Pay Attention! Kimberley Clow

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

What Is Attention? Definition 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 Concentration Selectivity Control

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

Orienting We don’t passively see or hear We actively look and listen Different ways to orient to a stimulus Overt Orienting Covert Orienting Attentional Gaze 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 Valid Cue Neutral Cue Invalid Cue How does cue affect performance?

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

Find the T

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

L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L

Find the vertical T

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

T L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T L

What’s Going On? Number of Items RT Conjunction Feature

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 Human vs. musical instruments Semantic attributes of unattended channel were missed Don’t notice foreign language Don’t notice repeated items

Filter Theory (Broadbent)

Cocktail Party Effect

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

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

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

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%) We are less likely to notice effects in the unattended channel (8%) If selection is late Why do we feel like we’re consciously selecting early? Neuro evidence Enhanced neural processing at early stages

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

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

Divided Attention Dual task experiments 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 information- processing system

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

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

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

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

An Applied Example

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

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

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

When Attention Is Lost Visual Neglect

Their Visual Experience Writing Reading

Bisect All the Lines…

Drawings