Cognitive Psychology Lecture Notes - Attention PDF

# Cognitive Psychology Lecture Two - Attention <3 ## Learning objectives - Understand focus on visual attention - Definition of attention - Types of attention - Selective attention - Automatic and controlled processes - Attention and the brain - 'Disorders' of atten...

# Cognitive Psychology Lecture Two - Attention <3 ## Learning objectives - Understand focus on visual attention - Definition of attention - Types of attention - Selective attention - Automatic and controlled processes - Attention and the brain - 'Disorders' of attention - Neglect - Attention deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ## Definition of attention - William James, 1980: “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalisation, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others..." - Harold Pashler, 1998: "No one knows what attention is..." - One possible definition: the ability to focus mental resources on something ## Selective attention - This is when we try to pay attention to a particular stimulus and try to ignore others that would distract us (Wolfe et al., 2009). - Selective attention helps to simplify our experience of the world. - If we were unable to identify and focus on the key aspects in the environment, then we would be constantly overwhelmed by hundreds of pieces of information all the time. - Although this initially seems limiting, it is hugely beneficial. - It gives us control over which stimuli receive our attention and any subsequent processing. - The classic example of this is in the dichotic listening task. - Selective attention can be defined as attending to only one source of information while trying to ignore others. - It allows us to maintain attention even when faced with distractions. ## Inattentional blindness - Inattentional blindness is the failure to process information that is not attended to. - There is little information we actually attend to. ## Distinctions in attention - We can divide attention into various types. - Overt and covert - Selective and divided - We can also consider attention in terms of both 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' processes. ## Overt attention - Shifting the eyes from one place to another. - Easily observable by others. - A word search is an obvious example. - Some words seem to 'jump out'. - Others require purposeful, effortful, overt searching. - Good, detailed vision requires looking directly at something. ## Stimulus salience - This brings us to the bottom-up - top-down distinction. - Stimulus salience is a bottom-up process. - This means it is driven by the data or the stimulus itself. - Colour/contrast/movement/sound for example. - When this occurs involuntarily, we call it ‘attentional capture'. - This can happen for reasons of safety: a loud noise/something coming at you. ## Top-down processing - While most processing begins in this bottom-up way we quickly progress to top-down processing (Parkhurst et al., 2002). - Our perception of a scene is soon impacted by these cognitive factors, such as our goals, expectations, and knowledge. - Our eye movements and scanning are influenced by our schemas - what we expect to see in certain scenes. - Participants in Vo and Henderson's (2009) study spent longer looking Picture B, which showed a printer in a kitchen, than Picture A, which showed a pan in the kitchen. - Shinoda et al. (2001) found participants noticed stop signs at junctions, but not in the idle of streets (in a simulator). - Knowledge influences where attention is directed. ## Covert attention - This is where attention is directed in the absence of eye movement. - Common in sport when attending to the ball and/or an opponent and yet still completing a perfect 'no look' pass. - We can also assess covert attention experimentally. ## Posner cueing task (Posner et al., 1978) - **Top-down selection** ("goal driven mechanisms") - An endogenous cue indicates where a target might appear in the visual field. - Manipulate the kind of cue. - Valid cue - Neutral cue - Invalid cue - Valid cue - fastest reaction time - Neutral cue - middle reaction time - Invalid cue - slowest reaction time - **Bottom-up selection** (“stimulus driven mechanism") - An exogenous cue indicates where a target might appear in the visual field. - Manipulate the kind of cue. - Valid cue - Neutral cue - Invalid cue - Valid cue - fastest reaction time - Neutral cue - middle reaction time - Invalid cue - slowest reaction time ## What does it all mean? - **Key findings** - Participants were faster on valid trials compared to neutral trials. - Participants were slower on invalid trials than neutral trials. - This tells us that even without moving their eyes participants can shift attention (eyes had to stay on the fixation point). - This is called covert attention. - This attentional shift can be achieved with both endogenous and exogenous cues. - The exogenous cues depend on a more reflexive, less voluntary mechanism. - If we make valid and invalid trials equally likely, for endogenous cues both trial-types result in the same response time. - For exogenous cue the invalid trials remain slower - we can't help but respond to the cue, which tells us it is not voluntary. ## Automatic and controlled processing - Controlled processing involves the conscious use of attention and effort, and is slow. - Learning to perform a task generally involves lots of conscious processing initially - you really have to focus on specific aspects of the task and think carefully about performing them accurately e.g. learning to drive. - Automatic processing can be performed without conscious awareness or effort, and is typically fast. - Routine actions or well-practiced tasks, performed in familiar circumstances can become automatic. - Brain areas involved in conscious thought become less active (Jansma, Ramsey, Slagter, and Kahn, 2001). - Examples include driving, sports performance, and musical skill. - However, automatic processing can reduce the ability to find new ways to approach problems (Langer, 1989). ## Selective Attention - Automatic vs Controlled - The Stroop Task - Colours will either be written in their own colour or another one. - Participants will be asked to say the colour of the word not the colour word itself. ## Why does this happen? - This task clearly illustrates selective attention - people are distracted by the irrelevant stimuli (the word itself) and must focus on the ink colour (Styles, 2006). - Well-practiced tasks can become automatic: - When the necessary stimulus is presented then the response is automatic. - Reading is like this - you cannot help but read the words. - You need to inhibit the 'wrong' response (that is you need to not respond with word itself). - Stroop has been widely applied across psychology - with lots of variants. ## Selective Attention - Automatic vs Controlled - Search for a Target Task - Visual search task - "search for a target" - Search for a single feature - rapid, effortless, automatic - Search for a conjunction of features = slow, effortful, controlled ## Why does this happen? - When searching for a single feature it stands out from the group of items and the number of distractors is not very impactful. - When features are conjoined it takes much longer to search, when the distractors all share one of the features, the number of distractors has a dramatic impact here. - Treisman and Gelade (1980) argued that one uses parallel processing (fast) and the other serial processing (slower, effortful). - Many factors impact search speed (e.g. nature and number of distractors). ## Attention and the brain - **The posterior attention network** - Parietal lobe - Visual search of stimuli - Neuroimaging studies - increased blood flow associated to visual search - Brain damage - patients able to notice only stimuli in the left or right side - **The anterior attention network** - Frontal lobe - Inhibiting automatic responses ## (Hemi)neglect - A disorder of visual attention. - Stimuli presented to the opposite side to the damage remain undetected. - Typically presenting with damage to the right hemisphere. - Patients with neglect remain unaware of stimuli in the left visual field. - Studying patients such as these sheds light on what happens to unattended stimuli. - Patients typically fail to attend to stimuli in the left visual field, and have no conscious awareness of them. ## Neglect... but not always - Vuilleumier et al. reported some processing of stimuli in the left visual field: degraded pictures (2002) and a checkerboard design (2008). - So, while there is some processing taking place - it is not sufficient to reach conscious awareness. - In normal attention - attended and unattended stimuli produce similar ERP activity initially, with unattended stimuli activity quickly diminishing. - So, the effects of attention are seen very quickly in processing terms (Martinez et al., 1999). - Explanations for neglect suggest reduced attentional capacity (Bonato, 2012) and that the bottom-up processing system may be the damaged aspect (Bartolomeo and Chokron, 2002). ## Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - Developmental disorder affecting c. 5% of children (Polanczyk et al., 2014), 70% of them male (Wittchen et al., 2011), Chaulagain et al. (2003) 7.2% in children, 2.5% in adults. - Main symptoms - Frequently in motion - Often impatient - Easily distracted, and frequently switch from one task to another - Have difficulty maintaining focus on one task - A recent interview study reported participants feeling that 'life gets better' with many factors impacting resilience - relationships, acceptance, techniques. - Possibility a multifaceted disorder with numerous factors contributing. - Clear evidence for a genetic basis (e.g. Baboli et al., 2024; Smalley et al., 2000). ## Now you should be able to - Explain the difference between bottom-up vs top-down and between automatic vs controlled attentional selection - Understand the associated research findings - Describe the two attentional networks in the brain - Describe the two main attentional disorders