Psy 200 Exam 1 Purdue

• Illusory conjunction


  a perceptual mistake where features from multiple objects are incorrectly combined
• Same-object advantage


  Occurs when the enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object, so that attention to one place on an object results in a facilitation of processing at other places on the object.
• Cocktail party phenomena


  people tune in one message even while they filter out others nearby
• Salience


  An individual's belief that an issue is important or relevant to him or her.
• Likelihood principle


  we perceive the world in the way that is "most likely" based on our past experiences
• Choice RT task and simple RT task conclusion


  People (and animals) can respond a lot faster when there is just one stimulus and one response type (Simple Response Time task). Also, the more stimuli and responses there are, the slower you get (this is known as Hick's law).
• Saffran et al. (1996)


  Found that you can learn statistical probability of words by playing different musical tones
• Strayer and Johnston's experiment


  Participants on phone missed twice asmany red lights and took longer to applythe brakes
• Gauthier's Greeble experiment


  suggests Fusiform face area isn't just for faces
• Feature integration theory


  focused attention is not required to detect the individual features that comprise a stimulus, such as the color, shape, size, and location of letters, but is required to bind those individual features together
• load theory of attention


  Lavie's proposal that the amount of perceptual capacity that remains as a person is carrying out a task determines how well the person can avoid being distracted by task-irrelevant stimuli. If a person's perceptual load is close to perceptual capacity, the person is less likely to be distracted by task-irrelevant stimuli.
• Processing capability


  how much information a person can handle at any givenmoment; this sets a limit on a person's ability to process incoming information
• Automatic processing


  unconscious encoding of the incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information.
• Low load tasks


  Easy tasks that are well practiced low levels of processing capability
• High load tasl


  Difficult task using high loads of processing capability
• Pre-attentive stage


  The first stage of Treisman's feature integration theory, in which an object is analyzed into its features.
• Focused attention stage


  The second stage of Treisman's feature integration theory. According to the theory, attention causes the combination of features into perception of an object.
• Divided attention


  concentrating on more than one activity at the same time
• Selective attention


  the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
• Saccades


  Rapid voluntary movements of the eyes.
• Overt attention


  shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes
• Covert attention


  shifting attention from one place to another while keeping the eyes stationary
• Binding


  In the sense of vision, the bringing together and integration of what is processed by different neural pathways or cells.
• Visual search

  Detecting a target visual stimulus among other distracting stimuli
• feature search


  searching a display for an item that differs in just one feature from all other items in the display
• conjuction search


  the search for a target in which the target is specified by a combination of features
• Change detection task


  Task used to study visual short-term memory in which subjects view an array of visual stimuli and (after a short delay) have to indicate which stimulus changes.
• Inattention blindness


  failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere
• Change blindness


  failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness
• Late selection model of attention


  A model of selective attention that proposes that selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning.
• early selection model


  Model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering out of the unattended message. In Broadbent's early selection model, the filtering step occurs before the message is analyzed to determine its meaning.
• Dictionary Unit


  Contains words, each of which has a thresholdfor being activated• Common or important words have low thresholds• Uncommon words have high thresholds
• The attenuator is analyzing the incoming messages based on ____.

  physical characteristics, (2) language, and (3) meaning.
• Filter in Broadbent's attention model


  Identifies attended message based on physical characteristics• Only attended message is passed on to the next stag
• Attenuation model of attention


  language and meaning can also be used to separate the messagesAttended message can be separatedfrom unattended message early inthe information-processing system.But selection can also occur later.
• Filter model of attention


  model of attention that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli
• Common motion


  things that move together are grouped
• Apparent motion/movement


  Determining how fast two dots have to be flashed, one after another, to achieve an illusion of movement.
• Simplicity/good figure


  perceiving a structure as simple as possible
• Good continuation


  A Gestalt grouping rule stating that two elements will tend to group together if they seem to lie on the same contour.