ATTENTION

• Attention


  The means by which we actively process a limited amount of information from the enormous amount of information available through our senses, our stored memories, and our other cognitive processes
• Attention includes both conscious and unconscious processes
• Conscious processes are relatively easy to study, while unconscious processes are harder to study
• Vigilance


  A person's ability to attend to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period, during which the person seeks to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus of interest
• Conjunction search


  Looking for a particular combination of features
• Short-term signals


  Immediate sensory inputs and stimuli that the brain processes momentarily
• Long-term signals


  Information that becomes part of long-term memory, allowing individuals to retain and recall it over time
• Signal detection theory (SDT)

  Used to measure sensitivity to a target's presence
• Four possible outcomes in signal detection theory

  • Hits (true positives)
  • False alarms (false positives)
  • Misses
  • Correct rejections
• Actively looking


  Actively and often skillfully seeking out a target
• Distracters


  Non-target stimuli that divert our attention away from the target stimulus
• Display size


  The number of items in a given visual array, which slows down the search process
• Feature search


  A distinctive feature stands out in the display
• Feature integration theory


  Explains the relative ease of conducting feature searches and the relative difficulty of conducting conjunction searches
• Similarity theory


  The data are a result of the fact that as the similarity between target and distractor stimuli increases, so does the difficulty in detecting the target stimuli
• Guided search theory


  Suggests that all searches, whether feature searches or conjunction searches, involve two consecutive stages
• Serial processing


  Allows only one object at a time to be processed
• Parallel processing


  Assumes that various objects are processed simultaneously
• Selective attention


  The cognitive process of focusing on a particular aspect of the environment while ignoring others
• Colin Cherry referred to the cocktail party problem as the process of tracking one conversation in the face of the distraction of other conversations
• Broadbent's filter model


  The physical characteristics of messages are used to select one message for further processing and all others are lost
• Attenuation


  Turning down the volume so that if you have four sources of sound in one room, you can turn down or attenuate 3 to attend to the fourth
• Selective filter model


  The audience selectively filters media messages based on their own experiences and beliefs
• Attenuation model


  There is a decrease in the perceived loudness of an unattended message
• Deutsch & Deutsch's late filter model


  All information (attended and unattended) is analyzed for meaning in order to select an input for full awareness
• Divided attention


  The ability to pay attention to two tasks at once
• Neisser and Becklen hypothesized that improvements in divided attention performance would occur as a result of practice, and that it was based on skill resulting from practice rather than special cognitive mechanisms
• Dual-task paradigm


  Used to study divided attention during the simultaneous performance of two activities
• Psychological refractory period (PRP) effect

  The slowing resulting from simultaneous engagement in speeded tasks
• More intelligent people are better able to timeshare between two tasks and to perform both effectively
• Attentional resources theory


  Posits that people have a fixed amount of attention that they can choose to allocate according to what the task requires
• Alerting


  Being prepared to attend to some incoming event, and maintaining this attention
• Orienting


  The selection of stimuli to attend to, as needed for visual search

  
• Executive attention


  Includes processes for monitoring and resolving conflicts that arise among internal processes like thoughts, feelings, and responses
• Divided attention often fails when people are engaged in activities like driving and talking on a cell phone
• Factors that influence our ability to pay attention

  • Anxiety
  • Arousal
  • Task difficulty
  • Skills
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

  Problems in concentrating attention in ways that enable effective adaptation to the environment
• Three main symptoms of ADHD

  • Inattention
  • Hyperactivity
  • Impulsiveness
• Types of ADHD symptoms

  • Predominantly Inattentive Presentation
  • Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation
  • Combined Presentation
• Change blindness and inattentional blindness


  Attentional dysfunctions in which participants overlook or ignore parts of their visual field