Cognitive psychology - Attention

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What is Attention?
Goal directed
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For example?
When trying to find someone in a crowd
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What is Pop-out search?
fast and effortless
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However, what is a serial search?
Slow and effortless
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What can attention be?
shifted
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For example?
Start left, move right
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What is coupled during a visual search?
Eye movements and attention
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What is the Posner task?
An arrow was presented in the centre of the screen facing to the right, a ball either appeared on the right or left, pps tended to look to the right of the arrow as that was the direction it was facing
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What can attention be?
zoomed, therefore zoom lens methapor
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For example?
A closer inspection of candidate area
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What can attention also be?
Selective
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For example?
A person may miss the friend with blond hair when looking for a friend with red hair
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What does this mean?
Attending to one thing means not attending to other things
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What was early attention research dominated by?
Filter metaphor
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Attention can be limited but what is the metaphor?
Attention as a resource
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for example?
Trying to listen to two people at the same time, limited amount of attention, you can run out of attention
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What can attention be?
Captured, you can control your attention to a degree
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For example?
search for friend with red hair, never sits in the first row, however attention is still captured by other red haired students in first row
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Attention can be divided however what is an example?
Between modalities, look at graph on slides and listen to what people are saying
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What is Broadbent's theory called?
Broadbent's filter theory
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What did Broadbent do?
Asked 2 simultaneous questions; S-1 from G.D.O. Is there a heart on position 1, S-2 from G.D.O. Is there a cross on position 4
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What were the various conditions?
Answer question for S-1 but ignore S-2
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What did he find?
Only 50% of questions were answered correctly
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What did he also find?
Very difficult, with limited number of possible alternatives
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What was the name of Cherry's theory?
The cocktail-party problem
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What was the question asked?
How do we recognise what one person is saying when others are speaking at the same time?
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What was condition one?
Two messages by the same speaker played to both ears (repeat one, ignore the other --> shadowing), REsult, very difficult but possible after many repitions
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What was condition 2?
Two messages by the same speaker simultaneously played to different ears (hear one message in your left ear, the other with your right) Dichotic listening
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What was the instruction?
Repeat one, ignore the other
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What were the results?
Much easier to attend to one ear
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What happens to the irrelevant messages?
No words reported, change in language not noticed, reversed speech recognised, change from male to female or to pure tone recognised, basic stmulus characteristics are processed
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What was the conclusion of these experiments?
Attend to two messages not seperable by physical cues (same speaker, same ear) very hard, with physical cues (location) easier, attend to one message and know very little about the other one
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What is first in Broad bent's filter theory?
Short term store
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Then where does the information go?
selective filter
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What does the filter do?
Select information for further processing
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What is the basis for selection?
Physical stimulus properties in short term store
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Where does the filtered information then pass through?
Serial processor
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What is this responsible for?
one thing at a time, for example, the analysis of a word meaning
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Where can the information either go?
To the system for varying output until some input is secured or store of conditional probabilities of past events
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What did Broadbent suggest that doesnt pass through the filter?
Unselected information
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When does selection occur before?
Stimuli are identified
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Therefore what is broadbent's filter theory an example of?
Early selection theory
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What is evidence against Broadbent's filter theory?
The irrelevant stimuli are actually analysed, for example, own name effect, Moray shadowing task --> about 1/3 of pps notice own name in irrelevant channel
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What does this require?
Processing beyond basic physical stimulus characteristics --> meaning of irrelevant information was analysed, not consistent with early selection theory
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What is channel switching?
Treisman: pps might briefly switch ears when messages switch1
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What messages were presented?
UPPERCASE - shadowing: Left ear: I SAW THE GIRL/ song was WISHING. Right ear: me that bird/ JUMPING in the street
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What did he find?
3 never switched, 15 did for one or two words after the switch
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What happened?
irrelevant information was analysed
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What was the other test?
Conditioning with electric shocks
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What were the two phases?
Words were paired with electric shocks, words were presented on irrelevant channel
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What was the result?
Words, affect skin conductance responses, not consistent with early selection theory
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What is the first alternative theory?
Filter not completely selective, Attenuation theory
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What are the explanations for failures of early selection?
Some concepts in mental dictionary 'more readily available (our own names', relatively weak signal sufficient to activate these concepts
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What is the second alternative theory?
Late selection
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What did this entail?
Meaning analysed before filter
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What are two assumptions?
Automatic, not capactiy limited
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What is leakage?
Filter does not block, but attenuate --> information from irrelevant channel ''leaks'' through filter
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What can attenuated information do?
activate concepts in long term memory, identification of stimuli
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What is slippage?
When attention can not focus on relevant channel all the time and spills into irrelevant channel
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What is the implication of this?
If attentional precision is higher, dedicating attentional resources to irrelevant channel avoidable
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WHat is spillover?
Cant stop using attention until it has been used up
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What is the implication?
If relevant channel needs less attention than available, attention will 'spill over' to irrelevant channel
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What did Lachter et al try to prove?
Spillage, that Broadbent was correct - there was no identification without attention
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What was early selection again?
no identification without attention, meaning analysed only with attention, if stimuli in irrelevant channel identified --> attended
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What is experiments did Lachter et al do again? and what did they find?
own name effect; Conway et al;: effect depends on working memory capacity, so own name effect is real; but attentional problem not strength
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What did they find?
Low working memory subjects noticed name more frequently, difficulties focusing attention
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What does this suggest?
Some subjects let attention slip to irrelevant channel
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What did Lachter et al, say about channel switching?
Maybe subjects were confused when semantically coherent message suddenly became incoherent, maybe this lead to reallocation of attention, this would be a form of spillage
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What happened when Dawson & Schell replicated the electric shock study?
Not done frequently enough, skin conductance changes in subjects who sometimes attended to irrelevant channel, slippage
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How do participants exclude slippage?
Use visual stimuli and present these stimuli briefly as attention needs time,
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Therefore, different locations were used, however what did Pps actually do?
Repetition priming
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What is repetition priming?
Briefly presented, irrelevant stimuli can speed up responses to subsequent stimuli (targets)
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What is the target?
Word or pseudoword
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What happens?
Same words, different location
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How many conditions were there? and what happened?
Overall four conditions, location: same as target or above, word identity: same or different
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What happened?
Quicker reaction times when words were the same and in the same location
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What was concluded?
No identification without attention in the visual domain
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What evidence has been found for identification without attention?
Kouider et al, training with auditory stimuli: Animals --> left hand response, Man made objects --> right hand response
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What was found?
During sleep: presentation prepared a response in their sleep, they must have understood the meaning of the word.
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Therefore?
Auditory domain? Identification without attention
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What are the two main assumptions?
Perceptual capacity is limited, it is automatic
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What is this theory portrayed as?
Hybrid theory
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What is the assumption of Lavie?
Identification of irrelevant stimuli only if processing of relevant stimuli does not exhaust available resources
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Therefore what happens?
Relevant stimuli consumes all available resourses --> no identification of irrelevant stimuli
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What did Low perceptual load see?
Target immediately visible, no search required, attentional resources 'spill over' to flanking letter (the irrelevant channel)
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What is high perceptual load?
Target hidden among neutral distractors search for target required, central circl (relevant channel) consumes all attentional resources, no spillover to irrelevant channel
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What is Lavies and Cox's hypothesis?
compatibility effect for low perceptual load trials, but not for high perceptual load trials
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What is compatibility effect?
Difference in reaction times between incompatible trials (eg. Target X and Flanker N) and compatible trials (target X and Flanker X)
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What is Lavie and Cox's conclusion?
Perceptual load for relevant channel influences extent to which information in irrelevant channel is processed
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What are the two perceptual loads?
Information in irrelevant channel not identified, information in irrelevant channel identified
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What did Lachter Vs Lavie both find?
Identification without attention
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What did Lachter find?
If attention properly focused, no slippage --> Processing of irrelevant channel avoidable
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What did Lavie suggest?
Capacity of perceptual attention limited, but not under voluntary control --> low perceptual load: processing of irrelevant channel unavoidable
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What are two advantages of the neuroscience approach?
Learn about neural mechanisms of attention, can be additional dependent variable
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What does MRI show?
Structure of the brain
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What two structures can be seen in the slightly inflated picture of the brain?
sulcus and gyrus
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What are the four main lobes?
Frontal, Parietal, occipital and temporal
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What are the 4 anatomical terms of location?
superior/dorsal (above/the back), Ante (in front of)/rostrum (the beak), Interior/ventral (below, the belly)posterior (behind)
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What are the main components of the dorsal attention network?
Frontal eye field/ intraparietal sulcus
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What is the main components of ventral attention network?
ventral frontal cortex, temporoparietal junction
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What does the DAN control?
Top down control, goal driven orienting
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Where is it situated?
Left&right hemisphere
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What does the VAN control?
Bottom-up approach, stimulus driven re(orienting)
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Where is the Van situated>
Right hemisphere
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What is spatial neglect?
Damage to the ventral attention network
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What happens if not diagnosed?
no rehabilitative efforts
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What is ignored?
One side of the space, always the left
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What is extinction?
When both fingers moved at same time, only finger on non-neglected side was perceived (although finger on left was perceived when moved on its own
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What are spatial neglect patients unaware of?
deficit
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What can happen?
Patients' performance typically improves over time
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Why does neglect happen after damage to ventral attention network?
The networks are not independent but interact, when all networks work normally, activity is balanced. Left dorsal network: rightward shifts of attention, right dorsal network: leftwards shifts of attention, ventral network supports right dorsal nw
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what happens if ventral network is lesioned?
left DN/W becomes too strong, inhibits right dorsal network, results in leftward shifts of attention become more difficult
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what happens in receptive fields?
NEurons fire action potentials if face in receptive but not if outside
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Is there a visual processing hierarchy?
Primary areas: close to sensory output and higher level areas: further from sensory input
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What is the primary visual cortex?
Small receptive fields, simple stimulus properties
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What are high level visual cortex?
LArge receptive fields (30 degrees), complex stimulus properties
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What is Excursion?
Some neurons appear to code for concepts
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What are the mechanisms for visual attention?
Top down attention effects
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What is the assumption?
higher-level areas tell lower level areas where and what to attend
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What is mechanism 1?
Neurons will not respond to all stimuli in receptive field with same number of action potentials
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For example?
Neuron might respond more to stimuli with high contrast
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what happens when receptive field locations are attended?
Neuron increases response to stimuli it responds to anyway, response gain
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What is mechanism 2?
When receptive field location attended: neuron becomes more sensitive at lower stimulus intensities
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What is inattentional blindness?
Paying attention to something else and ignoring something obvious, like Gorillas in our midst or the unicycling clown
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What percentage of people noticed the gorilla in simon and Chabris's study?
42% white team passes, 83% black team passes
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What is change blindness?
Not seeing a little change in a picture when flicking between the same picture
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For example?
Empty frame shown between two pictures
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What happened?
Change occurs very slowly
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What are factors of change blindness?
Memory plays a role, one picture needs to be compared to another, looking at each picture seperately nothing unusual
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What is inattentional blindness?
Something unexpected/odd about picture, memory not required to notic what is unexpected
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Card 2

Front

For example?

Back

When trying to find someone in a crowd

Card 3

Front

What is Pop-out search?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

However, what is a serial search?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What can attention be?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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