Attention

Nature of Attention

Definition of attention

Although we have an intuitive understanding of what it means to “pay attention” to an

object or event, the study of attention has a long and checkered history in cognitive
psychology, filled with debate and disagreement. Some have suggested that “everyone
knows what attention is;” others have countered that “no one knows what attention is”
(Pashler, 1998). Attention is a multifaceted phenomenon for which different
definitions exist. Most researchers agree the attention is the mental process of
concentrating on a stimulus. It is the act of focusing on particular information, which
allows it to be processed more fully than what is not attended to

A classical definition has been given by 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.   Focalization,
concentration of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal
from some things in order to deal effectively with others." 
                  William James 1890, 

William James' characterization of attention highlights many of the essential elements

of the phenomena:
(1) Focusing and concentration are important attributes of attention
(2) the object upon which attention is focused typically becomes clearer
and more vivid relative to other possible objects or thoughts;
(3) this process involves selection of one stimulus from multiple possible
stimuli

While this definition does not account for the breadth or complexity of the processes
that we now label as attention, it highlights some of the most important experiential
qualities of attending. More recently there have been various ways of describing
visual attention:

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 Focussing attention: Fake Fly in
Urinal
Status: Strange, but apparently true.
In Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam each urinal has a fly in it. So what do you think most
men do? That's right, they aim at the fly when they urinate. It improves the aim. Fly-in-
urinal research found that etchings reduce spillage by 80%. It gives a guy something to
think about. That's the perfect example of process control. The interesting feature of
these urinals is that they're deliberately designed to take advantage of this inherent
human male tendency."

Factors affecting attention:

Two major factors affect attention:

1. Bottom Up processes: These processes are those where attention is determined
solely by the properties of the stimulus. For instance, if a subject is engaged in
a conversation, but a loud bang occurs, this bang may attract attention. Or, in
the visual domain, someone may be looking for red items, but an unexpected,
sudden appearance of a nonred object may inadvertently draw the attention of
the subject.

2. Top Down processing: These processes are those where attention is

determined by past experience and past knowledge. There is voluntary
allocation of attention to certain features, objects, or regions. In daily life, top-
down processing allows us attend to traffic while driving, ignoring an
otherwise interesting conversation or beautiful scenery. It allows us to attend
to a boring lecture for the sake of a grade rather than more immediately
rewarding thoughts of lunch or the attractive person seated nearby.

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 i.

Usually attention is determined by the interaction of both factors.

Another categorization of these factors can be in terms of 1) objective and 2)

subjective factors.

1. Objective Factors:
These factors pertain to particular aspects of objects which are inherent in objects.
a. Movement: A moving object draws our attention more easily than a
stationary object. For example, flickering lights draw our attention than non-
flickering lights. A moving vehicle draws our attention more than a stationed
vehicle.

b. Intensity: More intense light, sound or smell draws our attention more
easily than less intense one. For example, a high voltage bulb will be
observed quicker than low voltage bulb, very bright colour than dim colour,
or a very loud sound than a normal sound.

c. Novelty: New kinds of objects draw our attention quickly. Advertising

agencies adopt this technique very effectively. For example, latest fashion
dress, shoes, pen, etc.

d. Size: A bigger or a smaller object draws the attention of people very easily
than average level size of any object, For example, a 7′ taller man, a 2′ dwarf,
a very fat man, a very huge multistoried building can draw our attention
quickly.

e. Change: A change in our environment draws our attention quickly. For

example, regular sound of a moving clock does not draw our attention, but
the movement it stops, our attention is diverted. A show piece placed in a new

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 place, a radio playing a song stops due to electricity failure draws our
attention.

f. Repetition: When a stimulus is presented repeatedly our attention is

diverted, For example, repeated horn of a fire brigade or ambulance.

g. Clarity: An object or sound which can be experienced clearly draws our

attention than the stimuli which are not clear. For example, during night times
stars and planets which are seen clearly draw our attention.

h. Colours: Colourful objects draw our attention more easily than black or
white objects.

i. Contrast: An object that is strikingly different from its background draws

our attention. For example, a black spot on a white shirt

2. Subjective Factors: These factors refer to individuals. These are inherent in people.
There are many subjective factors which determine our attention.

They are:
a. Interest: Objects of our interest draw our attention immediately. For
example, while moving on a road a sportsman is attracted towards the shop
where sports materials are placed. A person who is interested in a
particular singer will immediately divert his attention the moment he
listens his voice.

b. Motives: Motives are powerful forces which make us to divert our

attention. For example, a hotel will draw the attention of a hungry person
because he has a drive for food.

c. Mental set: Our set or readiness of mind is very important in attending

to any stimulus. For example, when a person is in fantasy he may not listen
to any call. On the other hand, if he is waiting for a phone call eagerly, he
will listen to that immediately.

d. Emotional state: Attention is disturbed during emotional state. It also

affects our perception. For example, when a person is highly excited due to
fear, he may not listen or understand what others say.

e. Habits: Our attention is diverted automatically towards the things to

which we are habituated. For example, a smoker remembers smoking even
if he is otherwise busy in some work. A person habituated to take food at a
particular time remembers food at correct time. Attention of a nurse is
automatically diverted towards a serious patient.

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Varieties of attention

Sustained attention: When a task requires attentional persistence over a relatively long
time, it is said to demand sustained attention. Some types of sustained attention
require high levels of vigilance, but few responses. Vigilance, is defined as the ability
to maintain concentrated attention over prolonged periods of time and the person
attempts to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus. The
classic example is of radar operators in wartime looking at their radar screens for
missiles launched by the enemy. Similarly, a building guard may spend an entire night
watching for intruders, although none may appear.

Fluctuation and shifts of attention: Fluctuation of attention is another phenomenon of

attention. This refers to the length of lime an individual can continuously focus his
attention to a single object. Attention is not steady or concentrated throughout. At one
lime an object comes into focus at another time it goes out in the fringe. For example,
if we give our attention to a very mild stimulus say, ticking of a timepiece heard from
a distance the ticking sound or the light may appear for a moment into our attention
and at the next moment, it may pass out of attention. This is what we call 'fluctuation
of attention'. In other words, fluctuation is 'waxing and waning' of attention in which
at one moment the attended object or stimulus comes within one's attention, while at
another moment it disappears. Thus the same object is sometimes attended to while at
another moment it becomes out of attention.

Closely related to fluctuation is shift of attention. In shift of attention, our attention

passes from one stimulus to another stimulus or from one aspect of the stimulus to
another aspect of the stimulus.

Selective attention: This concerns our ability to select one stimulus from a number of
stimuli. It is the process by which some informational elements are given priority over
others. When we listen to the radio for a particular song, we exhibit selective
attention. Even if we do not have an a priori basis for selection, our attention is
directed by events in our environmental frame. If while driving we see a police car's
flashing light in the distance, our attention is likely to be pulled to the spatial location
of that stimulus.

The task that is used to study selective attention is dichotic listening task. Broadbent
(1954) used the dichotic listening task in which two different messages are presented
simultaneously to the two ears and found that people made fewer mistakes while
repeating according to ear rather than according to order.

Divided attention: Divided attention concerns our ability to ‘multitask', i.e. whether
we can attend to more than one task at a time. A teenager who does homework while

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watching television is engaging in divided attention. Divided attention is difficult
because of interference created by the competing stimuli. Although evidence now
suggests that people have some capacity for simultaneous divided attention, this
capacity is fairly limited. As the number of simultaneous information sources
increase, attentional performance declines markedly when the task requirements are
demanding. Eysenck and Keane (1995) identify three factors which affect the
performance of dual tasks (DT).

1. Task Difficulty: the more difficult the tasks, less successful the Dual
Task performance

2. Task Practice: Practice leads to improved performance on DT. Spelke

et al. (1976) have found that, with practice, participants can greatly
improve their dual-task performance (e.g., dictation and reading for
comprehension).

3. Task Similarity: Dissimilar tasks are easier, because they use different
resources

The quality of performance on multiple simultaneous tasks depends on how automatic

the tasks are. For instance, some typists are able to talk or carry on with other
activities while they type. In such cases, typing ability has become very
"automatized," meaning that it can often be performed with limited overt or conscious
awareness and with little demand on cognitive resources other than those required for
the sensory, perceptual, and motoric aspects of the task. The distinction between
automatic and controlled processes (Schneider and Shiffrin, 1977) was the subject of
much research since the late 1970s. Automatic processes are fast and do not require
attention for their execution while controlled processes are voluntary, require
attention, and are relatively slow.

‘Automatization’ or ‘Proceduralization’ is the process by which the procedure changes

from being highly conscious to being relatively automatic. Two explanations have
been suggested ‘Integrated components theory’ and ‘Instance Theory’. According to
‘integrated components theory’ by Anderson (1983) practice leads to integration; less
and less attention is needed. People integrate various discrete steps into a single
operation. According to ‘Instance Theory’ by Logan (1988) automatization occurs
because we gradually accumulate knowledge specific responses to specific stimuli.
We the retrieve from memory specific answers, skipping the procedure; thus less
attention is needed.

THEORIES OF ATTENTION
(Selective and Divided attention)

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 AUDITORY ATTENTION
Interest in auditory attention was sparked following Cherry’s (1953) research into the
cocktail party effect. This is the problem of how we can follow what one person is
saying when there are several people speaking in the same room. If you tape recorded
the sound it would be hard to pick out individual conversations in the recording, but
when you are there in person you can filter out some of the conversations while
listening to others. In fact you can even switch when you are suddenly aware of
something interesting in a conversation that you are not listening to. To investigate
this phenomenon experimentally,

Cherry devised the shadowing (dichotic listening) task. In this task, different
messages were presented to the left and right ears, and participants were asked to
‘shadow’ (repeat out loud) the message presented to one of the ears. Cherry found that
people had very little memory for the meaning of the unattended message in the non-
shadowed ear. Listeners even failed to notice when the unattended message was in a
foreign language, or in reversed speech. Participants in such experiments have even
failed to notice when words in the unattended message were repeated 35 times
(Moray, 1959). However, physical characteristics of the unattended message, such as
the sex of the speaker, could almost always be remembered.

Various theories of auditory attention have been proposed to explain these and
subsequent findings. Two kinds of theory can be distinguished:

1) Selection theories: Early selection and late selection theories

2) Capacity theories: single capacity and multiple theories of attention

Selection theories are able to explain selective attention better while capacity
theories are able to explain divided attention better.

Selection theories
Attention cannot be focused on more than one thing at a time. It has a limited
capacity. Thus attention has a ‘bottleneck’ that limits the amount of information to be
attended to. The questions that arose were

1) When do we select what we will attend to and what we will ignore (i.e. when
does the bottleneck occur)

2) To what extent do we process information about the unattended message?

Two types of selection theories exist to explain the selection of attention:

 Early selection theories: According to the early selection model, attention is

selected early in the processing stages that is even before meaning of the input
is analyze. These include Broadbent’s and Treisman’s theory.

 Late selection theories: According to the late selection model, attention occurs
only once meaning of the input has been analyzed.

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Most of the studies done in the area use the dichotic listening task:

Experience the dichotic listening task through the following video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzWfRpyVQ18

Broadbent’s Filter model: This theory is often referred to as a bottleneck theory of

attention. According to this theory the reason why people have problems performing
two or more tasks at the same time is because somewhere in the system there exists a
bottleneck where it filters out information not selected for further processing.

Broadbent’s theory (1958) tried to explain the ‘cocktail party phenomenon’ studied by
Cherry. The cocktail party effect refers to the ability of people to focus on a single
conversation in a noisy environment. For example, if you are talking to a friend at a
noisy party, you are able to listen and understand what they are talking about – and
ignore what other people nearby are saying. Cherry (1953) also carried out studies
using the shadowing task, in which one-auditory message had to be shadowed
(repeated back aloud) while a secondary auditory message was presented to the other
ear. Very little information seemed to be processed from the secondary or unattended
message. Listeners rarely noticed when that message was spoken in a foreign
language or in reversed speech. In contrast, physical changes (e.g., the insertion of a
pure tone) were usually detected, and listeners noticed the speaker's sex. He
concluded that unattended auditory information receives minimal processing.

Classic experiment by Broadbent (using dichotic listening task)

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Classic studies of auditory attention use a shadowing paradigm (an experimental task
in which participants must pay attention or shadow sounds in one ear but ignore the
other). Participants wear headphones and their task is to repeat what they hear.
Simple, you say. But psychologists make things harder by presenting different
messages to each ear (called the dichotic listening task).

Broadbent (1954): Broadbent used the dichotic listening task (i.e. two different
messages presented simultaneously to the two ears). 3 pairs of digits were presented.
One member of each pair arrived at one ear at the same time that the other member of
the pair arrived at the other ear. (like listening to TV & radio at same time)

Stimulus presentation

ear #1 ear#2
1 5
4 2
7 3

Responses

condition 1: recall by ear (ear by ear): "147-523"

condition 2: recall in order (pair by pair): "15, 42, 73"

Broadbent's Results:

Participants perform better ear-by-ear

Conclusion:
Attention can only be focused on one 'channel' of information at a time (i.e. ear or any
other physical characteristic) and switching 'channels' is difficult.

Broadbent tried to explain the above findings through his filter model and conducted a
series of experiments to support this model. Broadbent’s model has two stages:

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1) Sensory store or sensory buffer: All messages are first stored here for a short
period before they are attended to. Although capacity of the system is large but
the information is stored here for a very short period of time. Also sensory
memory operates at a ‘pre-categorical level’ i.e. at a level prior to the stage at
which the stimulus is identified.

2) Limited capacity Channel and Selective Filter: If two items arrive simultaneously
in the sensory store then both will not be allowed in the limited capacity channel
as it has limited capacity. The selective filter will allow only selective information
to be passes on to the limited capacity channel. This analysis by the filter is based
at the level of physical attributes of (pitch, color, orientation, etc.). For e.g. the
filter says select the red items, select the loudest items, etc Items that are selected
by the filter are passed on to the limited capacity channel based on these physical
characteristics:

 Stimuli that are filtered out (unattended messages) do not reach semantic
identification (i.e. the meaning of the words is not identified).

 Stimuli that pass through the filter (attended messages) into the limited
capacity channel and processed further, to the point of semantic
identification.

In addition, it is also assumed the filter can switch between different selection
criteria but that such switches take time.

Example

Assume you are standing in a group of friends and high-pitched Janet is standing to
your right and low-pitched John to your left and both are talking at the same time.
There are two obvious physical things that differ between Janet and John; namely, the
speakers are standing in different positions and their voices have different acoustic
properties. So in attending to Janet, the filter could latch onto either a location cue
(listen to the right) or an acoustic cue (listen to high pitched voice). Switching between
the conversations means switching the filter from either right to left or from high pitch
to low pitch. The point is that you will not be able to process the two conversations at
once because the filter can only follow one physical cue at once.

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 This is therefore an early selection model as what will be attended to is decided
early in the processing stage i.e. even before the word has been identified.

Criticisms:

1) Moray's experiments (1959) used the shadowing technique (S is instructed to speak

aloud the message in the attended ear) and found that important information
such as one’s name was retained from the unshadowed ear.

2) Gray and Wedderburn (1960) used the used the dichotic listening task in their study
“Dear Aunt Jane” task. The subjects were required to recall material from L ear but
they recalled Dear Aunt by switching attention from ear to ear. According to
Broadbent the unattended ear should have been completely blocked off but the study
indicated that some material from unattended ear is also recalled.

L ear R ear

Dear 3

5 Aunt

Jane 4

Ss have to recall material from L ear but they recall Dear Aunt Jane

Treisman’s attenuation model (1964): Anne Treisman proposed Attenuation theory

as a means to explain how unattended stimuli sometimes came to be processed in a
more rigorous manner than what Broadbent’s Filter model could account for and as
suggested by the experiments of Gray and Wedderburn (1960) as well. In order to
explain the results of Gray and Wedderburn (1960), Treisman developed the
‘attenuation model’. Treisman's model partly follows Broadbent's.

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 1. Selective filter: Treisman agrees with Broadbent that there is a selective filter
where one channel is selected on the basis of its physical features.

2. Attenuator: However, Treisman suggests that unattended messages are not

blocked off entirely, but instead are attenuated. This means that the
information those channels carry is only passed on in a weakened form.
Imagine the various input channels as radios, broadcasting different
programmes. In the attenuation process, one of them is turned right up and all
the rest are turned down so they are just a low background murmur. In figure
the selected channel is represented by the heavier arrow going from the
selective filter to the next stage in the system, while the attenuated channels
are shown by the arrows with thinner lines.

3. Mental Dictionary: The information then goes to the mental dictionary, where
the messages are analysed in terms of their meaning. If the meaning of the
word is above a ‘threshold’ then it will be be attended to and identified. For
some words, such as our own name, this threshold is very low. This means that
even if this information is carried on an attenuated channel, the words will be
attended to. If we are hungry then words associated with food will temporarily
have a low threshold.

Thus, Treisman’s model claims that instead of a filter which completely blocked
unattended inputs from ever entering awareness, it was a process of attenuation. The
attenuation of unattended stimulus would make it difficult, but not impossible to
extract meaning from irrelevant inputs, so long as it possessed sufficient “ strength”.

Support: Consistent with the notion of early selection was evidence that subjects arc
unable to report almost anything about the properties and content of the ignored
stimulus. Subjects could report some physical features of the unattended message; for
example, whether it was a male or a female voice and they noticed if the feature
changed while they were shadowing the attended message. However, they did not
notice if the message started, for example, in English and then switched to German.

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Criticisms: It has been criticized for lack of clarity. What is attenuated processing is
not very clear.

Late selection model: Deutsch and Deutsch’s pertinence model (1963): This model
was called a late selection model because it claimed that all information (attended and
unattended) is analysed for meaning (hence bottleneck comes very late in processing)
before it being attended to.

Deutsch and Deutsch (1963), suggested that no filtering or attenuation takes place.
Instead all inputs are analysed semantically and identified in the short term memory.
They are assessed in terms of whether they are pertinent or not. If they are pertinent
then they are attended to while irrelevant information is very quickly lost from the
short term memory. “Pertinence" refers to the relevance to the current context and task
demands. This can explain why a participant's name is frequently able to draw his or
her attention when presented in the unattended channel. Such highly relevant and
personal information as one's own name is always highly pertinent.

There is some support for the pertinence model from research that shows that
information in an "unattended' message is processed and analysed (Mackay, 1973).

Phases of experiment (MacKay, 1973): (Task used was dichotic listening task)

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  Attended ear is presented with ambiguous sentence: "They were throwing
stones at the bank," {In this example, "bank" can refer to a riverbank or to a
financial institution.)

 Unattended ear presented with biasing words. One group was given the
biasing word "river" while the other group was given the word "money" in the
unattended ear.

 Choice test: Participants had to choose between two sentences depending upon
which sentence was closest in meaning to one of the sentences they had heard
in the attended ear:

1) They threw stones toward the side of the river yesterday.

2) They threw stones at the loan association yesterday.

Results: MacKay found that the meaning of the biasing word had affected the
participants' choice. For example, if the biasing word in the unattended ear was
"money," participants were more likely to pick the second sentence. This occurred
even though participants reported that they were unaware of the biasing words that
were presented to the unattended ear.

Interpretation: Because the meaning of the unattended word ("money") was affecting
the participant's judgment, this word must have been processed to the level of
meaning.

Criticism: If it is all analysed then why do participants find it impossible to recall any
semantic content? Norman (1969) has suggested that this is because the information is
stored in short-term memory and is forgotten very quickly. He found that participants
could remember the last few words of an unattended message if asked to recall them
immediately after the message ended.

However, there are a number of other problems with the pertinence model. As Solso
(1979) points out, this model is uneconomical. It suggests that all information is
analysed for meaning, yet most of it would not be required or used. In addition, if all
incoming information is analysed then we would need a very large processing
capacity.

Most of the experimental evidence discussed so far indicates that information in the
unattended car is processed to some degree. Both

Early vs Late selection model: which is correct? According to the early-selection

view, only the physical characteristics of the message are processed before selection
occurs. According to the late-selection view, both the physical characteristics and the
meaning are processed before selection occurs. Because there is evidence to support
both views, how can we choose between them? Experiments show that during highly
demanding tasks, people filter out unwanted information as early as possible. For
example, when driving along and having a conversation, the talking stops when you

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reach a busy junction: the attentional filter prevents distraction for a more demanding
task. During easier tasks, however, you can employ late selection.

Capacity Theories

These theories are more applicable to explain divided attention. They state that people
have a certain capacity of attentional resources that they can choose to allocate
according to what the task requires. Two types of theories:

 Central capacity theories (Kahneman, 1973)
 Multiple resource theories. (Wickens)

The capacity approach conceives of attention as ‘mental effort’ or in terms of ‘fuel’ in

a tank which is limited in nature.
For instance, try to solve these two arithmetic problems in your head:
a. 6 X 6 = ?
b. 32 x 12 = ?
Clearly, problem b demands more mental effort, that is, you need more capacity for
carrying out the task.

Central capacity theory: Kahneman (1973) proposed that attention is limited in

overall capacity and that our ability to carry out simultaneous tasks depends, in part,
on how much capacity the tasks require. According to Kahneman, 1973 individuals
have a central processor with limited capacity. Whether two tasks can be done at the
same time or not depends on the attention resources they demand. A simple task
requires fewer resources while a complex task requires more resources.

In the dichotic listening task presented earlier, the degree to which the secondary,
unattended channel is processed will depend on how much of the limited supply of
attention is required to shadow the primary channel. Because the shadowing task is
highly demanding for most people, little, if any, capacity is left. If more capacity were
available for allocation to the secondary channel, then the results would show a
greater degree of processing. In principle, then, the results that seemed to support
early or late selection could reflect the degree of capacity allocated to the secondary
channel in shadowing tasks.

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Three “rules” people use to allocate available attention resources when performing
multiple tasks
1) Arousal and available capacity: Maximum capacity is available
when the arousal is optimal.
2) Enduring dispositions: An automatic influence where people
direct their attention based on personality, habits or long-term
goals.
3) Momentary intentions: Conscious decision to allocate attention
to certain tasks depending upon the immediate relevance of the
stimulus, our moods, the context, and so on.

Multiple resource theories (Wickens, 2002): Multiple resource theories argue that 

attention should not be conceptualised as a single resource but that several attentional 
mechanisms exist, each with limited resources and each specific to a component of 
skill. There are two key assumptions in this model:

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1. There are several pools of resources that can be distinguished:

 Modalities of input and output: Information reaches us through modalities,

like auditory and visual information. Audio and visual modalities are believed
to draw upon separate pools of resources. While the original model accounted
for only audio and visual modalities, evidence suggests that other modalities,
such as tactile input, have their own distinct resource pools
 Codes: The information is then coded as verbal or spatial which draw upon
separate pools; speech and text illustrate verbal codes, whereas pictures and
diagrams illustrate spatial codes.
 Processing Stage: Once the information is coded, it is then processed. We may
be perceiving (recognizing) it, making a decision with (cognition), or
responding to the information. Even though the perception and cognition
stages are distinct entities, they are thought to share the same pool of resources
(Wickens C. D., 2002).

2. If two tasks make use of different pools of resources, then people should be able to
perform both tasks without disruption. For instance, attending simultaneously to
speech and pictures (verbal and spatial codes) should be more manageable than
processing two channels of speech (only verbal).

Evaluation
 There is support for the notion that the amount of dual-task interference
depends on the extent to which two tasks share common processing resources.
 However, there is often some disruption to performance even when two tasks
make use of separate pools of resources. This may occur when two tasks make
demands on some central capacity which is more general than the processing
resources identified by Wickens (1984).

Conclusions: There appears to be a grain of truth associated with all of the theoretical
approaches (central capacity theories, bottleneck theory, multiple-resource model).
This suggests that it might be useful to combine elements of these theories.

VISUAL ATTENTION

1. Space-based attention – spotlight and zoom lens theory:

Attention as a Spotlight: Posner (1980) states that visual attention can be likened
to a spotlight or a torchlight (with a fixed aperture). Everything within a fairly
small region of the attentional spotlight can be seen clearly, but it is much
harder to see anything not falling within the beam of the attentional spotlight.
Attention can be shifted by moving the spotlight, and the simplest assumption is
that the attentional spotlight moves at a constant rate. It has also been argued
that although eye direction normally coincides with where our attentional
spotlight is directed; our attentional spotlight can move without the eyes (as
when we look through the ‘corner of our eyes’) . So, knowing where someone

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 fixates does not tell us where they are attending as attentional spotlight can be
somewhere else. This ability to attend to a location without making an eye
movement is called covert attentional orienting.

According to the multiple spotlights theory, visual attention can be split

between two or more non-adjacent regions in space. Split attention saves
processing resources because irrelevant intervening regions are unattended.

Attention as a Zoom Lens: According to their zoom-lens model, attention is

directed to a given region of the visual field. However, the area of focal
attention can be increased or decreased in line with the demands of the task.
When we are trying to find a friend in a crowd we scan the environment by
having a wide aperture and zooming out. Once you think you have spotted
your friend you could then zoom into that area and process the details in order
to confirm her identity
2. Object-based attention Attention does not have to be space based.
Visual attention can be spatial or object-based. Spatial attention refers to our
tendency to focus on a region in space. Object-based attention refers to our
tendency to isolate and attend to specific elements of the visual scene.
Attentional capture occurs when one's attention is involuntarily drawn to some
salient stimulus.

Selection Attention in Vision: Feature integration Theory (Gelade and Treisman,

1980): Some theories of selective attention specifically aim to explain
performance on visual search tasks. During a visual search a person uses cues
like color, shape, and size to distinguish objects from one another. .

You are in a crowded shopping mall and you are searching for your
friend. You know she can't be far. She has brown hair and glasses, but
many other people have brown hair or glasses. Finally you remember
that she is wearing a hot pink jacket. Voila - there she is. It's as if that hot
pink jacket has just popped right out from the crowd.

In this example, you just witnessed two types of attention at work. The first type of
attention required you to search more carefully, person by person. The second type of
attention allowed you to scan the crowd all at once, requiring no effort at all. What you
were looking for the second time (the hot pink jacket) popped right out at you.

Now, see if you can find the L among the O distractors It's as though the L just pops
right out of all of the O's.This is like searching for your friend's hot pink jacket in the
crowded mall. It really shouldn't matter how many other people are in the mall so
long as your friend is one of the only ones wearing a hot pink jacket. Why is that?

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The theory suggests that people perceive objects in two stages:

 Stage 1 – This is especially done in situations where the object stands out
among other objects, such as a circle among squares. Here we are searching
for a single feature (circle) for anything in our environment. A parallel search
takes place here which means all items can be searched at once and the target
just seems to pop out. The object is perceived automatically/preattentively.
 Stage 2 – This is especially done in situations where the object does not instantly
stand out among other objects. However, when we need to search for a
combination of features, like both your friend's glasses and her brown hair.
Attention here is more controlled, deliberate and slow. Controlled processing
enables people to “glue” the separate individual features into a unified object.

Thus, Feature integration theory proposes a two-stage process in which a parallel

search of features is followed by a serial, attention-demanding combination of
features.

Phenomenon related to visual attention: Seeing without Awareness

Blindsight: Is it possible to see something without knowing you can see it? But what
about seeing something when you think you are totally blind? TN was totally blind as
his primary visual cortex, (responsible for processing the visual information that goes
on to form our conscious sight) had been damaged. His eyes however were perfectly
healthy. In 2008 Weiskrantz and his team persuaded him to put away his white cane
and walk down a corridor which he was not familiar with. They told him it was
empty. Amazingly he could move in the room avoiding the objects. He was moving as
if he had sight although he had none. The participant claimed that not only was he not
aware of having seen anything; he was not even aware of having moved out of the
way of the objects. Weiskrantz coined the word "blindsight," to describe this
phenomenon. Blindsight apparently relies on primitive brain areas that bypass those
required for conscious attention. Thus blindsight experiments were able to distinguish
between conscious

See the following video for a patient exhibiting blindsight

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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/blindsight-seeing-without-knowing-
it/

Attentional blink: Attentional Blink is the phenomenon that the second of two targets

cannot be detected or identified when it appears close in time to the first (about half a
second). When an event occurs, the brain needs time to process it before it can move
on to the next event. If a second event occurs during this critical processing time, it
will simply be missed. This shows that we have limited resources for paying attention.

This phenomenon can also influence how you experience events in the real world. For
example, imagine that you are driving your car down a busy road when you notice
that a car in front of you is starting to drift into the other lane. As you focus on the
scene down the road in front of you, your attention becomes briefly focused on the
other car, which then limits your ability to attend to other traffic events happening in
front of you for about half a second. While that half­second period might seem very
small, critical things can happen that can affect your safety. A deer might leap out into
the road. The car in front of you might slam on its brakes. You might even start to
drift   slightly   into   the   other   lane.  The   attentional   blink   might   be   tiny,   but   it   can
certainly have serious consequences in real­world settings.

Inattentional blindness (i.e. blindness caused by not attending): ‘Inattentional blindness’
is the failure to notice a fully-visible, but unexpected object because the attention is
engaged in another task. Simons and Chabris (1999) conducted classical experiments
in which observers watch a game of ball-passing with the task to count the number of
passes. During the game someone, dressed up as a gorilla, walks on the playing field.
Despite being highly visible; 50% of the observers fail to notice the gorilla.
Inattentional blindness happens because we don't have enough brainpower to pay
attention to everything in our view.

Please see the following video for inattentional blindness.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind­games/201307/inattentional­blindness­and­
video­games

Applications of attention:

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Understanding disorders: One disorder that has been studied is Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Symptoms include inattention, hyperactivity, and
impulsivity. Not everyone who is overly hyperactive, inattentive, or impulsive has
ADHD. Behaviour must be demonstrated to a degree that is inappropriate for the
person's age Research into ADHD has developed drugs, most notably Ritalin, which
is successful in many cases

Applications of Divided attention: One area where attentional theory is being applied
is multitasking while driving. In the increasingly complex world that we live in,
multitasking is just one of the ways in which we try to make optimal use of our time.
The use of cellular phones while driving is a phenomenon that is common worldwide.
There is ample evidence (both anecdotal as well as empirical) to show that cell phone
usage interferes with driving. Studies indicate that cell-phone conversation can lead to
‘inattentional-blindness’ (Mack and Rock, 1998). It is the failure to notice a fully-
visible, but unexpected object because attention was engaged on another task such as
talking on the phone. This can lead to a large number of accidents.

Applications of Sustained attention and Vigilance: Maintaining sustained attention is

important in many day to day activities. Screening of baggage at airports, driving,
monitoring at security check points and watching radar are only a few tasks that
require sustained attention. Many studies are being done in the area as to how to
increase sustained attention and vigilance and reduce errors.

Advertising and media: A lot of research has been applied to how advertisements can
be devised to capture the attention of consumers. For e.g. a black and white may
capture the attention in a coloured magazine because of its novelty.

Psychology of magic: Although eye direction normally coincides with where attention is
directed; our attention can move without the eyes. This is a fact oft-used by magicians.
An example of this can be found in the Vanishing Ball Illusion. At the last toss, the
magician does not actually release the ball from his or her hand. Crucially, however,
the magician’s gaze follows the trajectory the ball would have made had it been
tossed. The magician’s eye and head movement serves as a subtle social cue that
(falsely) suggests a trajectory the audience then also expects. A recent
study examining what factors produced this effect suggests that the miscuing of the
attentional spotlight is the primary factor, and not the motion of the eyes. In fact, the
eyes aren’t fooled by this trick—they don’t follow the illusory trajectory!
Interestingly, comedy is also an important tool used by magicians to manipulate
attention in time. In addition to adding to the entertainment value of the show, bouts
of laughter can diffuse attention at critical time points.

Meditation and attention: Meditation is an ancient art, but only recently have
psychologists started to try to understand how it works and what it does. Two main
types of meditation exist:

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  Focused attention meditation: You focus on a particular thing and try to avoid
distractions.
 Open monitoring (OM) meditation: You monitor your own conscious state.

One study shows that those who practice OM meditation avoid being distracted by
irrelevant stimuli in experimental tasks. Another study comparing highly experienced
Tibetan Buddhist meditators with novices found differences in the electrical activity
in their brains - both in location and type of electrical waveform. This difference was
present even when they weren't meditating, suggesting a longer-term effect on the
organization of their mental activity.

Reducing Accidents: A large number of aviation disasters are the result of human
factors. Sharma and Malik (2002) have pointed out that between 1990 and 2000,
Indian Air Force has lost 23 aircrafts due to human error accidents involving
helicopters and fixed wing transport aircraft, and that inattention contributed to 6 out
of the 23 accidents. In one such case, all aircrew were engrossed in maintaining the
direction while ignoring their vertical position in spite of repeated warnings by the
GPWS.

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