbent\u2019s theory. Sematic elements of the unattended channel must be receiving some analysis.<\/p>\n -Treisman rejected the \u201cearly selection\u201d notion embodied in Broadbent\u2019s theory, instead she claimed that all incoming message received some amount of low level analysis, including an analysis of the physical characteristic of the messages.<\/p>\n -Treisman felt that it was during this process of semantic analysis that we make our selection among messages \u2013 at stage 2 selection \u201cmiddle stage\u201d this permits attention to be affected by the semantic aspect of the message Ptop down affect)<\/p>\n This was a late selection theory, at stage 3 \u2013terminology, where outcomes of all earlier analyses become conscious.<\/p>\n -So the evidence is that much more information is getting into the cognitive system than strict selection or filtering would permit<\/p>\n Norman\u2019s Pertinence model <\/strong><\/p>\n Donald Norman proposed a useful modification to the Treisman scheme; his model which specifically included a mechanism for top down processing. This model claims that at any instant time, attention to some pieces of information Psome messages) is determines by two factors: sensory activation and pertinence<\/strong><\/p>\n Sensory activation<\/strong>: activates your senses<\/strong>, if the message is loud, in a distinct voice or is salient from a sensory stand point i.e. the stereo at the party is very loud can\u2019t focus on anything else<\/p>\n Pertinence<\/strong>: the momentary importance of information, whether caused by permanent or transitory factors.<\/strong> Somethings are more or less important to you, it can also be temporary<\/p>\n i.e. If you\u2019re listening to a message about the forest trees are pertinent to you. Your name has a high level of pertinence on a permanent basis Pthe higher that item is in pertinence the closer that item is to its criterion or threshold of awareness)<\/p>\n Multimode model of attention <\/strong><\/p>\n -Selective attention can occur early in the processing sequence but it can also occur later based on the meaning or message content -> selective attention can be affected by both permanent Phighly important information, our names) and temporary factors Pwhich include message content as well as momentary fluctuations in interest) \u2013 IN SHORT ATTENTION IS FLEXIBLE<\/p>\n See figure 15.10 the sequence of processing in the shadow task, with early, middle an late operation of the selective attention mechanism<\/p>\n -Attention is flexible and can be operated in multiple modes Pstages 1,2,3)<\/p>\n -Where does selective attention operate: anywhere! Selection can operate in multiple modes early, middle or late<\/p>\n -Selection attention was more difficult in some conditions because of similarities in the competing messages, this slowed down the detection of the light,<\/p>\n For example: having to listen to one message slowed down light detection by about 60 ms, another example because distractors different both physically and in meaning from the target, this added only another 20 ms to the participants time to detect the light-> it took very little extra attention when given two types of cues, physical and meaning, to help them ignore the distractors Pit is easy to ignore 1 or 2 nearby conversation if they are about different topics)<\/p>\n –The most difficult this to ignore:<\/strong> is when the extra message differs only ohysicallly from the target or when it differs only in meaning<\/p>\n -As our processing operates later and later, extra capacity is consumed by the attentional mechanism. This slows down Pand makes less accurate) any other ongoing process because it subtracts from the total pool of mental resources that are available for performance<\/p>\n Attention as a mental resource <\/strong><\/p>\n The idea of limited capacity attention<\/p>\n –The attentional blink: <\/strong>when we present a rapid stream of items containing the two targets, accuracy in identifying the second target declined sharply as soon as the two were presented close together in time, when the two targets are adjacent to one another in the stream, the second one can be spared from the deleterious effect of the attentional blink \u2013 as if the second target was processed along with the first one before the \u201cblink\u201d took place<\/p>\n -Allocating attention to the first stimulus momentarily deprives you of the attention needed for the second stimulus<\/p>\n –Controlled attention<\/strong>: you decide to pay attention to a signal, for example you decide to pay attention to the lecture instead of your memory of last night\u2019s date and when you realize your attention has wondered, you will willfully refocus your attention to the lecture<\/p>\n -The limited capacity attentional mechanism and the need for filtering in selective attention, the current view is that a variety of perceptual and cognitive processes can be executed in an automatic fashion, with little or no necessary involvement of a conscious, limitedattention mechanism <\/strong><\/p>\n Automatic processing <\/strong><\/p>\n Automatic processing:<\/strong> occurs without our awareness usually very fast and without intension<\/p>\n 3 characteristics the are necessary for \u201cdiagnosis\u201d of an automatic process<\/strong><\/p>\n Conscious? controlled processing: <\/strong>we are aware and can control, this drains the pool of conscious capacity<\/p>\n The role of practice and memory <\/strong><\/p>\n Participants in the shadow study were unable to identify the word that was repeated 35 times, this is simply due to the lack of practice, the effect of practice is to store the relevant information in memory, the necessary precondition for automatic processing is memory -Study by Shiffrin and Schneider, processing became automatic but as soon as it changed Pforcing subjects to search for targets that were previously distractors)\u201cautomatic detection would prove impossible and that the subjects would be forced to revert to controlled search<\/p>\n A synthesis for attention and automaticity\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n The more automatic a task can be preformed, the more mental resources are available for other processes<\/p>\n -The rout for automaticity is practice and memory<\/p>\n Disadvantage to automaticity <\/strong><\/p>\n -Very hard to overcome<\/p>\n A disorder of attention: Hemineglect<\/strong><\/p>\n -Hemineglect\/ hemi- inattention is a disturbance in the ability to focus your attention to one side of your face, to the X on the left side of the computer screen. It is a disruption or decreased ability to look at something in the Poften) left field of vision and pay attention to it<\/p>\n -Hemineglect is a disorder of attention in which one half of the perceptual world is neglected to some degree and cannot be attended to as completely or accurately as normal \u2013 they useually suffer brain damage to the right hemisphere, patients with Hemineglect cannot voluntarily direct attention to half of the perceptual world, they have a disruption in the ability to control attention, example from the book people with this disorder kept describing only the left side of the piazza in Italy and kept neglecting the left<\/p>\n -It turns out patients with Hemineglect often can attend to stimuli in the neglected field but only if nothing else is displayed visually that might attract their attention<\/p>\n –<\/strong>Extinction is caused by attentional capture, when a right side stimulus is presented; it captures the person\u2019s attention and prevents attention from being devoted to the left side<\/p>\n Four interrelated ideas of attention 1.We are constantly confronted with much more information than we can okay attention to 2.There are serious limitations in how much we can attend… Continue Reading Attention<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[113],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyork.ca\/academic\/zz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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