1. Assist. Prof. Dr. Ilmiye Seçer Fall 2017-2018
Paying Attention
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ilmiye Seçer
Fall

2. Paying Attention Attention Processes Explanations of Attention
Divided Attention, Dichotic Listening, Stroop Effect, Visual Search
Explanations of Attention
Neuroscience Research on Attention, Theories of Attention

3. Paying Attention What is Attention?
Defined as a concentration of mental activity that allows you to process information from the environment and your memory.
Unattended information is lost and not processed in detail.

4. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Divided Attention
In a divided attention task, the participant attends to two or more simultaneous messages and responds to all messages (i.e., they multitask).
Both speed and accuracy (or task performance) decreases compared to the focused attention condition.
Examples? See textbook page 73 for research findings.

5. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Selective Attention
A selective attention task requires people to pay attention to one message while ignoring the other.
Four kinds of selective attention: Dichotic Listening, The Stroop Effect, Visual Search, and Saccadic Eye Movements.

6. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Dichotic Listening
Ears register two different messages at the same time
Dichotic listening is measured using the Dichotic Listening Task
Requires participants to wear headphones, one message presented to the left and another message presented to the right ear at the same time.
Participants are then required to shadow the message presented to only one ear (e.g., the right ear).

7. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes

8. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Dichotic Listening
Classic research findings (e.g., Cherry, 1953) show that very little is recalled from the unattended ear.
Participants don’t notice a change in the language of the message (e.g., from English to German words).
Such results indicate that people can only process one message at a time.

9. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Dichotic Listening
However, people do notice their a change in gender or their name in the message of the unattended ear, sometimes called the cocktail party problem.
Follow up studies show that people are able to process information from the unattended ear when:
Both messages are presented slowly,
The main task is not challenging and,
When the meaning of the unattended message is relevant

10. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
The Stroop Effect
People take a long time to name the ink color of a word when the ink color is incongruent with the word than when it is congruent with the word written.
Emotional Stroop task, people have difficulty in ignoring the meaning of words that have are significant to them. They show of an attentional bias towards words, stimuli, objects that are relevant thus have difficulty ignoring them.

11. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes

12. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Parallel Distributed Processing Approach
Two pathways are activated at the same time (one for the ink colour and one for the word), which results in interference
Automatic and Controlled Processing Theory
Adults have more practice in reading words which is a more automatic and easy task than reading ink colours, which would require controlled processes (i.e., are slower to be executed and require more attention).

13. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Visual Search
Must find a target in a visual display that has numerous distractors
If a target differs from the irrelevant items (e.g., different color) then the target is quickly detected.
The Isolated-Feature/Combined-Feature Effect
Finding the target item is more difficult when there is more than one different feature than one feature.

14. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
In Part (A) and (B) find: I

15. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes

16. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
The Feature-Present/Feature-Absent Effect
Positive information processed better than negative information. Thus, in this context positive means present while negative means absent.
People locate a feature that is present faster than a feature that is absent.
When a feature is present it ‘pops out’ at you, yet, to find an absent feature you examine each item one by one, which takes time.

17. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes

18. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes

19. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Saccadic Eye Movements During Reading
Eye movements provide information about the way our brain operates when we perform cognitive tasks such as reading.
When you read your eyes jump forward as you move across the page, known as saccadic eye movement.
A small region of the retina, the fovea, has better acuity than other regions, thus our eyes need to move for this section to clearly process what we see.

20. Paying Attention Several Kinds of Attention Processes
Saccadic Eye Movements During Reading
Fixation, we pause briefly between eye movements to take in and process information. The duration of a pause may depend on how dense the information to be processed is (see page 81 for example on Chinese language).
Perceptual span, number of letters and spaces that we perceive during a fixation. In English, 4 letters to the left and 15 letters to the right of the central letter.
How would perceptual span be expected to change for reading in Arabic?

21. Paying Attention Explanations for Attention
Neuroscience Research on Attention
The Orienting Attention Network
Required for the kind of attention when we do a visual search, in which you shift your attention to various spatial locations.
Located in the parietal cortex
Unilateral spatial neglect, person ignores part of their visual field.
Read pages

22. Paying Attention Explanations for Attention
Neuroscience Research on Attention
The Executive Attention Network
Responsible for the kind of attention that is needed when resolving conflict (i.e., the Stroop task).
Involved in top-down control of attention
Active in the prefrontal cortex
Read pages

23. Paying Attention Theories of Attention
Early Theories of Attention
Indicated that process of information occurs in a serial manner.
Bottleneck theories
One message processed at a time

24. Paying Attention Theories of Attention

25. Paying Attention Theories of Attention

26. Paying Attention Theories of Attention
Feature-Integration Theory
Information is either processed in parallel or serially.
Distributed attention is automatic (person unaware of its function) and all features are registered at the same time (i.e., parallel).
Focused attention is used when the object is more complex and features are examined individually (i.e., serially) to figure how the parts fit. If you cannot integrate the parts, you will have a binding problem, resulting in a illusory conjunction (inappropriate binding of features).

27. Paying Attention Theories of Attention
Capacity Theories
Attentional Resource Theory
Central pool of resources that can be divided among multiple tasks
Parallel processing can occur
If task demands more resources than that available, task performance decreases
Multiple Resource Theory
Separate pool of resources for each type of task modality

28. Paying Attention Theories of Attention
Capacity Theories
Factors that affect ability to multitask include:
Task similarity
Task difficulty
Practice
Age

29. Paying Attention Theories of Attention
Automatic and Controlled Processing Theory
Automatic processes: Fast, requires fewer attentional processes, no capacity limits, develops via practice, unavailable to consciousness, unavoidable.
Controlled Processing: Limited capacity, requires attentional resources, difficulty performing dual tasks, used in unknown or inexperienced situations.

30. Paying Attention Theories of Attention
INSTANCE THEORY (LOGAN, 1988)
How does automaticity develop through practice?
‘Automaticity is memory retrieval: performance is automatic when it is based on a single step direct access retrieval of past solutions from memory’ (Logan, 1988, p.493).

31. Chapter 3-Review Questions
What is divided attention? Give examples of activities that require divided attention. How does practice aid ability to multitask?
Imagine that you are at a party and several conversations are going on at the same time. How would your engagement in these conversations be explained by bottleneck theories? Are there cases in which bottleneck theories cannot explain, and if so what are they?