1. Attention

2. Is it possible to focus attention on more than one thing? What does attention research tell us about the effect of talking on cell phones while driving a car?

3. Attention is… mental effort or concentration that has limitations, can be used in differing amounts and is affected by the complexity of a task

4. Attention

5. Topics on Attention How we focus attention (selective attention) What happens to attention when a task becomes automatic How we can divide (or not) our attention

6. Attention and Perceiving the Environment Focused attention Sustained attention Divided attention Selective attention

7. Figure 4-1 Depiction of a dichotic listening task. The listener hears two messages and is asked to repeat (“shadow”) one of them. One method of studying selective attention speech man backwards speech woman noise

8. Figure 3-2 1. Filter Theory bottleneck

9. Problems with Filter Theory “cocktail party effect” Teisman’s experiment: switching messages

10. Figure 3-3 Depiction of Treisman’s (1960) experimental paradigm. The two messages “switch ears” at the point indicated by the slash mark. unattendedattended

11. 2. Attenuation Theory Three kinds of processing  Physical properties (fastest, easiest)  Linguistic properties  Semantic properties (slowest, hardest)

12. 3. Late-Selection Theory Decision of what to attend to happens after meaning extracted

13. 4. Multimodal Theory Combination of early-selection and late- selection theories Message can be chosen for attention at multiple levels  Sensory (filter theory)  Semantic  Consciousness (late-selection theory)

14. Other factors that affect attention: Personality Arousal Intentions Capacity Complexity of task

15. 5. Schema Theory No “filter” We “pick” what to attend to, other information not perceived or analyzed at all

16. Is attention necessary for perception?

17. When Is Attention Necessary for Perception? Inattentional blindness Experiment by Simons and Chabris http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

18. When Is Attention Necessary for Perception? Change blindness http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/11.html Change blindness blindness http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/10.html

19. 6. Anatomy Model (visual attention) Posner & Raichle model 1. Disengage 2. Move 3. Enhance 1 – parietal lobe 3 - pulvinar 2 – superior colliculus

20. 20 Recording - Massed Activity Electroencephalogram (EEG) Scalp electrodes provide information about the electrical activity of large populations of neurons. Used to study states of consciousness and seizures. Copyright © 2004 Allyn and Bacon

21. Series of EEG responses to environmental stimuli Useful in studying perception Other Recording Techniques Evoked Potentials (ERP)

22. Theories of Selective Attention  Filter theory  Attenuation theory  Late-selection theory  Multimodal theory  Schema theory  Anatomy model