Pay Attention Kimberley Clow kclow 2uwo ca http

Pay Attention! Kimberley Clow kclow 2@uwo. ca http: //instruct. uwo. ca/psychology/130/

Outline ¢ ¢ What is Attention? Orienting l l ¢ Selective Attention l l ¢ ¢ Dichotic Listening Tasks Bottleneck Theories Divided Attention l ¢ Cueing Attention Visual Search Capacity Model Automatic vs. Controlled Processing Visual Neglect

What Is Attention? ¢ Definition l Attention is the process by which the mind chooses from among the various stimuli that strike the senses at any given moment • allows only some info to enter into consciousness ¢ Related Concepts: Alertness l Concentration l Selectivity l Control l

Big Issues in Attention ¢ Facts that drive attention research l We are bombarded by more information than we can attend to • Selective Attention • Divided Attention • Automaticity l Some tasks can be performed with little, if any, attention

Orienting ¢ We don’t passively see or hear l ¢ We actively look and listen Different ways to orient to a stimulus Overt Orienting l Covert Orienting l ¢ Attentional Gaze l Attention can be drawn to a particular location independent of where our eyes are looking or our ears are oriented

Cuing Attention ¢ ¢ Give people a cue where a target will appear in the visual field Manipulate the kind of cue l l l ¢ Valid Cue Neutral Cue Invalid Cue How does cue affect performance?

Results ¢ Different kinds of cues are possible l Voluntary Orienting • Endogenous Cue • Arrow l Automatic Orienting • Exogenous Cue • Flashing light

Find the T

Find the Blue Letter L L L L

Find the Blue Letter L L LL L L L L L

Find the vertical T

Find the Blue L T L T T L L T L

Find the Blue L T T L L L L T TLT L T LL L L TL T L LL L T L T L L LT L L L T T

What’s Going On? 1200 Conjunction Feature 1000 800 RT 600 400 200 0 0 10 20 Number of Items 30

All Searches Are NOT Equal

A Is More Difficult Than B A B

Why Is This Important? Watch the Dial Watch for Light

Is There Trouble?

Dichotic Listening Task

Shadowing Results ¢ Physical attributes of unattended channel are detected Male vs. female voice l Human vs. musical instruments l ¢ Semantic attributes of unattended channel were missed Don’t notice foreign language l Don’t notice repeated items l

Filter Theory (Broadbent)

Cocktail Party Effect

Attenuation Model (Treisman) ¢ Present a story in dichotic listening task Story switches from attended ear to unattended ear l Participant mistakenly shadows from attended ear to unattended ear l Attended Ear: She had peanut butter you keep using that word Unattended Ear: freaking laser beams and jelly sandwiches

Problems with Early Models ¢ Memory for unattended channel may depend on familiarity or importance l ¢ ¢ There are effects of practice There is implicit memory for the unattended channel even when there isn’t explicit memory l ¢ Shock study People can shadow meaningful message that switch from ear to ear l ¢ Cocktail party effect Treisman Memory for unattended channel affected by similarity to attended channel

Context Effects ¢ Attended ear: l ¢ “They were standing near the bank” Unattended ear: l One of the following was presented • “river” • “money” ¢ Participants interpreted “bank” as a riverbank if they heard “river” l a financial bank if they heard “money” l

Late Selection (Deutsch & Deutsch)

Problems with Late Models ¢ Even if pertinence is controlled for We are more likely to notice effects in the attended channel (87%) l We are less likely to notice effects in the unattended channel (8%) l ¢ If selection is late l ¢ Why do we feel like we’re consciously selecting early? Neuro evidence l Enhanced neural processing at early stages

Early Filtering (Broadbent): Filter Input Recognition Detection Attenuation (Treisman): Attenuator Input Detection Recognition Late Filtering (Deutsch & Deutsch): Filter Input Detection Recognition

Bottleneck Theories All information gets into sensory register ¢ Somewhere along the way, information is filtered or selected for attention ¢ l Early • at perceptual level l Late • at response level ¢ Only selected information makes it into awareness and long-term memory

Divided Attention ¢ Dual task experiments l l Get people to perform multiple tasks and look at the effects on performance Often find that performance suffers • This breakdown of performance when two tasks are combined sheds light on the limitations and nature of the human informationprocessing system

Dual Task Performance ¢ Divided attention is difficult when: Tasks are similar l Tasks are difficult l When both tasks require conscious attention l ¢ Divided attention is easier when: Tasks are dissimilar l Tasks are simple l When at least one of the tasks does not require conscious attention l Tasks are practiced l

Capacity Theories ¢ ¢ Tasks take mental effort We have limited mental effort to allocate to all demands on our attention l l Conscious control of allocation Some tasks require more attention than others

Resource Allocation Model (Kahneman) ¢ What l Affects Allocation? Resources • Arousal • Available Capacity l Other Effects • Enduring Dispositions • Momentary Intentions

Different Processes ¢ Some tasks are easier to perform than others and don’t seem to affect attention l Especially tasks that are well practiced Other tasks are tedious and require our conscious attention ¢ Two types of processing: ¢ Automatic or pre-attentive processing l Controlled or attentive processing l

An Applied Example

Neely (1977) ¢ ¢ Priming study, using a lexical decision task 4 primes l ¢ BIRD, BODY, BUILDING, XXX Manipulated expectancies of the target BIRD - types of birds l BODY - building parts l BUILDING - body parts l XXX - bird, body parts, and building parts equally often l ¢ Short (e. g. , 250 ms) and long (e. g. , 2, 000 ms) SOAs

Neely (1977) Results ¢ BIRD (expect types of birds) l BIRD - robin • ¢ facilitation for bird targets at short and long SOAs BODY (expect building parts) l BODY - door • facilitation for building targets at long SOAs, but not at short SOAs l BODY • - heart inhibition for body targets at long SOAs, but facilitation at short SOAs

Automatic vs. Controlled ¢ Automatic Processes Fast and efficient l Unavailable to consciousness l Unavoidable l Unintentional l ¢ Controlled Processes Slow and less efficient l Available to consciousness l Controllable l Intentional l

When Attention Is Lost Visual Neglect

Their Visual Experience Writing Reading

Bisect All the Lines…

Drawings