Podcast
Questions and Answers
What is attention?
The brain’s ability to select which sensory stimuli to discard and which to pass along for processing.
Attention is the same as awareness.
False
What does change blindness refer to?
Which factors influence what people attend to?
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What is inattentional blindness?
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What is divided attention?
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The brain has an ____________ system that maintains an alert state.
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Attention takes no time to shift between tasks.
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Study Notes
What is Attention?
- Attention is the brain's ability to select which sensory stimuli to discard and which to process further.
- Attention is like a spotlight, focusing on specific information and fading outwards.
- We can move our attention away from our fixation point, but this takes time.
Attention as a Spotlight
- Attention is based on three systems:
- Orienting system: Disengaging and shifting attention.
- Alerting system: Maintaining an alert state in the brain.
- Executive system: Controlling voluntary actions.
- These systems work together to form a control system for attention.
Selective Attention
- Attention shifts faster than eye movements.
- Eye movements take about 180 milliseconds, while attention shifts can occur as early as 150 milliseconds.
- Eye movements are not the same as attention.
Eye-Tracking and Attention
- Eye-tracking can provide clues about attention.
- Fixations are instances when the eye pauses at a point.
- Saccades are eye movements from one fixation point to another.
- Factors influencing what we attend to include: interests, importance, visual prominence, beliefs, expectations, and culture.
Characteristics of Attention
- Attention is limited in capacity and resources.
- Although we can handle multiple simultaneous inputs, multitasking is difficult due to limited resources.
- Attention does not equal awareness. You can process information unconsciously.
- Attention takes time. The amount of attention required varies based on the task and experience.
Change Blindness
- Change blindness occurs when we fail to notice a significant change in something we are attending to due to a disruption in our attention, such as a brief distraction.
Inattentional Blindness
- Inattentional blindness occurs when we fail to see something unexpected because we are focused on a task. This happens even without a disruption in attention.
- This suggests that "no perception without attention".
Inattentional vs. Change Blindness
- Similarities: Both are failures of awareness, and we fail to notice something obvious if we know to look for it.
- Difference: Change blindness is the failure to notice a change, while inattentional blindness is the failure to notice something that is present.
Multitasking
- Multitasking is the ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.
- We are not good at multitasking because we have limited resources.
Cognitive Resources
- Cognitive resources are specialized, with the central executive (pre-frontal lobe) playing a crucial role.
- The visuospatial buffer (visual-spatial sketchpad) located in the right hemisphere is responsible for visual and spatial information.
- The articulatory rehearsal loop (phonological loop) located in the left hemisphere is responsible for speech and auditory information.
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Description
This quiz explores the concept of attention, focusing on its definitions, systems, and the difference between attention and eye movements. Learn about how attention functions like a spotlight in the brain and the role of selective attention in processing information. Test your understanding of the various systems involved in attention.
