Attention

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?

Attention is…

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

Attention

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

Attention and Perceiving the Environment

Focused attention

Sustained attention

Divided attention

Selective attention

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

backwardsspeech

woman

noise

Figure 3-2

1. Filter Theory

bottleneck

Problems with Filter Theory

“cocktail party effect”

Teisman’s experiment: switching messages

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

unattendedattended

2. Attenuation Theory

Three kinds of processingPhysical properties (fastest, easiest)

Linguistic properties

Semantic properties (slowest, hardest)

3. Late-Selection Theory

Decision of what to attend to happens after meaning extracted

4. Multimodal Theory

Combination of early-selection and late-selection theories

Message can be chosen for attention at multiple levelsSensory (filter theory)SemanticConsciousness (late-selection theory)

Other factors that affect attention:

Personality Arousal Intentions Capacity Complexity of task

5. Schema Theory

No “filter” We “pick” what to attend to, other

information not perceived or analyzed at all

Is attention necessary for perception?

When Is Attention Necessary for Perception?

Inattentional blindness

Experiment by Simons and Chabris http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

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

6. Anatomy Model(visual attention)

Posner & Raichle model1. Disengage

2. Move

3. Enhance

1 – parietallobe

3 - pulvinar

2 – superiorcolliculus

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

Series of EEG responses to environmental stimuli

Useful in studying perception

Other Recording Techniques Evoked Potentials (ERP)

Theories of Selective Attention

Filter theoryAttenuation theoryLate-selection theoryMultimodal theorySchema theoryAnatomy model