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Questions and Answers
What is the effect of selective attention on stimuli processing?
What is the effect of selective attention on stimuli processing?
- All stimuli are processed equally.
- Unattended stimuli can still activate responses in the brain. (correct)
- Only attended stimuli are focused on, while unattended stimuli are completely ignored.
- Attention enhances memory of all stimuli equally.
What is a characteristic of dichotic listening?
What is a characteristic of dichotic listening?
- Participants are required to ignore all sounds.
- Two different messages are presented to both ears, making it easy to focus.
- Participants must repeat the ignored message aloud.
- Participants listen to two messages but only focus on one. (correct)
What does biased competition in attention imply?
What does biased competition in attention imply?
- Attention can lead to a top-down influence on which stimuli are prioritized. (correct)
- Attention only affects stimuli that are consciously perceived.
- Directed attention disrupts neural responses to even ignored stimuli.
- All stimuli are processed at an equal rate, regardless of attention.
How does attention affect neural activity in response to motion?
How does attention affect neural activity in response to motion?
What effect does multitasking have on attention performance?
What effect does multitasking have on attention performance?
Flashcards
Selective Attention
Selective Attention
The ability to focus on one message and ignore others, not letting unattended stimuli get through the thalamus.
Attention & Competition
Attention & Competition
Directed attention acts as a filter, selecting certain stimuli over others. Even unattended stimuli have some neural response.
Divided Attention
Divided Attention
Simultaneously focusing on multiple tasks; often leads to decreased performance.
Endogenous Attention
Endogenous Attention
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Frontal Lobe & Attention
Frontal Lobe & Attention
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Study Notes
Attention Types
- Overt attention: Directly focusing attention through eye movements.
- Covert attention: Focusing attention without eye movement, e.g., pre-cueing.
- Endogenous attention: Attention driven by internal factors (e.g., your own goals).
- Exogenous attention: Attention driven by external stimuli in the environment.
Selective Attention
- Allows focusing on one message while ignoring others.
- Unattended stimuli may not reach the thalamus if attention is elsewhere.
- Cognitive demands affect attentional capacity.
- Dichotic listening: Presenting different auditory messages to each ear, requiring participants to repeat one while ignoring the other.
- Greater hemispheric activity for visual stimuli presented to the opposite visual field.
Attention and the Filter Model (Now Considered Incomplete)
- Early filter model: Stimuli -> Sensory Memory -> Filter -> Detector -> Memory. Sensory information is filtered early on.
- Unattended stimuli received little to no conscious awareness.
- However, phenomena like the "cocktail party effect" and "homophone priming" suggest some processing of unattended stimuli.
Attention and Neural Activity
- Motion-selective (MT) area activity is modulated by attention.
- Comparing activity when attending to moving dots vs. stationary dots.
- Similar observed in colour-selective area (V4).
- Suggests attentional mechanisms are fairly early in development.
Competition and Attention
- Biased competition: Directed attention acts as a top-down bias in sensory competition.
- There is no strict "early" or "late" filter for attention.
- Even ignored stimuli provoke some neural response.
Role of the Frontal Lobe
- Damage to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) reduces attentional effects on colour discrimination tasks.
Divided Attention
- Performance declines when multitasking.
- Difficulty may be underestimated.
Attention and Difficulty
- Attentional mechanisms may be suppressed when tasks are difficult.
- "Look but don't see" phenomenon describes instances of difficulty in processing stimuli despite visual engagement.
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