Chapter 2: Attention PDF

Chapter 2: A!ention Chapter 2: Attention Multiple Meanings of Attention - Alertness, awareness, or Arousal - Orientating reflex or response in the environment - Focused spotlight attention and search in the environment...

Chapter 2: A!ention Chapter 2: Attention Multiple Meanings of Attention - Alertness, awareness, or Arousal - Orientating reflex or response in the environment - Focused spotlight attention and search in the environment - Selective attention to specific information from the environment that is accepted into awareness and blocks out other information from awareness - Attention has a limited capacity - Multitasking of attention Types of attention - Focused/ Selective Attention: The ability of attention to select certain inputs in the environment and ignore other inputs (Provides information on how attention selects input from the environment and the fate of unattended stimuli = SINGLE > (E.x. Pay attention to the conversation with the person in front of you despite the auditory interference from other people) - Divided Attention: The ability of attention to process information from multiple inputs. Multitasking provides information on the processing limitations of attention = MULTIPLE > (E.x. Talking on the cellphone while driving) Methods Of Testing Focused Auditory Attention - Shadow Tasking: Different auditory messages are presented to each ear and a listener has to listen to one message and ignore the other ( Cherry, 1951) = ONE MESSAGE > (E.x. People can only determine the gender of the speaker and the loudness of the message, but not notice reversed speech, a foreign language, or the content of the unattended message - Dichotic Listening: Different auditory messages are presented to each ear and a listener is later asked to repeat back information from both sources (Broadbent, 1958) = TWO MESSAGES > (E.x Organization of information is based on the ear that receives specific inputs (left ear 496 and right ear 852) Theories of Focused Attention (AUDITORY) - Donald Broadbent’s Filter Theory of Attention (1958) = DICHOTIC LISTENING - There is a cognitive filter that helps prevent the overload of the limited capacity short- term/working memory 3 Stages include: 1) Two inputs or messages are received in a sensory buffer that briefly stores information 2) One of the inputs is allowed through a cognitive filter on the basis of its physical characteristics :  3) The selected input is sent to Short-term/working memory for further processing - The filter theory was not flexible to account for the variability of processing that occurs with unattended stimuli - Underwood(1974): Found that experts can identify more details in unattended messages than nonexperts - Triesman (1964): Found that participants can recognize their own name in unattended message - Anne Treisman’s Attenuation Model of Attention (1964) - The processing of unattended information is attenuated (suppressed). This model allows for the flexibility of the cognitive filters 4 stages include: 1) Two inputs or messages are received in a sensory buffer that briefly stores information 2) Cognitive filter checks for physical properties of the message (loudness, pitch). Based on these properties, the information is either “weakened” or passed to the next cognitive filter ( Inhibition) 3) Cognitive filter checks for meaning (relevant words). Based on the meaning, the information is either weakened or sent to short-term working memory (Inhibition) 4) The selected inputs are sent to short-term/working memory for further processing Theories of Focused Attention (VISUAL) - Visual attention as a spotlight (Yantis,1998) - Foveal Vision: Region of the retina with the highest number of cones that leads towards the sharpest vision for the visual spotlight of attention - Posner (1980) - Presented images in very rapid succession (Milliseconds). People do not have the chance to generate eye movements - Visual location cues (Valid, Invalid, Neutral) were used prior to images being presented - People had to respond as quickly and as accurately as they could if an image was presented on a location on a screen - Found that valid location cues produced faster and more accurate responses if targets appeared on the screen than neutral cues - In contrast, Invalid cues caused slower responses and less accuracy than neutral cues - The visual spotlight of attention was influenced by the visual location cues - Endogenous System: People’s intentional (conscious and aware) attention shifts = CONSCIOUS - Exogenous System: Environment controlling people’s automatic attention shifts = UNCONSCIOUS - This study provides evidence that attention is reflexively focused towards a certain location in the environment (EXOgenous System) via valid cues. Therefore, when a target appears in an invalid location, there is a disengagement of attention from the cued location Fox, Russo, Bowles & Dutton (2001) - A variation of the visual cue task involved faces that were cued to a location. This allowed the researchers to examine the speed of disengagement from threat-related (Angry face), Positive (Happy face), or neutral stimuli (Neutral face) :  - This was conducted on a sample of high-anxious and low-anxious participants (NOTE: Anxiety level was measured via the Staite Trait Anxiety Inventory) STAI - Fixation point (1000 ms) - Cued stimuli ( 100 ms or 250 ms) - Delay (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony) (50 ms) - Response screen - There was a general delay for DISENGAGING from angy faces as compared to happy and neutral faces for both high and low anxiety groups when the cue was shown for 100 ms - When the cue was shown for 250 ms, only the high anxiety group had the general delay for disengaging from angry faces - Short exposure(100 ms) = UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING - Long exposure (250 ms) = CONSCIOUS PROCESSING Georgious, Bleakley, Hayward, Russo, Dutton, Eltiti and Fox (2005) - Further found that there is a delayed disengagement to THREAT Stimuli (fearful and angry faces) but not generally negative stimuli (i.e. sad faces) Eriksen & St. James, (1986) - Visual Attention as a Zoom- Lens: LaBerge (1983) asked participants to categorize the letter in a given word (Narrow Attention Focus) or categorize a word ( wider attention focus). Reaction time was affected by the task demands - Zoom-lense appears to be a more plausible theory because of the variability of visual fields under focused attention Visual Search - Visual Search: A type of perceptual task requiring attention that typically involves an active scan of the visual environment for a particular object or feature (the target) among other objects or features (the distractors) Types of Visual Search - Feature Search: A target which differs from the distractors by a unique visual feature, such as color, size, orientation, or shape. > I.e Finding the letter B in a page full of P’s = ONE FEATURE - Conjunction Search: Process of searching for a target that is not defined by any single visual feature, but by a combination of two or more features. > I.e. Finding an Orange Square on a page full of blue squares and orange triangles = CONJUNCTION/TWO FEATURES Theories of Visual Search - Triesman & Gelade (1980) - Feature Integration Theory: Different stages of attention are responsible for binding different features into responsible for binding different features into consciously experienced wholes or Gestalts 2 Stages include: 1) Preattentive Stage: Several primal visual features are processed and represented with separate “feature maps”. During this stage, the object details such as shape, color, orientation, and movement are analyzed separately from one another. Each of these aspects is processed in different areas of the brain = FEATURE SEARCHES 2) Focused stage: This stage involves integrating individual features in order to perceive the whole object, or recognize it if enough information is presented. If the :  object and prior knowledge in order to aid in recognition (TOP DOWN PROCESSING) = CONJUNCTION SEARCH - Feature Searches can be performed quickly and this requires only the Preattentive Stage for targets to be identified by only one visual feature, such as color, shape, movement, or orientation. - Conjunction searches involving 2 or more visual features are much slower and require a Focused attention stage which involves attention - (Wolfe, 1994) - Guided Search Theory: Information from top-down and bottom-up processing of the stimulus is used to create a ranking of items in the order of their attentional priority. - In a visual search, attention will be directed to the item with the highest priority - The guided search theory allows for parallel search processing Huntsinger, Clore & Bar-Anan (2010) - The researchers tried to investigate the impact of positive versus negative mood priming on global (gestalt) versus local (details) processing of visual information - A variant of the Navon (1977) global vs. local processing task was used for this study - Stimuli were large letters (global) that were composed of letters (local) that either matched the corresponding large letter (match) or mismatched with the large letter mismatch - Participants had to quickly press a button indicating if they had recognized the corresponding letter on the screen (H, O, S) - Participants had 250 milliseconds to respond - Prior to performing the experimental task, participants were asked to write about a positive emotional event (POSITIVE PRIMING) or negative emotional event (NEGATIVE PRIMING) from their past for seven minutes to induce a positive or negative mood - Results: Researchers found that positive priming resulted in better global recognition of letters than local recognition of letters - Furthermore, negative priming resulted in better local recognition of letters than global recognition of letters - Other research studies have confirmed the impact of positive versus negative moods in influencing visual processing and attention - When judging the similarity between a series of geometric figures, people in positive moods tend to base their similarity judgments on the global features of the stimuli more than people in negative - I.e. (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005)( Gasper & Clore, 2002) Deficit Of Focused Attention - Hemineglect: Patients with right parietal lobe damage ignore objects in the left visual field - When copying drawings and using visual imagery, there is a lack of attention to the left visual field Divided Attention - This is tested through dual-task studies > E.x Writing lecture notes while listening to the professor > Paying attention to the events on the TV screen while reading the scrolling message at the bottom of a TV - Dual-Task Performance :  - Task Similarity: (Triesman & Davies,1973) Tasks presented in the same modality or require a similar response (Mc, Leod,1977) produce poor performance (ex. Texting and driving) - Practice: (Spelke, Hirst, and Neisser (1976) trained participants to comprehend stories and copy words while listening to a tape recording. Massive practice made it possible to perform both tasks very well Central Capacity Theory of Attention (Daniel Kahneman,1973) - This assumes that attention is a specific capacity that has limited resources and is controlled by the individual - The ability to perform two tasks depends on the amount placed on the resources by multiple tasks - As a behavior or skill becomes automatic, the task uses less of the limited attention resources allowing attention to perform other cognitive tasks. (Multitasking) > I.e. Learning how to drive for the first time ( CONCSCIOUS) Vs. Knowing how to drive ( AUTOMATIC) Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) - Flow is dependent on the Difficulty of a given task and the Skill/Ability of a person - Low task difficulty with high skill/ability of a person leads to boredom and causes a person to lose motivation and attention on a task - High task difficulty with low skill/ability of a person leads to anxiety and causes a person to lose motivation/attention on a task - In the beginning, even simple tasks can be challenging. Over time, simple tasks can be challenging. Over time, simple tasks become automatic and mastered by a person. This allows a person to improve their skill level and take on harder tasks - Flow represents the optimum level between task difficulty and skills/ability of a person > (NOTE: Some athletes claim to experience being in the zone during a game and this represents flow. Flow may also have a link to the concept of mindfulness) - Flow is most effective when a person uses metacognition to match task difficulty with their skills and abilities Components of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) - The person feels that he or she has the energy to complete the task - The person can focus attention on the task - The person's goals are clear - The person receives immediate and accurate feedback - The person engages in deep effortless involvement in the task - The person has a sense of control and accomplishment over their actions - The lack of awareness of time Action Slips - Action Slips: A component of automatic processes involving the performance of actions that were not intended (Reason, 1979) Conducted a study where participants kept a diary of action slips Storage Failure (40%): Intentions and actions are forgotten or incorrectly recalled Test Failures (20%): The progress of the sequence of actions is not properly monitored (Route home vs. Route to Grocery store) :  Discrimination Failures (11%): Errors in discrimination between objects (Car keys vs. Home Keys) or actions (Throwing the clothes into the trash can vs. throwing clothes into a laundry hamper) The Brain and Attention - Posterior Attention Network ( PARIETAL LOBE)= Focused Attention - Anterior Attention Network ( FRONTAL LOBE) = Supervisory Attentional System/ Central executive of working memory Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) - Symptoms include impulsivity, overactivity, and difficulty focusing attention leading to a disruption in social and academic performance - There are poor inhibitory processes, blocking distractions and focusing attention - 51% of ADHD co-occurs with depression, anxiety disorders, and conduct disorders - ADHD is caused by low levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the right prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia structures causing poor inhibitory processes, blocking distractions and focusing attention - A treatment for ADHD is RITLIN that blocks the reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine in the caudate nucleus :