Chapter 4: Attention

Notes
Attention
the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations
 selective attention
attending to one thing while ignoring others
distraction
one stimulus interfering with the processing of another stimulus
divided attention
paying attention to more than one thing at a time
attentional capture
a rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light,
or sudden movement
visual scanning
movements of the eyes from one location or object to another

ATTENTION AS INFORMATION PROCESSING

Broadbent's Filter Model of Attention
was designed to explain the results of an experiment done by Colin Cherry
studied the technique of dichotic listening
where dichotic refers to presenting different stimuli to the left and right ears
shadowing
repeating the words as they are heard
cocktail party effect
The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli

Information passes through the following stages

sensory memory
holds all of the incoming information for a fraction of a second and then transfers
all of it to the filter
filter
identifies the message that is being attended to based on its physical characteristics
—things like the speaker’s tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, and accent—and
lets only this attended message pass through to the detector in the next stage. All
of the other messages are filtered out
detector
 processes the information from the attended message to determine higher-level
characteristics of the message, such as its meaning. Because only the important,
attended information has been let through the filter, the detector processes all of
the information that enters it
short-term memory
output of the detector which holds information for 10–15 seconds and also
transfers information into long-term memory, which can hold information
indefinitely

Modifying Broadbent's Model: More Early Selection Models

because of the results Anne Treisman (1964) proposed a modification of Broadbent’s model
 attenuator
analyzes the incoming message in terms of
(1) physical characteristics— whether it is high-pitched or low-pitched, fast or slow
(2) its language—how the message groups into syllables or words
(3) its meaning—how sequences of words create meaningful phrases
in Treisman’s attenuation model of attention, language and meaning can also be used to
separate the messages.
dictionary unit
contains words, stored in memory, each of which has a threshold for being activated
A threshold is the smallest signal strength that can barely be detected
words that are common or especially important, such as the listener’s name,
have low thresholds, so even a weak signal in the unattended channel can
activate that word
Uncommon words or words that are unimportant to the listener have higher
thresholds, so it takes the strong signal of the attended message to activate
these words
Treisman’s is called an early selection model because it proposes a filter that operates at an
early stage in the flow of information. Other models propose that selection can occur later

A Late Selection Model

proposed that most of the incoming information is processed to the level of meaning before
the message to be further processed is selected

PROCESSING CAPACITY AND PERCEPTUAL LOAD

How do people ignore distracting stimuli when they are trying to focus their attention on a task?
processing capacity
which refers to the amount of information people can handle and sets a limit on their
ability to process incoming information
perceptual load
 which is related to the difficulty of a task
low-load tasks
easy tasks use up only a small amount of the person’s processing capacity
high-load tasks
difficult tasks and use more of a person’s processing capacity

DIRECTING ATTENTION BY SCANNING A SCENE

Scanning a Scene With Eye Movements
 Scanning is necessary because good detail vision occurs only for things you are looking at
directly
Central Vision
is the area you are looking at
Because of the way the retina is constructed, objects in central vision fall on a small area
called the fovea, which has much better detail vision than the peripheral retina, on which
the rest of the scene falls
Peripheral Vision
is everything off to the side
fixation
Each time you briefly paused on one face or on a particular object or word
saccadic eye movement
a rapid, jerky movement from one fixation to the next
overt attention
Shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes
shifting attention by moving our eyes enables us to see places of interest more clearly
it places the things we’re interested in front-and-center where they are easy to see

two factors that determine how people shift their attention by moving their eyes:
bottom-up
based primarily on physical characteristics of the stimulus
top-down
based on cognitive factors such as the observer’s knowledge about scenes and past
experiences with specific stimuli

Scanning Based on Stimulus Salience

 attention can be influenced by stimulus salience
the physical properties of the stimulus, such as color, contrast, or movement
Capturing attention by stimulus salience is a bottom-up process because it depends solely
on the pattern of light and dark, color and contrast in a stimulus
saliency map
combining physical characteristics or values of a scene

Scanning Based on Cognitive Factors

top-down processing
scanning is influenced by preferences a person brings to the situation
Top-down processing also comes into play when scanning is influenced by scene schemas
an observer’s knowledge about what is contained in typical scenes
People look longer at things that seem out of place in a scene because their attention
is affected by their knowledge of what is usually found in the scene
 knowledge of various characteristics of the environment can influence how people direct their
attention

Scanning Based on Demand Tasks

the person’s eye movements were determined primarily by the task

The person fixated on few objects or areas that were irrelevant to the task, and eye movements
and fixations were closely linked to the action the person was about to take
the eye movement usually preceded a motor action by a fraction of a second, as when the
person first fixated on the peanut butter jar and then reached over to pick it up
"just in time" strategy
 eye movements occur just before we need the information they will provide
The examples we have described in connection with scanning based on cognitive factors and task
demands have something in common: They all provide evidence that scanning is influenced by
people’s predictions. Scanning anticipates what a person is going to do next as they make a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich; scanning anticipates that stop signs are most likely to be located at
intersections; and pausing scanning to look longer at an unexpected object occurs when a person’s
expectations are violated, as when a printer unexpectedly appears in a kitchen.
OUTCOMES OF ATTENTION
covert attention
Shifting attention while keeping the eyes still
the attentional shift can’t be seen by observing the person
This type of attending involves shifting attention “with the mind” as you might do when
you are paying attention to something off to the side while still looking straight ahead

Attention Improves Our Ability to Respond to a Location

 Posner interpreted this result as showing that information processing is more effective at the
place where attention is directed.
attention is like a spotlight or zoom lens that improves processing when directed toward a
particular location

Attention Improves Our Ability to Respond to Others

same-object advantage
The faster responding that occurs when enhancement spreads within an object
Attention Affects Perception
many experiments have shown that attended objects are perceived to be bigger and faster, and
to be more richly colored and have better contrast than non attended objects

Attention Affects Physiological Responding

Attention to Locations Increases Activity in Specific Areas of the Brain
 By collecting brain activation data for all of the locations on the stimulus, Datta and DeYoe
created “attention maps” that show how directing attention to a specific area of space activates
a specific area of the brain

Attention Changes the Representation of Objects Across the Cortex

attentional warping
 the map of categories on the brain changes so more space is allotted to categories that are
being searched for, and this effect occurs even when the attended category isn’t present

DIVIDED ATTENTION: CAN WE ATTEND TO MORE THAN ONE THING AT A

TIME?

Divided Attention Can Be Achieved With Practice: Automatic Processing

automatic processing
a type of processing that occurs (1) without intention (it happens automatically without the
person intending to do it) and (2) at a cost of only some of a person’s cognitive resources
doing something without paying attention to it

Divided Attention Becomes More Difficult When Tasks Are Harder

if task difficulty is increased then automatic processing is not possible even with practice

DISTRACTIONS
things that direct our attention away from something we are doing
Distractions by Cell Phones while Driving

anything that distracts attention can degrade driving performance

Distractions by the Internet

 If you check your phone constantly, one explanation of your behavior involves operant
conditioning
behavior is controlled by rewards (called reinforcements) that follow behaviors
the best way to ensure that a behavior will continue is to reinforce it intermittently
continuous partial attention
Constant switching from one activity to another

Distraction Caused by Mind Wandering

thoughts coming from within—which have also been called daydreaming
mindless reading or zoned out reading
you have no idea what you’ve just read because you were thinking about something else
one example of how mind wandering decreases performance

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON'T ATTEND?

attention is a precious, but limited, resource. We can attend to some things but not to
everything.
If we are paying attention to some things in a scene, we inevitably miss other things
it is possible to be very attentive and still miss things
Inattentional Blindness
occurs when people are unaware of clearly visible stimuli if they aren’t directing their attention
to them

After seeing the video, observers were asked whether they saw anything unusual happen or
whether they saw anything other than the six players.
This experiment demonstrates that when observers are attending to one sequence of
events, they can fail to notice another event, even when it is right in front of them

Inattentional Deafness
visual search
involves scanning a scene to find a specific object
inattentional deafness
focusing on a difficult visual task results in impaired hearing
inattentional effects can occur across vision and hearing
shows how Lavie’s load theory of attention can be applied to explaining the effects of
inattention
being involved in a high-load task increases the chances of missing other stimuli

Change Detection
Researchers have also demonstrated how a lack of attention can affect perception using a
procedure called change detection
which one picture is presented followed by another picture, and the task is to determine
what the difference is between them
the sequence had to be repeated a number of times before the difference was detected. This
difficulty in detecting changes in scenes is called change blindness
continuity errors
 a lapse in the self-consistency of the scene or story being portrayed
Why does change blindness occur?
when we look at a scene in a still picture or at the ongoing action in a film, our attention is
often not directed at the place where the change occurs

What About Everyday Experience?

All of the experiments we have described—the inattentional blindness experiments, in which a
distracting task kept people from noticing a test stimulus; the inattentional deafness
experiment, in which focusing on a visual task results in impaired hearing; and the change
blindness experiments, in which small but easily visible changes in pictures are not perceived—
demonstrate that attending plays an important role in perceiving. This has implications for
perception in our everyday experience, because there are a large number of stimuli present in
the environment, and we are able to pay attention to only a small fraction of these stimuli at
any moment. This means that we are constantly missing things in the environment.
by focusing on what is important, our perceptual system is making optimal use of our limited
processing resources
our perceptual system has a warning system that responds to motion or intense stimuli, which
causes us to rapidly shift our attention to things that might signal danger
It is also important to realize that we don’t need to be aware of all the details of what is
happening around us
our perceptual systems are generally well adapted to take in the information we need to
survive, even though we can only take in a small proportion of the information out there

ATTENTION AND EXPERIENCING A COHERENT WORLD

binding
the process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to
create our perception of a coherent object
binding problem
The question of how an object’s individual features become bound together

Feature Integration Theory

 preattentive stage
occurs before we focus attention on an object
this stage is automatic, unconscious, and effortless
the features of objects are analyzed independently in separate areas of the brain and are
not yet associated with a specific object
focused attention stage
attention is focused on an object and the independent features are combined, causing the
observer to become consciously aware
At the very beginning of the process, information about each of these components exist
independently of one another, just as the letter tiles in a game of Scrabble exist as individual
units when the tiles are scattered at the beginning of the game. However, just as the individual
Scrabble tiles are combined to form words, the individual features combine to form perceptions
of whole objects.

Evidence for Feature Integration Theory

illusory conjunctions
can occur even if the stimuli differ greatly in shape and size
ex:  a small blue circle and a large green square might be seen as a large blue square
and a small green circle
illusory conjunctions occur because in the preattentive stage, each feature exists
independently of the others
they are "free floating" and can therefore be incorrectly combined if there is more than
one object
Balint's syndrome
A crucial characteristic of Balint’s syndrome is an inability to focus attention on
individual objects.
visual search
conjunction search
 Conjunction searches are useful for studying binding because finding the target in a
conjunction search involves scanning a display in order to focus attention at a specific
location

SOMETHING TO CONSIDER
Attentional Networks
Neuroimaging research has revealed that there are neural networks for attention associated
with different functions
ventral attention network
 which controls attention based on salience
dorsal attention network
which controls attention based on top-down processes

flow in attention systems changes depending on whether attention is being controlled by

stimulus salience or by top-down factors, with more flow in the ventral network for control by
salience and more in the dorsal network when flow is controlled by top-down factors
effective connectivity
refers to how easily activity can travel along a particular pathway
Different tasks don’t just shift activity from one pathway to another. They also change the
effective connectivity between different areas in a network.
executive attention network
This network is extremely complex and may involve two separate networks
responsible for executive functions
include a range of processes that involve controlling attention and dealing with
conflicting responses
Dealing with conflict in everyday life has been called a number of things, including cognitive
control, inhibitory control, and willpower.