Attention

• Attention


  Process by which we select or focus on one or more specific stimuli for enhanced processing and analysis
• Attention


  • Selective
• Vigilance


  State of being on guard
• Overt Attention


  Focus coincides with sensory orientation
• Covert Attention


  Focus can be directed independently of sensory orientation
• Cocktail Party Effect


  Attention focuses to block out distracters
• Shadowing experiments


  1. Presented different streams of speech simultaneously to people ears

  2. Asked to focus their attention on one stream of speech

  3. Patients able to report in attended ear but not in the other
• Divided attention tasks


  Person asked to process two or more simultaneous stimuli
• Inattentional blindness


  Failure to perceive unattended stimuli
• 83% of Radiologist missed gorilla inserted into one of the scans
• All of the above show that attention is indeed limited
• Attentional bottleneck


  Failure to perceive unattended stimuli
• Attentional spotlight


  • Attention shift around environment
  • Helps us focus cognitive resources and behavioral responses
• Early selection model


  Unattended info is filtered out right away
• Late selection model


  Important but unattended stimuli undergo substantial unconscious processing
• Perceptual load


  • Immediate processing demands presented by a stimulus
  • Complex stimulus leaves no resources left
  • Simple stimulus leaves resources to simultaneously process additional stimuli
  • Attention balanced between early and late selection depending on task
• Sustained-attention tasks


  One stimulus must be held in attentional spotlight for an extended period
• Voluntary attention


  Conscious directing of attention according to our interests and goals
• Symbolic cueing task


  1. Study voluntary attention

  2. Direct attention to correct location or stimulus improves cognitive speed and accuracy

  3. Stare at fixation point on computer screen and press a key as soon as they see a specific target

  4. Measures reaction time

  5. Stimulus sometimes preceded with a clue

  6. Show people learn to use cues to predict stimulus location without moving gaze

  7. Valid cues help processing
• Simple reaction time


  Participants press button in response to experimental stimulus
• Choice reaction time


  • Participants choose alternative and use multiple buttons
  • Delay between stimulus and response varies on amount of neural processing required
  • Complex stimuli require participation of more brain pathways, slowing down reaction time
• Reflexive attention


  Attention directed by sensory inputs
• Peripheral spatial cuing


  • Simple sensory stimulus occurs in the location to which attention is to be drawn
  • Valid cues enhance processing when cue has short interval of time before stimulus
  • If longer than 200 milliseconds, cue is increasingly impaired- inhibition of return
• Reflexive and voluntary attention work together
• Multiple sensory modalities can help improve the visual processing of a stimulus there
• Emotional cues capture reflexive attention
• Visual search


  • Sought after item "pops out" immediately no matter how many distractors are present
  • Happens with simple searches
  • Conjunction search- involves combo of two or more features, slow and laborious
• Binding problem


  How the brain understands which individual attributes blend together into a single objects when these different features are processed by different regions in the brain
• Temporal- track changes quicker and spatial resolution- ability to observe structure trade off in attention research