Attention Theories and Concepts

Attention

• Attention is the focusing of mental effort on sensory or mental events.
• Four main aspects are discussed in attention studies:
  • Selectivity (or attentional selectivity)
  • Alertness (arousal level)
  • Attentional control
  • Awareness
• Many attention theories originate from the idea that though humans are surrounded by numerous stimuli, their nervous system capacity is limited, making it impossible to receive all of them.
• Even if reception were possible, the brain wouldn't have the processing capacity to handle all the information.
• Sensory organs, similar to communication channels, work efficiently if the amount of information to be processed fits within their capabilities.
• Information exceeding these capabilities leads to channel overload and system failure.
• A key figure in modern approaches to understanding attention is Donald Broadbent.
• In his 1958 book "Perception and Communication," he stated that perception is the result of an information-processing system with limited capacity.
• The external world has significantly more sensory inputs than the perceptual and cognitive systems can handle.
• Therefore, to manage the incoming information, humans direct attention toward certain parts and filter out the rest.
• It was long assumed that attention couldn't be divided and could only be directed to one thing at a time.
• Trying to simultaneously receive multiple messages, especially similar ones, would compromise accuracy.
• Driving a car and listening to the radio is doable, but focusing on two similar stimuli (e.g., two visual or two auditory stimuli) is difficult.

Attentional Selectivity

• By experience, we understand we pay more attention to certain stimuli compared to others, causing those characteristics to receive further processing.
• Our choices are partly influenced by conscious control and long-term memory.
• Attention mechanism shifts between stimuli.
• Some stimuli are selected, while others are filtered out.
• The "cocktail party effect", where one can concentrate on a single voice while also "hearing" another person's
• Our attention readily shifts from voices we don't care about to those of nearby persons engaging in interesting conversations.
• Attention is selective for several reasons:
• Our information processing capacity is limited by channel capacity.
• We can somewhat control what we focus on.
• Perception is related to our activation level, or arousal level, which is influenced by our interests.
• What we pay attention to is part of our conscious experience.
• These four core themes form the main subjects of attention research.

Awareness

• The study of awareness gained increasing importance in cognitive psychology because of the revival of this field.
• According to Crowder (1985), developing ideas on short-term memory made studying awareness even more necessary.
• James likened awareness to a selection committee.
• Stimuli and events from the surrounding world are known, and cognitive processes like memory and sensations are also understood.
• Endel Tulving (1985) identified three types of human awareness: anoetic, noetic, and autonoetic (self-awareness).
• Each awareness type correlates with three memory types: procedural, semantic, and episodic.
  • Procedural memory is linked to knowing how to do something (acquiring, storing, using skills).
  • Semantic memory stores knowledge about the world.
  • Episodic memory stores personally experienced events.
• Tulving believes that each memory system corresponds to a separate type of awareness (see figure №23).

Awareness and Hemispheric Specificity

• In 1869, French physician Broca discovered that body symmetry rules did not apply to the brain.
• Patients with right-brain damage struggle with speech, whereas right-brain damage does not have a similar effect.
• Roger Sperry's research revealed new evidence of brain asymmetry.
• His studies focused on patients with a severed corpus callosum connecting the left and right hemispheres.
• In one experiment, blindfolded patients were given objects to identify by touch in their right hand.
• Sensory information from the right hand should be routed to the left hemisphere, responsible for language generation.
• Even with a severed corpus callosum, patients could still name items held in their right hand.
• This is not possible with objects in their left hand, as impulses are sent to the right hemisphere, preventing identification.
• These experiments suggest that individuals might have two types of awareness:
  • One in the left hemisphere, involved in language and information processing
  • One in the right hemisphere, involved in spatial functions
• Ornstein's perspective is that fundamental intellectual differences between individuals are due to varying hemisphere development and dominance.