Attention: Models, Methods, and Theory PDF - Syracuse University Lecture

Chapter 4 Attention  Some Questions to Consider Is it possible to focus attention on just one thing, even if there are many other things going on at the same time? Under what conditions can we pay attention to more than one thing at a time? What does attention...

Chapter 4 Attention  Some Questions to Consider Is it possible to focus attention on just one thing, even if there are many other things going on at the same time? Under what conditions can we pay attention to more than one thing at a time? What does attention research tell us about the effect of talking on cell phones while driving a car? Is it true that we are not paying attention to a large fraction of the things happening in our environment? Syracuse University 2  Attention The ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations in our environment – Selective: attending to one thing while ignoring others – Divided: paying attention to more than one thing at a time – Limited: in capacity and timing – Both overt and covert: we can consciously attend to information but some information grabs our attention Syracuse University 3  Selective Attention – It is the ability to focus on one message and ignore all others. – We do not attend to a large fraction of the information in the environment. – We filter out some information and promote other information for further processing. Syracuse University 4 Research Method: Dichotic Listening (1 of 3) One message is presented to the left ear and another to the right ear. Participant “shadows” one message to ensure he is attending to that message. Can we completely filter out the message to the unattended ear and attend only to the shadowed message? Syracuse University 5 Research Method: Dichotic Listening (2 of 3) Figure 4.2 In the shadowing procedure, which involves dichotic listening, a person repeats out loud the words that they have just heard. This ensures that participants are focusing their attention on the attended message. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 6 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.  Research Method: Dichotic Listening (3 of 3) Participants could not report the content of the message in unattended ear: – Knew that there was a message – Knew the gender of the speaker However, unattended ear is being processed at some level: – Cocktail party effect – Change in gender is noticed – Change to a tone is noticed Syracuse University 7  Models of Selective Attention Where does the attention filter occur? – Early in processing – Later in processing Early selection model – Broadbent’s filter model Intermediate selection model – Treisman’s attenuation model Late selection model – For example, MacKay (1973) Syracuse University 8 Broadbent’s Filter Model (1 of 3) Early selection model – Filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning Figure 4.3 Flow diagram of Broadbent’s filter model of attention. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 9 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.  Broadbent’s Filter Model (2 of 3) Sensory memory – Holds all incoming information for a fraction of a second – Transfers all information to next stage Filter – Identifies attended message based on physical characteristics – Only attended message is passed on to the next stage Syracuse University 10  Broadbent’s Filter Model (3 of 3) Detector – Processes all information to determine higher-level characteristics of the message Short-term memory – Receives output of detector – Holds information for 10–15 seconds and may transfer it to long-term memory Syracuse University 11  Broadbent’s Model Could Not Explain… Why participant’s name gets through – Cocktail party phenomenon Why participants can shadow meaningful messages that switch from one ear to another – Dear Aunt Jane (Gray & Wedderburn, 1960) Syracuse University 12 Treisman’s Attenuation Model (1 of 4) Intermediate selection model – Attended message can be separated from unattended message early in the information-processing system. – Selection can also occur later. Figure 4.5 Flow diagram for Treisman’s attenuation model of selective attention. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 13 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Treisman’s Attenuation Model (2 of 4) Attenuator – It analyzes incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning. Attended message is let through the attenuator at full strength. Unattended message is let through at much weaker strength. Syracuse University 14 Treisman’s Attenuation Model (3 of 4) Dictionary unit – Contains words, each of which has a threshold for being activated ▪ Words that are common or important have low thresholds ▪ Uncommon words have high thresholds Syracuse University 15 Treisman’s Attenuation Model (4 of 4) Figure 4.6 The dictionary unit of Treisman’s attenuation model of selective attention contains words, each of which has a threshold for being detected. This graph shows the thresholds that might exist for three words. The person’s name has a low threshold, so it will be easily detected. The thresholds for the words rutabaga and boat are higher, because they are used less or are less important to this particular listener. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 16 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.  Late Selection Models (1 of 2) Selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after information has been analyzed for meaning. MacKay (1973) – In attended ear, participants heard ambiguous sentences. ▪ “They were throwing stones at the bank.” – In unattended ear, participants heard either “river” or “money.” Syracuse University 17  Late Selection Models (2 of 2) Participants chose which was closest to the meaning of attended message: – “They threw stones toward the side of the river yesterday.” – “They threw stones at the savings and loan association yesterday.” Meaning of the biasing word affected participants’ choice. Participants were unaware of the presentation of the biasing words. Syracuse University 18 Load Theory of Attention Processing capacity—how much information a person can handle at any given moment Perceptual load—the difficulty of a given task – High-load (difficult) tasks use higher amounts of processing capacity – Low-load (easy) tasks use lower amounts of processing capacity Figure 4.8 The load theory of attention: (a) Low-load tasks that use few cognitive resources may leave resources available for processing unattended task-irrelevant stimuli, whereas (b) high- load tasks that use all of a person’s cognitive resources don’t leave any resources to process unattended taskirrelevant stimuli. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 19 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.  Overt Attention Eye movements, attention, and perception – Saccades: rapid movements of the eyes from one place to another – Fixations: short pauses on points of interest – Studied by using an eye tracker Syracuse University 20 Eyelink 1000 Syracuse University 21 Eye-tracking Example Syracuse University 22  Bottom-up Determinants of Eye Movement Stimulus salience: areas that stand out and capture attention – Bottom-up process – Depends on characteristics of the stimulus – Color and motion are highly salient Syracuse University 23 Top-Down Determinants of Eye Movements (1 of 2) Scene schema: knowledge about what is contained in typical scenes – Help guide fixations from one area of a scene to another Eyes movements are determined by task – Eyes movements preceded motor actions by a fraction of a second Syracuse University 24 Top-Down Determinants of Eye Movements (2 of 2) Figure 4.15 Sequence of fixations of a person making a peanut butter sandwich. The first fixation is on the loaf of bread. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 25 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Covert Attention: Attention Without Eye Movements (1 of 2) Precueing: directing attention without moving the eyes – Participants respond faster to a light at an expected location than at an unexpected location – Even when eyes kept fixed Syracuse University 26 Covert Attention: Attention Without Eye Movements (2 of 2) Figure 4.16 Procedure for (a) valid trials and (b) invalid trials in Posner et al.’s (1978) precueing experiment; (c) the results of the experiment. The average reaction time was 245 ms for valid trials but 305 ms for invalid trials. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 27 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. The Stroop Test (1 of 3) Stroop effect – Name of the word interferes with the ability to name the ink color – Cannot avoid paying attention to the meanings of the words Syracuse University 28 The Stroop Test (2 of 3) Figure 4.9 Name the color of the ink used to print these shapes. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 29 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. The Stroop Test (3 of 3) Figure 4.10 Name the color of the ink used to print these words. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 30 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Divided Attention (1 of 4) Practice enables people to simultaneously do two things that were difficult at first. Schneider and Shiffrin (1977) – Divide attention between remembering target and monitoring rapidly presented stimuli ▪ Memory set: one to four characters called target stimuli ▪ Test frames: could contain random dot patterns, a target, distractors Syracuse University 31 Divided Attention (2 of 4) Figure 4.21 Sample stimuli for Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) experiment. In this experiment, there is one target stimulus in the memory set (the 3) and four stimuli in each frame. The target appears in the last frame in this example. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 32 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Divided Attention (3 of 4) Figure 4.22 Improvement in performance with practice in Schneider and Schiffrin’s (1977) experiment. The arrow indicates the point at which participants reported that the task had become automatic. This is the result of experiments in which there were four target stimuli in the memory set and two stimuli in each test frame Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 33 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Divided Attention (4 of 4) Automatic processing occurs without intention and only uses some of a person’s cognitive resources. Syracuse University 34 Distractions: Cell Phone Use 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study – Video recorders placed in cars – Accident risk is 4X higher when using a cell phone. Strayer and Johnston (2001): – Simulated driving – Participants on phone missed twice as many red lights and took longer to apply the brakes ▪ Same result using “hands-free” cell phone Syracuse University 35 Attention and Visual Perception Inattentional blindness: – Stimulus that is not attended is not perceived, even though a person might be looking directly at it Figure 4.25 Inattentional blindness experiment. (a) The cross display is presented for five trials. On each trial, one arm of the cross is slightly longer than the other. The participant’s task is to indicate which arm (horizontal or vertical) is longer. (b) On the sixth trial, the participants carry out the same task, but a small square or other geometric object is included in the display. After the sixth trial, participants are asked whether they saw anything different than before. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 36 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Inattentional Blindness Figure 4.26 Frame from the film shown by Simons and Chabris in which a person in a gorilla suit walks through the basketball game. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 37 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Object-Based Visual Attention (1 of 4) Location-based: – Moving attention from one place to another Object-based: – Attention being directed to one place on an object Syracuse University 38 Object-Based Visual Attention (2 of 4) Egly et al. (1994) – Participants saw two side-by-side rectangles, followed by a target cue – Reaction time fastest when target appeared where indicated – Reaction time was faster when the target appeared in the same rectangle Syracuse University 39 Object-Based Visual Attention (3 of 4) Figure 4.17 In Egly and coworkers’ (1994) experiment, (a) a cue signal appears at one place on the display, then the cue is turned off and (b) a target is flashed at one of four possible locations, A, B, C, or D. The participants’ task was to press a button when the target was presented anywhere on the display. Numbers are reaction times in ms for positions A, B, and C when the cue signal appeared at position A. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 40 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Object-Based Visual Attention (4 of 4) The enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout the object Attention can be based on the – Environment ▪ Static scenes or scenes with few objects – Specific object ▪ Dynamic events Syracuse University 41 Change Detection (1 of 2) Change blindness: – If shown two versions of a picture, differences between them are not immediately apparent. – Task to identify differences requires concentrated attention and search. Syracuse University 42 Change Detection (2 of 2) Caption: Frames from the video shown in the Levin and Simons’ (1997) experiment. Note that the woman on the right is wearing a scarf around her neck in shots A, C, and D, but not in shot B. Also, the color of the plates changes from red in the first three frames to white in frame D, and the hand position of the woman on the left changes between shots C and D. Syracuse University 43 Attention and Experiencing a Coherent World Binding – The process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object. Syracuse University 44 Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (1 of 7) Figure 4.30 Steps in Treisman’s feature integration theory. Objects are analyzed into their features in the preattentive stage, and the features are later combined with the aid of attention. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 45 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (2 of 7) Preattentive stage – Automatic – No effort or attention – Unaware of process – Object analyzed into features Syracuse University 46 Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (3 of 7) Treisman and Schmidt (1982) – Participants report combination of features from different stimuli. – Illusory conjunctions occur because features are “free floating.” Syracuse University 47 Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (4 of 7) Figure 4.31 Stimuli for illusory conjunction experiment. See text for details. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 48 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (5 of 7) Focused attention stage – Attention plays key role – Features are combined Treisman and Schmidt (1982) – Ignore black numbers and focus on objects – Participants can correctly pair shapes and colors Syracuse University 49 Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (6 of 7) R.M.: Patient with Balint’s syndrome – Inability to focus attention on individual objects – High number of illusory conjunctions reported Syracuse University 50 Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (7 of 7) Mostly bottom-up processing Top-down processing influences processing when participants are told what they would see – Top-down processing combines with feature analysis to help one perceive things accurately Syracuse University 51 Physiology of Attention Attention enhances neural responding. Attentional processing is distributed across a large number of areas in the brain. Syracuse University 52 Attention Processing Distributed Across the Cortex (1 of 2) Using fMRI to detect cortical activity during a search task Attention to an expected direction of motion caused brain activity to increase in a number of brain areas Syracuse University 53 Attention Processing Distributed Across the Cortex (2 of 2) Figure 4.18 (a) Participants in Datta and DeYoe’s (2009) experiment directed their attention to different areas of this circular display while keeping their eyes fixed on the center of the display. (b) Activation of the brain that occurred when participants attended to the areas indicated by the letters on the stimulus disc. The center of each circle is the place on the brain that corresponds to the center of the stimulus. The yellow “hot spot” is the area of the brain that is maximally activated by attention. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 54 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.