Memory

• Attention


  The process of focusing on specific stimuli or aspects of the environment whilst ignoring and excluding others
• Every day millions of stimuli reach our sensory receptors and never become part of our conscious perceptual experience
• Humans cannot react to everything
• We cope with the relentless bombardment of stimuli by not responding equally to all stimuli
• We narrow our focus and ‘pay attention’ to only some stimuli in our sensory environment
• Divided attention


  The ability to distribute our attention so that two or more activities may be performed simultaneously
• Most people have little difficulty in carrying out two or more activities at the same time
• Factors affecting multitasking


  • Conscious effort required
  • Similarity of tasks
  • Complexity of tasks
  • Experience at tasks
• Research findings indicate that our perceptual systems can more competently perform tasks requiring divided attention when the tasks are similar, not complex, and well known
• Example of divided attention


  • Driving and texting
• Selective attention


  Involves choosing and attending to a specific stimulus whilst at the same time excluding other stimuli
• We ‘select’ what we want to pay attention to and ignore less important stimuli
• Example of selective attention


  • Studying at the library while ignoring other noise
• We are more likely to attend to a stimulus if it is important or meaningful to us
• Examples of meaningful stimuli


  • Seeing your crush
  • Hearing someone mention your name
• Our physiological state can also affect attention
• Example of physiological influence on attention


  • A hungry person is more likely to notice and pay attention to the smells of KFC
• Our motives can also be an influential force on our attention
• Example of motive influence on attention


  • A student who loves psychology pays more attention in psychology class
• Past experiences also have an important influence on attention
• Example of past experience influence on attention


  • If something has meaning to you, you are more likely to pay attention to it
• Novelty


  A change in stimulus or new stimulus that captures attention
• Habituation


  A constant sound like the air conditioner will make us not draw attention to it
• Dishabituation


  Where a new sound is introduced and your attention is renewed
• Cocktail party effect


  Our ability to separate one conversation from another in a noisy environment
• Cherry (1953) discovered how good we are at filtering what we hear
• Cocktail party effect experiment

  1. Participants close eyes

  2. Concentrate hard

  3. Shadow one of the two messages

  4. Separate one message from the other
• Cherry found he could confuse listeners only by having both messages consist entirely of nonsensical platitudes
• This is not a wholly satisfying demonstration of the cocktail party effect
• The cocktail party effect is beautifully demonstrated in a classic study carried out by Colin Cherry
• Cherry's method


  1. Fed one message to left ear

  2. Fed one message to right ear

  3. Both messages voiced by the same speaker
• Participants found the task incredibly easy when messages were presented this way
• Participants were surprised how easily and accurately they could tune in to either of the messages
• Participants could shift their attention back and forth between the two messages
• This task appears to be much easier than initially thought
• At a party, people are arrayed all around us and their conversations come from various different directions
• We seem to be able to use information to reject all but one conversation in which we are interested