Attention & Consciousness

ATTENTION & CONSCIOUSNESSGROUP 4

“Attention is the taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneous possible objects or trains of thoughts.. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.”

- William James

ATTENTION

• The means by which we actively process a limited amount of information from the enormous amount of information available through our senses, our stored memories and our other cognitive processes

• Includes both conscious and unconscious processes

• Allows us to use our limited mental resources judiciously.

• Dimming the lights on many stimuli form the outside and the inside to highlight one that interests us.

CONSCIOUSNESSAccording to John Locke, consciousness is “the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind.”

From the Latin phrase “conscius sibi” which means “knowing with oneself”

\ Consciousness is the state of being awake and aware of one’s surrounding.

Attention and Consciousness form two partially overlapping sets

BENEFITS OF ATTENTION•Helps in monitoring our interactions with the environment•Assists us in linking our past and present to give a sense of continuity of experience•Helps us in controlling and planning for our future actions

PRECONSCIOUS PROCESSES

Processing information that exist at the preconscious level of awareness.

PRECONSCIOUS INFORMATION• STORED MEMORIES• SENSATIONS

PRECONSCIOUS PROCESSING

PRIMING occurs when a recognition of certain stimuli is affected by prior presentation of the same or similar stimuli.

• Positive Priming• Negative Priming• Visual Priming• Aural Priming

Sometimes, pulling preconscious information into consciousness is not easy.

PRECONSCIOUS PROCESSING

Tip-of-the-Tongue phenomenon

CONTROLLED vs AUTOMATIC

CONTROLLED vs AUTOMATIC

• Concealed from consciousness• Unintentional• Consume few attentional resources

3 Attributes characterizing

automatic processes

Characteristics Controlled Processes

Automatic Processes

Amount of intentional effort

Require intentional effort

Require little or no intentional effort

Degree of conscious awareness

Require full conscious awareness

Generally occur outside of conscious awareness although some may be available for consciousness

Use of attentional resources

Consume many attentional resources

Consume negligible attentional resources

Type of processing Performed serially Performed by parallel processing

Speed of processing Relatively time-consuming

Relatively fast

Relative novelty of tasks

Novel and unpractised tasks

Familiar and highly practised tasks

Level of processing Relatively high levels of cognitive processing

Relatively low levels of cognitive processing

Difficulty of tasks Usually difficult tasks Usually easy tasks

Process of acquisition With sufficient practise, many routine and relatively stable procedures may become automatized

AUTOMATIZATION is the process by which a procedure changes from being highly conscious to being relatively automatic.

HOW? By PRACTISE

CONTROLLED vs AUTOMATIC

A widely accepted view of automatization has been that during the course of practise, implementation of the various steps become more efficient

People consolidate various discrete steps into a single operation.

CONTROLLED vs AUTOMATIC

INSTANCE THEORYAutomatization occurs because we gradually accumulate knowledge about specific responses to specific stimuli.

Instance theory explain specific responses to specific stimuli while the prevailing view explain more general responses involving automatization.

CONTROLLED vs AUTOMATIC

1. MISTAKES - errors in choosing an object or in specifying a means of achieving it.

2. SLIPS - errors in carrying out an intended means for reaching an object.

CONTROLLED vs AUTOMATIC

CLASSIFICATION OF ERRORS

KINDS OF SLIPS1. When we must deviate from a routine and

automatic processes inappropriately override intentional, controlled processes

2. When we are interrupted

Type of Error Description of Error

Capture Error When in need to deviate from a routine in a familiar surrounding but we fail to pay attention and to regain control of the process AP capture our behavior.

Omission* An interruption may cause us to skip a step or two in doing the routine

Perseveration* After an automatic procedure has been completed, one or more step may be repeated.

Description Error

A description leads to performing the correct action on the wrong object.

Data-driven Error

Incoming information may end up overriding the intended variables in automatic action sequence.

Associative-activation Error

Strong association may trigger the wrong routine

Loss-of-activation Error

Activation of routine may be insufficient to carry it through completion

HOW CAN WE MINIMIZE THE POTENTIAL FOR NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF SLIPS?

If we receive appropriate feedback from the environment particularly the kind of feedback which involves forcing function. Forcing functions are physical constraints that make it difficult or impossible to carry out an automatic behavior that may lead to a slip.

CONTROLLED vs AUTOMATIC

HABITUATION and ADAPTATION

HABITUATION involves our becoming accustomed to a stimulus so that we gradually pay less and less attention to it.DISHABITUATION involves a change in a familiar stimulus which prompts us to start noticing the stimulus again.

SENSORY ADAPTATION is a lessening of attention to a stimulus that is not subject to conscious control.

ADAPTATION HABITUATION

Not accessible to conscious control

Accessible to conscious control

Tied closely to stimulus intensity

Not tied very close

Unrelated to the number, length, and recency of prior exposures

Tied very closely to the number, length, and recency of prior exposures

HABITUATION and ADAPTATION

DIFFERENCES SENSORY ADAPTATION AND HABITUATION

1. Stimulus internal variation2. Subject arousalAROUSAL is a degree of psychological excitation, responsivity, and readiness for action, relative to a baseline.HOW? In terms of:• rate• Blood pressure• EEG patterns• Neural responses

HABITUATION and ADAPTATION

FACTORS that INFLUENCE HABITUATION

MAIN FUNCTIONS OF CONSCIOUS ATTENTION

1. Signal detection and vigilance2. Selective attention3. Divided attention4. Search

FUNCTION

DESCRIPTION

Signal detection and vigilance

Waiting for signals to show

Selective Attention

Choosing signals to attend to

Divided Attention

Engaging in more than one task

Search Seeking out

SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

FOUR POSSIBLE OUTCOMESHit

MissFalse Alarm

Correct Rejection

SIGNAL DETECT A SIGNAL

DO NOT DETECT A SIGNAL

Present Hit Miss

Absent False Alarm Correct Rejection

Covered in the: 1) context of attention, 2) context of perception, and 3) context of memory

1. Whether one is paying enough attention to perceive objects that are there

2. Whether one is able to perceive faint signals that may or may not be beyond one’s perceptual range

3. Whether one indicates one has or has not been exposed to a stimulus before

SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

VIGILANCE

Vigilance - A person’s ability to attend to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period, during which the person seeks to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus• Needed in settings where a given stimulus

occurs only rarely but requires immediate attention

• Highly localized and strongly influenced by expectation

• Involves the speed and accuracy of detecting a target stimulus

SEARCH

•Scan the environment for particular features•Whereas vigilance involves passively waiting for a signal stimulus to appear, search involves actively seeking out the target

Distracters•Nontarget stimuli that divert our attention away from the target stimuli•Can cause false alarm

Search

2 KINDS OF SEARCH

1. Feature search•When we can look for some distinctive features of a target we simply scan the environment for those features

2. Conjunction search•We look for a particularcombination of features

SEARCH

• Each of us has mental map for representing the given set of features for a particular item (shape, size, color features)

• During feature searches we monitor the relevant feature map for the presence of any activation in the visual field

• During conjunction searches, we can simply use the map of features, we must conjoin two or more features into an object representation at a particular location

SEARCH

Feature-Integration Theory (Anne Treisman)

Similarity theory (Duncan and Humphreys)

As the similarity between target and distracter increases, so does the difficulty in detecting the target stimuli

Factors influencing search1. DEGREE OF SIMILARITY - Similarity

between the target and the distracters2. DEGREE OF DISPARITY - Similarity among

distracters

SEARCH

All searches involve two consecutive stages• Parallel stage – simultaneous activation of

all the potential targets• Serial stage – sequential evaluation of

each of the activated elements

SEARCH

Guided search theory (Cave and Wolfe)

Movement-Filter theory(McLeod at al.)

• Movement-filter – can direct attention to stimuli with a common movement characteristics

• Movement can both enhance and inhibit visual search

SEARCH

Selective Attentionthe process by which a person can selectively

pick out one message from a mixture of messages occurring simultaneously.

BASIC PARADIGMS• Cocktail Party Problem (Colin Cherry, 1953)

- the process of tracking one conversation in the face of the distraction of other conversations.

• Shadowing- listening to two different messages but

are able to follow only one message & ignore the other.

• Binaural Presentation- Presenting the same two messages or sometimes just one message to BOTH ears simultaneously.

• Dichotic Presentation- Presenting different message to EACH ear.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

3 Factors to Selectively Attend The Desired Speaker’s Message

(Brungard & Simpson, 2007)

• Distinctive sensory characteristics of the target speaker’s speech

• Sound intensity• Location of the sound source

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

FILTER & BOTTLENECK THEORIES• Broadbent’s Model

- we filter information right after it is registered at the sensory level.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

•Moray’s Selective Filter Model

- The selective filter blocks out most information at the sensory level. But some highly salient messages are so powerful that they burst through the filtering mechanism.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

• Treisman’s Attenuation Model- We preattentively analyze the physical properties of a stimulus (stimuli with target properties)

- We analyze whether a given stimulus has a pattern, such as speech or music

- We sequentially evaluate the incoming messages, assigning appropriate meanings to the selected stimuli messages

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

• Deutsch and Deutsch’s Late Filter Model

- the signal-blocking filter occurs later in the process. It has its effects after sensory analysis. It occurs after some perceptual and conceptual analysis of input had taken place.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

SELECTIVE ATTENTION• Multimode Theory

-Attention is flexible

INFORMATION PROCESSING OCCURS IN 3 STAGES1. The individual constructs sensory

representation of stimuli.2. The individual constructs semantic

representations.3. The representations of stages 1 & 2 become

conscious

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

• Neisser’s Synthesis

2 Processes Governing Attention•Preattentive (rapid, automatic, parallel)•Attentive processes (controlled, occur later, serial)

Attentional-Resource Theories of Selective Attention

• Help to explain how we can perform more than one attention - demanding task at a time.

• We have attentional resources specific to a given modality

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

Listen to

music

Listen to the news

station

Concentrate on writing

Having difficulty doing task 2 &

the activity selected

simultaneously

Auditory Visual

Listening to music

Writing

Wouldn’t pose serious

attentional difficulties

A B

Additional Considerations in Selective Attention

1. Overall arousal2. Specific interest in a target task and stimuli,

compared with interest in distracters3. Nature of the task4. Amount of practice in performing a given

task or set of tasks5. Stage of processing at which attentional

demands are needed

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

The Stroop Effect• By John Ridley Stroop (1935)• Demonstrates the psychological difficulty in

selectively attending the color of the ink and trying to ignore the word that is printed with the ink of that color

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

Why the Stroop test may be particularly Difficult?

• Because most other adult & for you, reading is now an automatic process. It is not readily subject to your conscious control

You find it difficult intentionally to refrain from reading and instead to concentrate on identifying the colour of the ink, disregarding the word printed in that ink colour.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION

SELECTIVE ATTENTIONOther stroop effect

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Is attention a function of the entire brain, or is if a function of discrete attention-governing modules in the brain?

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIFIC APPROACH

1. Alertingttttttiing2. Orienting3. Executive attention

THREE SUBFUNCTIONS OF ATTENTION

• An attentional dysfunction in which participants ignore the half of their visual field that is contralateral to the hemisphere of the brain that has a lesion.

• Due to unilateral lesions in the parietal lobes.

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIFIC APPROACH

SPATIAL NEGLECT

• Anterior attention system – during task requiring awareness/attention for action

• Posterior attention system – during task involving visuospatial attention

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIFIC APPROACH

ATTENTIONAL SYSTEMS

EVENT-RELATED-POTENTIALS (ERPs) indicate minute changes in electrical activity in response to various stimuli.

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIFIC APPROACH

USING EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS TO MEASURE

ATTENTION

This approach evaluates changes in attention and consciousness associated with various chemicals, hormones, and even CNS stimulants and depressants.

PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGICAL APPROACH

Antony Marcel (1983)• Participants had to classify series of

words into various categories• Primes where words with two meanings

such as palm followed by target word (tree or hand)

• Task outline:Prime – PALMTarget – TREE

- If the participant was consciously aware of seeing the word “palm”, the mental pathway for only one meaning was activated

- If the word “palm” was presented so briefly that the person was unaware of seeing the word, both meanings of the word appeared to be activated

KEY THEMES

1. Respective roles of structures and processes.

2. Relation between biology and behavior.

3. Validity of causal inferences vs ecological validity.

KEY THEMES

PAM

NIE

GDI