Psych 1X03 C01 Professor Kim & Professor Cheal 05/28/12

Module 1: Introduction to Attention

Attention Phenomenon Model Hypothesis William James Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought... it implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state. Selection Selection: attending to something causes object of attention to be selected apart from rest of unattended objects o Center of attention definition o Ex. First put clothes on, aware of fabric feeling. Throughout the day, no longer aware of the sensation fade into the background noise of stimuli competing for your attention Attention also refers to conscious ability to attend to info relevant to goals o Ex. Walk through crowded sidewalk actively selecting where attention is focused Irrelevant info in environment = noise making it hard to attend to important info o We can adept distinguishing relevant from irrelevant o Can still get distracted important call while driving; looking for friend in crowd

Module 3: Automatic & Controlled Attention

Introduction Different types of processes influencing attention Automatic Process: involuntary capture fast & efficient Controlled Process: conscious attention slow & effortful (more cognitive effort) Controlled Process Ex. Driving consciously choose to pay attention to many aspects of environment o Change lanes, speed up, slow down, conversation, radio Turn down ratio when looking for new address? difficult to consciously attend to many aspects at same time resources for controlled process = limited o As demands for attention increase, must make adjustments to compensate Automatic Process (2) Salience: Some cues are more noticeable = stronger/quicker association when paired with events o Appears to naturally pop out at you Ex. Loud sounds/flashing lights of emergency vehicle Auto pilot automatic experiences (set out to drive to one place, end up somewhere else) Friend sneezing, causing you to momentarily dart eyes towards her; spider runs across desk

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Psych 1X03 C01 Professor Kim & Professor Cheal 05/28/12

Module 3: The Spotlight Model

Selection & the Spotlight Stratford Festival spotlight illuminates key part of visual scene (focuses your view) o Michael Posner analogous process to visual attention o As spotlight illuminates part of stage, attention spotlight focuses only there Attention can be consciously directed across visual scene as you look for friend in crowded after party Attention can be hijacked by unconscious processes that can quickly grab attention (avoid oncoming speeding car as you step off sidewalk) As attention moves around field of vision, objects within spotlight processed preferentially o Respond to objects faster and with greater accuracy Spatial Cueing Paradigm Subject asked to fix attention to middle box At some point, target appear in either left or right box Must indicate correct target location ASAP Before appearance of target, potential target box flashes o Flashing box = cue for attention Measures influence of flashing cue on target detection time EX. One experiment target appears randomly on either side of target box ; equally often cued or uncued Cue provides no predictive info about appearance of target Experiment suggests difference in target detection is governed by automatic rather than conscious control of attention o Short time interval between cue & target presentation o Cue automatically attracts attention spotlight to cued location If target appears in cue location attention amplifies perceptual processing of target If target appears in uncued, target detected slowly because attention spotlight directed away from actual target location Controlled Processing Experiment set up so attentional cue does provide accurate prediction o Target appears in cued location more than 50% of time Researchers vary predictability of cues to study consciously controlled shifts of attention o Consciously controlled shifts of attention may lead to faster responses to targets appearing in location indicated than targets appearing opposite to cue location Spatial cueing experiments predictive cues = faster detection even when subjects dont have time to move eyes to cued location before making judgement attention moves faster than eye

Module 4: Filter Modules

Filters & Attention Colin Cherry cocktail party effect Listen to 2 different messages of single loudspeaker played at same time o Subjects tried to separate messages repeating one but not other in shadowing task Ability to separate target sounds from background noise = based on physical characteristics (gender of speaker, direction, pitch speed of speech) 2 of 5

Psych 1X03 C01 Professor Kim & Professor Cheal 05/28/12 Cherrys work inspired cognitive model comparing attention to filter sifting distractions away, only allowing important info through o Filter & spotlight model propose different mechanism for attention o Examinging flower in green grass Spotlight: attention would enhance processing of single flower relative to grass Filter: attention helps us ignore grass & allows flower to continue for processing INFO FILTER FURTHER PROCESSING Broadbents Single Filter Model First model of attention in 1958 interested in practical problems Used data from behavioural experiments to infer functional stages of cognitive processing Single Filter Model attention filter selects important info on basis of characteristics o Allows that info to continue for further processing o Info not passed through early physical filter = eliminated Broadbent extended Cherrys work dichotic listening paradigm o Headphones on subject, different message into each ear must repeat back message o asked question about attended ear = no problem; unattended ear no info processed rarely noticed major changes in message in unattended ear (language) attentional filter only allows info coming through attended ear to get further processed Limitations of Model assumes no additional processing of unattended signals o Von Wright suggested some info processed in unattended ear 1st part of study classical conditioning paradigm used to associate a word with electric shock 2nd part of study dichotic listening experiment When participants heard similar word/sound/meaning to conditional word, in attended ear, they reacted with conditional response (expected) Same thing happened in unattended ear some form of sound/meaning able to pass through the filter o Breakthrough participants able to remember important info in unattended stream Common when unattended info =highly relevant Crowded, loud room someone calls your name Broadbents theory can explain findings of shadowing paradigm, not cocktail party effect

Triesmans Dual Filter

- Unlike Broadbents mode, Triesmans has 2 filters Physical info evaluated based on physical cues (intensity/pitch) to find most relevant signal o weights importance of incoming stimuli based on physical cues, passes info to semantic Semantic filter evaluated for meaning & takes into account weights assigned y physical filter o Considers deeper meaning/relevance of stimuli chooses what info will be attended to Remaining info discarded o Can override early filtering decisions based on physical traits (considers meaning of info) 3 of 5

Psych 1X03 C01 Professor Kim & Professor Cheal 05/28/12 This model explains Broadbents findings from dichotic listening paradigm Also explains breakthrough & results of Von Wright Broadbent accepted new findings as reason to revise influential theory

Module 5: The Stroop Task

Introduction Paradigm which tests limits of attentional filter (1935) produces effect impossible to avoid Stroop Task Participants presented with colourword, asked to name ink-colour in which word presented o Congruent: matching work and colour (Red written in red ink) o Incongruent : mismatching word and colour (Blue written in green ink) Time it takes to correctly identify ink colour is measured Stroop Effect & Attention Must attend to info on task-relevant dimension & ignore info on the task-irrelevant dimension Performance difference between incongruent & congruent trails = empirical measure of process involved in selective attention Controlling the Stroop Effect Proportion congruent manipulation: change the ratio of congruent to incongruent trials o 75% congruent, 25%incongruent increased stroop effect (more easy trials) o 25% congruent, 75% incongruent decreased stroop effect High proportion congruent block notice word dimension usually matches ink colour therefore you take advantage of this (emply conscious strategy to attend to word dimension) o Performance on incongruent trials = slower consciously attending to word o Larger stroop effect Low proportion congruent block notice word dimension usually doesnt match ink colour therefore you ignore word dimension o Smaller stroop effect The Stroop Task : Automatic & Controlled Stroop tasks lets us measure influence of both automatic and controlled processes Automatic evidence: word reading influences performance even when the word is to be ignored o Occurs even in absence of voluntary intention to read words Controlled evidence: people can adopt different consciously controlled word reading strategies (adapt stroop effect) The Stroop Task : An Attentional Filter Changes in strength of Stoop effect depend on operation of many attentional filters that are responsible for satisfying word reading processes o Stroop constitutes first example of an experimental task researchers use to develop theories about processes involved in attention 4 of 5

Psych 1X03 C01 Professor Kim & Professor Cheal 05/28/12

Module 6: Visual Search

Introduction Visual search experiments test how everyday attention is used o Subjects look for target in array of distracters analogous to tasks performed daily Visual Search Tasks Researchers start off with very simple conditions o 8x8 array with all Is and 1 T, then 15x 15 all Is and 1 T Set Size: # of items to search through Set Size Effect: increase in difficulty as the set size increases Feature & Conjunction Search Visual search task (T in Is)= easy no matter what set size because its a single feature search task one particular feature to identify target Pop out effect: rapid visual search regardless of set size easily induced by colour o Easy even in large set size Conjunction search test identify target defined by two or more features o 15x 15 of red Is, red Ts, green Is, ONE green T Pop out effect finding a single green O in a field of 20 red Os Size effect single red Q in field of 20 red Os versus finding a single red Q in a field of 50 red Os Feature search finding a single red Q in a field of 20 red Os Conjunction search finding a single green Q in a mixed field of red Os, green Os, and red Qs Contextual Cueing Contextual cueing helps visual search Most targets in daily life are defined by many features o Ex. Know you put keys on right side of desk, youll start look in that area = faster finding

Module 7: Conclusion
Importance of Attention Attentional errors forgetting to put milk back in fridge Chronic attentional errors attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, insomnia o Most severe hemispatial neglect: damage to right parietal lobe of brain see objects to the left but fail to pay full attention (eating food only on right side of plate)

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