Kellogg c3 Fall2013
Kellogg c3 Fall2013
Kellogg c3 Fall2013
COGNITION
Kellogg Chapter 3
ATTENTION
Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology
(Kellogg)
“Only in the last 100 years has it been realized that human cognition could be the subject of
scientific study rather than philosophical speculation" (Anderson, 1995).
Fall 2013
Cognition
• The collection of mental processes and activities
used in perceiving, learning, remembering,
thinking, understanding, and the act of using
those processes.
Wolfgang Kohler looked at the sudden solution that followed the quiet time
"insight" and concluded that it was a typical property of problem solving.
Frederick Bartlett was known for his study of memory. He placed his emphasis
on studies under natural conditions. Therefore, he rejected laboratory
research. He felt that past experiences helped reconstruct the material able
to be retrieved. He focused on information that was remembered and "
misremembered". He saw memory as an active and often inaccurate
process.
David Rumelhart & James McClelland argued that information processing happens
simultaneously (parallel) as opposed to serially (one at a time). Their Parallel
Distributed Processing (PDP) Models suggest that many simple processing
units are responsible for sending excitatory and inhibitory signals to other units.
By understanding these basic features, they believe that complex system can be
explained. The idea that processing involves interconnected elements and the
reference to neural models, makes up their Connectionist Theory. (also see
Newell).
• Conscious/Unconscious
• Attended/Unattended (no longer direct linkage – some
active attentional processing occurs without conscious
awareness)
• Aware/Unaware
• Direct/Indirect Measures…
Late Selection Models (Norman, 1968) assume that all information gets
into Short Term Memory but that information which isn't attended to is
rapidly forgotten (within a fraction of a second). They are called Late
Selection Models because the selection doesn't occur until fairly late in
the process, when information is already in Short Term Memory.
Early Selection models treat Short Term Memory as a small box into
which only a few (7 +/- 2) items can fit. Attention picks items to go into
that small box.
Late selection models treat Short Term Memory as large box into which
many items can fit but in which items disappear quite rapidly unless
they are attended to.
Kellogg Chapter 3 Van Selst / Cognition
Attention
Kellogg Chapter 3 Van Selst / Cognition
Attention
Capacity Theories
150
100
50
0
1 2 3
Number of Incoming Messages
d(meaning) d(physical) d(both)
Kellogg Chapter 3 Van Selst / Cognition
Attention
Multiple Resources
Consciousness
one’s awareness of stimuli and events inside and
outside of one’s self;
An awareness of the sensations, thoughts, &
feelings that one is attending to at a given
moment;
Minimally Conscious
Minimally
Conscious State Vegetative
Persistent Vegetative
Van Selst State
(Winter 2009)
Wakefulness &
Awareness
Subliminal?
Cards down the hall until “cannot identify it” subjectively; but is this truly
“unconscious” despite subjective reports that there is no “conscious” experience of
identification.
“nulling consciousness”: required if you are to claim that all information presented is
available ONLY to the unconscious (this is a MAJOR problem for “absolute
threshold” of consciousness type arguments (e.g., “subliminal perception” is
perception below the threshold of consciousness – and thus we should be unaware
of it at ANY conscious level).
Processes in opposition:
place “conscious” knowledge such that it operates in the opposite direction as the
“unconscious” knowledge. For instance, when completing a STEM-COMPLETION
task (e.g., D _ _ K), the instruction to include items from the previous memory list
versus instructions to exclude the items from the previous memory lists.
Unconscious Influence?
AWARE UNAWARE
CONSCIOUS UNCONSCIOUS
EXPLICIT IMPLICIT
ATTENDED UNATTENDED
Consciousness
Selective attention
• Ability to focus awareness on a single stimulus to the
exclusion of other stimuli.
• Ability to focus awareness on specific features in the
environment while ignoring others (text)
Dichotic listening task (analogy)
• Unable to follow/remember competing conversation.
Cocktail party effect
• Ability to attend selectively to one person’s speech among
competing conversations but highly relevant stimuli still detected
CONTROLLED AUTOMATIC
• With intent (only) • without intention
• Aware (Conscious) • Not open to awareness
• Attention demanding • Low attentional requirement
• Slow (1 second +) • Rapid
• Characteristic of novel or • Characteristic of familiar
unpracticed tasks with and highly practiced tasks
many variable features (automaticity develops with
• Requires analysis or practice – e.g., Bryan &
synthesis of information Harter, 1899 [telegraph
• Usually difficult tasks operators])
• Minimal analysis or
synthesis of information
• Typically fairly easy tasks
• Errors….
Kellogg Chapter 3 Van Selst / Cognition
Attention
Errors
Mistakes: errors in choosing an objective or specifying the means to
achieve the objective (intentional, controlled processes)
Slips: errors in carrying out intended actions (often involve automatic
processing)
Types of slips
Capture error: failure to depart from automatic routine
Omission: interruption in routine leads to skipping one or more steps on
resumption
Perseveration: repeating an already completed process
Description: correct action on the wrong object (due to internal
description of intended action)
Data-Driven error: incoming sensory input overrides intended action
(e.g., dialing numbers heard in the environment rather than intended
phone number)
Associative-Activation error: strong associations lead to wrong
automatic behavior (e.g., wrong name, “come in” to doorbell, etc.)
Loss-of-activation error: “what am I doing here after entering a room”…
Kellogg Chapter 3 Van Selst / Cognition
Attention
Neurological Evidence
(visual attention)
• Demonstrable “fine-tuning” of visual receptive
fields (neural responses) occur via the thalamus
(specifically the Pulvinar Thalamic Nucleus)
www.calstate.edu
www.sjsu.edu/psych