Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Cognition Chapter 3 Perceptual Processes II: Attention and Consciousness

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Introduction attention top-down and bottom-up processing attention and visual phenomena

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Three Kinds of Attention Processes Divided Attention  trying to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages  perform two tasks at the same time Simulated-driving studies Levy and coauthors (2006) braking & tone

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Three Kinds of Attention Processes Divided Attention Simulated-driving studies (continued) Strayer and colleagues (2003) hands-free cell phones, traffic, braking inattentional blindness Wikman and colleagues (1998) experienced drivers vs. novices

Driven to distraction: dual-Task studies of simulated driving and conversing on a cellular telephone Performance was not disrupted by Listening to radio broadcasts or listening to a book on tape. A continuous shadowing task using a handheld phone, ruling out, in this case, dual-task interpretations associated with holding the phone, listening, or speaking, Significant interference was observed in a word-generation variant of the shadowing task, and this deficit increased with the difficulty of driving. Unconstrained conversations using either a handheld or a hands-free cell phone resulted in a twofold increase in the failure to detect simulated traffic signals and slower reactions to those signals that were detected. Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3

Driving Simulator Videos from APPLIED COGNITION LAB at Univ. of Utah nition/news.html nition/news.html Driving + Phone Conversation Driving + Passenger Conversation Driving + Text Messaging Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3

Three Kinds of Attention Processes Selective Attention respond selectively to certain kinds of information, while ignoring other information people notice little about the irrelevant tasks Dichotic Listening one message presented to left ear and a different message presented to right ear shadow one of the messages

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Three Kinds of Attention Processes Selective Attention Dichotic Listening (continued) people notice very little about the unattended message in general, we can process only one message at a time may process the unattended message when 1.both messages are presented slowly 2.the task is not challenging 3.the meaning of the unattended message is relevant

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Three Kinds of Attention Processes Selective Attention Dichotic Listening (continued) cocktail party effect Specialized cells that scan relatively long stretches of sound, to pick out a particular vocal feature, despite all the background noise tell other brain cells in the area to stay quiet, to stop responding to the background noise

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Three Kinds of Attention Processes Selective Attention The Stroop Effect naming the colors of words incongruent words vs. colored patches practice emotional Stroop task—naming the ink color of words related to a psychological disorder explanations in terms of PDP and automatic processing

Congruous Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3

Incongruous

Three Kinds of Attention Processes Selective Attention Visual Search more accurate if the target appears frequently 1. The isolated-feature/combined-feature effect Treisman and Gelade (1980)—searching for blue Xs 2. The feature-present/feature-absent effect Treisman and Souther (1985)—searching for "circle with the line" or "circle without the line" Royden and colleagues (2001)—moving vs. stationary targets

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Visual Search

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Three Kinds of Attention Processes In Depth: Saccadic Eye Movements eye movements during reading saccadic eye movement fovea fixation perceptual span

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Three Kinds of Attention Processes In Depth: Saccadic Eye Movements In Depth: Saccadic Eye Movements (continued) patterns—blank spaces, short words, highly predictable words, misspellings, unusual words good readers vs. poor readers—size of saccadic movements, regressions, pauses meaning of the text—themes, puzzling endings

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Explanations for Attention Neuroscience Research on Attention The Orienting Attention Network selecting information from sensory input visual search parietal lobe brain lesions unilateral neglect PET scans

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Cerebral Cortex & Attention

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Explanations for Attention Neuroscience Research on Attention The Executive Attention Network used when task features conflict inhibiting automatic responses to stimuli Stroop task listening to words and stating use of each word top-down control of attention academic learning The Alerting Attention Network—responsible for sensitivity to new stimuli, alertness, vigilance

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Explanations for Attention Theories of Attention Early Theories of Attention Bottleneck theories information either passes through bottleneck or is lost too simple information not lost at just one phase of the attention process attention as many separable processes

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Explanations for Attention Theories of Attention Feature-Integration Theory (Anne Treisman) 1.The basic elements distributed attention all parts of the scene processed at the same time register features automatically parallel processing low-level processing

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Explanations for Attention Theories of Attention Feature-Integration Theory (Anne Treisman)

What do we focus on? Preattentive Stage: perception of primitives - these are perceived before the object is recognized CurvatureTilt Line ends MovementColorBrightness Direction of illumination

What do we focus on? Preattentive Stage: perception of primitives - orientation, contours, curvature, color and movement

What do we focus on? Preattentive Stage: perception of primitives - texture differences produce “pop-out” boundaries

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Explanations for Attention Theories of Attention Feature-Integration Theory (Anne Treisman) 2.Research on the theory isolated features vs. combined features distributed attention vs. focused attention feature-present/feature-absent effect illusory conjunction—inappropriate combination of features binding problem

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Explanations for Attention Theories of Attention Feature-Integration Theory (Anne Treisman) 3.Current status of the theory role of practice distributed attention can occasionally resemble focused attention looking for explanations at the cellular level

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Consciousness the awareness people have about the outside world and about their perceptions, images, thoughts, memories, and feelings generally associated with controlled, focused attention that is not automatic

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Consciousness Consciousness About Our Higher Mental Processes Nisbett & Wilson (1977) little direct access to our thought processes products vs. processes

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Consciousness Consciousness About Our Higher Mental Processes we have only limited access to some thought processes such as: whether our attention is drifting how well we understand something we have read our awareness of step-by-step procedures in a motor activity that has become automatic

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Consciousness Thought Suppression ironic effects of mental control Wegner—Tolstoy's "white bear" task rebound effect

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Consciousness Individual Differences: Thought Suppression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder obsession compulsion obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) "white bear" task

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Consciousness Blindsight vision without awareness damage to visual cortex can still identify some visual attributes of stimulus reported as "not seen" (no conscious awareness of object)

Cognition 7e, Margaret MatlinChapter 3 Consciousness Blindsight Explanations—portion of the information from the retina travels to other locations on the cerebral cortex, outside the visual cortex primary visual cortex necessary for conscious awareness of visual information