13
Goals for Today’s Class To introduce “attention” as a psychological phenomenon To contrast serial and parallel processing To demonstrate how experimentation can be used to understand mental processes

Goals for Todays Class

Embed Size (px)

DESCRIPTION

What is Visual Search? One of the most widely used methods of studying visual attention

Citation preview

Page 1: Goals for Todays Class

Goals for Today’s ClassTo introduce “attention” as a

psychological phenomenonTo contrast serial and parallel

processingTo demonstrate how experimentation

can be used to understand mental processes

Page 2: Goals for Todays Class

What is Visual Search?• One of the most widely used

methods of studying visual attention

Page 3: Goals for Todays Class

Basic Method of Visual Search

Find target hidden among distractors in multi-element display

Page 4: Goals for Todays Class

• 2 Processes to Visual Search• Parallel vs Serial Processing • Parallel Processing = Preattentive

Processing• Serial Process = Attentive

Processing

Page 5: Goals for Todays Class

Preattentive ProcessesProcesses that occur automaticallyProcesses that apply to all objects in

our visual fieldPreattentive processes allow us to

take in everything around us

Page 6: Goals for Todays Class

Feature Search• Is there a red T in

the display?• Target defined by

a single feature• No attention

required• Target should

“pop out”

Page 7: Goals for Todays Class

Attentive Processes

Attentive processes require control on the part of the perceiver

Through attentive processing, we examine one component of the visual field at a time

Page 8: Goals for Todays Class

Conjunction Search• Is there a red T in the

display?• Target is now defined

by its shape and color• This involves binding

features and should demand attention

• Need to attend to each item until target is found

Page 9: Goals for Todays Class

Conjunction Search

When there is no single feature that sets the target apart from all of the distracters

Targets are generally more difficult to find in conjunction searches than in feature searches

Difficulty increases with the number of distracters in the display

Page 10: Goals for Todays Class

Questions for Today’s Lab:

Which type of search will take longer: Feature search(using parallel processes) or Conjunction search (using serial processing)?

Page 11: Goals for Todays Class

Design:• 3 IVs: • task (feature or conjunction search)• display size (4, 8, or 12 items)• trial type (target present or target

absent)• DV: RT

Page 12: Goals for Todays Class

Response Time Data

Page 13: Goals for Todays Class

Conclusions:As the number of elements in the display

increases, so does the response timeResponse time is significantly greater

during conjunction searches - cannot process everything at once, must process one thing at a time (serial processing)

response time is higher when target is absent