Selective Attention

• Why is selective attention important for coherent behavior?

  It allows us to select perceptual information that is relevant to our goals and intentions
• How do lay concepts define attention?

  • Attention is a psychological commodity enhancing awareness of events
  • Early definitions aimed to quantify phenomenological descriptions
  • Titchner (1908) suggested attention increases clarity of perceptual events
• When did contemporary theories of attention emerge?

  During the cognitive revolution of the 1950s
• What perspective is the information-processing model of attention based on?

  It is based on the information-processing perspective where the brain represents sensory input at various levels
• What experimental task did Cherry (1953) use to study attention?

  The dichotic listening task
• What did participants demonstrate in the dichotic listening task?

  They could accurately shadow the spoken message in their left and right ear
• What was the participants' awareness of the message in the unattended ear?

  They had very limited awareness of the message in the unattended ear
• What did Cherry conclude about the processing of unattended messages?

  Unattended messages were processed at an early perceptual level but not at later levels
• Who developed the 'filter' or 'bottleneck' model of selective attention?

  Broadbent (1958)
• What characterizes human information processing according to the bottleneck model?

  • Limited central processing resource
  • Early attentional filter protects this resource
  • Filters perceptual input based on low-level properties (e.g., location, pitch)
• What do late selection models suggest about the bottleneck in attention processing?

  They suggest the bottleneck occurs after semantic level analysis
• What did Triesman (1964) find regarding responses to target words in the unattended channel?

  Responses were reduced rather than abolished
• What determines the locus of selection in attention?

  It is determined by the perceptual properties of the stimulus and cognitive load
• What question arises regarding the control of the attentional filter?

  What triggers the selection of information?
• What are the effects of exogenous cues on selective visual attention?

  • Evoke biphasic responses
  • Facilitation and inhibition of response times
  • Response times vary based on cue validity
• How do endogenous cues affect selective visual attention?

  • Facilitation is slower acting
  • Does not reverse
  • Response times vary based on cue validity
• What do cues enhance in selective visual attention?

  Cues enhance the neural response to targets at the cued location
• How can selective attention be oriented according to the data?

  It can be oriented to spatial location exogenously or endogenously
• What characterizes exogenous attention?

  It is reflexive, fast acting, and produces biphasic modulation of target processing
• What is the evolutionary purpose of reflexive attention?

  It focuses resources on salient stimuli to facilitate fast responses to threats
• What is the focus of endogenous attention?

  It focuses resources on goal-relevant stimuli, locations, or events
• How can exogenous and endogenous attention affect sensory processing?

  They can facilitate or inhibit sensory processing
• What experimental task illustrates inhibitory control during selective attention?

  The Stroop task
• What does selective attention describe in terms of neural mechanisms?

  • Prioritizes relevant information
  • Analogies include a filter or spotlight
  • Leads to measurable changes in behavior and brain activity
  • Can be oriented exogenously or endogenously
  • Prioritizes information at different levels of description (e.g., color vs orthography)