Questions and Answers
What is attention?
Attention is defined as a concentration of mental activity that allows you to take in a limited portion of the vast stream of information available from both your sensory world and your memory.
What is a divided-attention task?
A divided-attention task is a task in which the subject is asked to simultaneously focus attention on two or more stimuli.
What does it mean to multitask?
To multitask means to try to accomplish two or more tasks at the same time.
What is a selective-attention task?
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What is dichotic listening?
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What does shadowing the message mean?
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What is the cocktail party effect?
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What is working memory?
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What is the Stroop effect?
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What is the emotional Stroop task?
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What is a phobic disorder?
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What is attentional bias?
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What is the cognitive-behavioral approach?
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What is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?
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What is the magnetoencephalography (MEG) technique?
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What is visual search?
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What is the isolated-feature/combined-feature effect?
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What is the feature-present/feature-absent effect?
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What is a saccadic eye movement?
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What is the fovea?
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What is fixation in cognitive psychology?
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What is perceptual span?
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What is parafoveal preview?
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What is the orienting attention network?
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What is a brain lesion?
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What is unilateral spatial neglect?
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What is a positron emission tomography (PET) scan?
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What is the executive attention network?
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What are Bottleneck theories?
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What is distributed attention?
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What is feature-integration theory?
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What is focused attention?
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What is an illusory conjunction?
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What is the binding problem?
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What is consciousness?
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What is mindless reading?
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What is mind wandering?
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What is thought suppression?
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What are the ironic effects of mental control?
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What is blindsight?
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What are the two components of feature-integration theory?
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Multitasking is a form of:
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Research on dichotic listening shows that:
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The Stroop effect is related to selective attention because:
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The letters Q and O differ only in the presence or absence of a single feature. Based on research on visual search, you would find it:
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Suppose that you are looking for a dark-colored car in a row of parked cars. Among them, 11 are light-colored and one is dark-colored. The dark-colored car seems to pop out. In this example:
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The neuroscience research on the executive attention network shows that this system:
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Illusory conjunction occurs when:
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The phrase 'ironic effects of mental control' means that:
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Which of the following is considered to be the best current explanation of the visual condition called 'blindsight'?
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Your awareness about both the surrounding world and your cognitive processes is called:
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Study Notes
Attention and Cognitive Tasks
- Attention is a concentration of mental activity, enabling intake of limited information from sensory experiences and memory.
- Divided-attention tasks require simultaneous focus on multiple stimuli.
- Multitasking involves attempting to perform two or more tasks simultaneously.
- Selective-attention tasks involve focusing on specific information while ignoring distractions.
Listening and Awareness Phenomena
- Dichotic listening involves hearing different messages in each ear through headphones.
- Shadowing is the process of repeating a message immediately after hearing it.
- The cocktail party effect allows individuals to hear their name mentioned in a background conversation while focused on another.
Memory and Cognitive Effects
- Working memory is the short-term memory for processing information actively.
- The Stroop effect demonstrates the difficulty in naming ink colors when they correspond with incongruent words.
- Emotional Stroop tasks show longer naming times for emotional words, indicating greater attentional resource consumption.
Psychological Disorders and Attention Bias
- Phobic disorders involve excessive fear of specific objects.
- Attentional bias refers to the increased focus on certain stimuli or features.
- Cognitive-behavioral approaches suggest inappropriate thinking leads to psychological problems.
Neuroimaging and Attention Networks
- Magnetoencephalography (MEG) records brain magnetic field changes during stimulus processing.
- A visual search task requires finding a target among distractors.
- The orienting attention network manages the attention for visual searches across spatial locations.
- The executive attention network is engaged during tasks that require managing conflict and attention switching.
Attention Theories
- Bottleneck theories propose a limited capacity for processing information simultaneously.
- Distributed attention involves automatic registration of features, allowing for parallel processing, while focused attention is serial and identifies one object at a time.
- The feature-integration theory outlines stages of feature analysis leading to object perception, with a binding problem occurring when features are incorrectly combined.
Consciousness and Thought Processes
- Consciousness is the awareness of the external world and one's internal thoughts and perceptions.
- Mindless reading happens when eyes move without processing meaning.
- Mind wandering shifts focus from the external environment to internal thoughts.
Mental Control and Visual Interpretation
- Thought suppression attempts to keep certain thoughts out of consciousness.
- Ironic effects of mental control indicate that trying to suppress thoughts can lead to their increased occurrence.
- Blindsight occurs in individuals with visual cortex damage, allowing them to report attributes of objects they claim not to see.
Key Cognitive Comprehension Tasks
- Illusory conjunction involves incorrect feature combinations due to lack of focused attention.
- The visual condition of blindsight can be explained by alternative pathways from the retina to non-visual cortex areas.
- Awareness of the surrounding environment and cognitive processes is termed consciousness.
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Description
Test your knowledge with these flashcards focused on key terms from Chapter 3 of Cognitive Psychology. Explore concepts like attention and multitasking to enhance your understanding of mental processes. Perfect for students looking to reinforce their learning.