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Attention & Consciousness

Attention & Consciousness. Stephanie Tobin, Phd. Today’s Plan. Iclicker Review of previous classes Attention Types of Attention Explanations for Attention. Iclicker Review Questions. iclicker.

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Attention & Consciousness

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  1. Attention & Consciousness Stephanie Tobin, Phd

  2. Today’s Plan • Iclicker Review of previous classes • Attention • Types of Attention • Explanations for Attention

  3. Iclicker Review Questions

  4. iclicker • Which of the following statements provides the best, most complete definition of the term perception? • A: Perception refers to the process of converting external stimuli into electrical signals within the nervous system • B: Perception refers to the registration of visual information on the retina • C: Perception refers to the mental images we create without any input from the external world • D: Perception uses our previous knowledge to collect and interpret sensory stimuli

  5. Review of Last class • The words in this sentence are being registered on the retina of your eye. What is this representation called: • A: Sensory memory • B: The template • C: The proximal stimulus • D: The distal stimulus.

  6. Attention

  7. Attention: An Example • Try to focus on everything you see in front of you • Every visual detail (ie., hair color, wall color, does the person in front of you have a pen or pencil) • Now try to focus on everything you see and everything you hear • Every breathing sound, cough, conversation • Now try to focus on everything you see, hear and feel • Every internal and external sensation (e.g., is it cold, how does your watch feel against your skin)

  8. What does our example tell us? • There is a lot happening and it is difficult to attend to everything • Asking you to focus on everything is asking you to divide your attention (Hard) • We must focus (Selective attention) • A lot of information gets ignored • e.g., How often do you think of how your socks feel against your skin • Unattended items are not processed in detail (attention is a gatekeeper) • If you do not attend to something it basically doesn’t exist for you

  9. What is attention? • Attention is …. • Concentration of mental activity that allows you to take in a limited portion of the vast stream of information available from both the sensory world and memory • Top down and bottom up process • Stimuli captures our attention (bottom up) • Concentrate mental abilities to pay attention to something specific (top down)

  10. Divided Attention • Divided Attention: • trying to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages • respond appropriately to each message • speed and accuracy suffers (esp. for difficult tasks) • Related to divided attention: Multitasking • When people try to accomplish two or more tasks at the same time • Research does not support our perceived multi-tasking abilities • Testing of material read while multitasking (Bowmann et al., 2010)

  11. Divided Attention • An example of divided attention • Cell phones and driving • Collet et al. (2009) • Simulated-driving course and handheld cell phone • RT 20% slower • Strayer et al. (2003) • Heavy traffic conditions and hands-free cell phone • Significantly longer to brake • Inattentional blindness – Reduced attention for information appearing in center of visual field • Attention wanders Strayer & Drews, 2007

  12. Divided Attention • An example of divided attention • Cell phones and driving • Emberson et al. 2010 • Passenger on cell phone is more distracting than talking to passenger • Hearing half the conversation is less predictable • Produces measurable decrease in performance on cognitive tasks

  13. Selective Attention • Divided attention is demanding • Likely we are not paying equal attention • Selective Attention • Requires paying attention to certain information while ignoring other information • Allows for focused mental activity • Hopefully you are attending to me and ignoring irrelevant information

  14. Selective Attention • Examples of Selective Attention Tasks and Research • Dichotic Listening • The Stroop Effect • Visual Search • Saccadic Eye Movements

  15. Selective Attention: Dichotic Listening • I’m inviting you all to a party • But.. my apartment is small so I’m inviting three of you to a party • I am a good hostess and want to talk to everyone one-on-one • I encourage the two guests I’m not talking to each other to chat • I actively listen to the person I am talking to and have limited awareness of the other conversation taking place

  16. Selective Attention: Dichotic Listening • Studied in the laboratory by asking part. to shadow message presented in one ear of two ears • Researcher monitor mistakes in shadowing • Studies have shown people fail to notice change in language • Do notice change in sex • Dichotic Listening

  17. Selective Attention: Dichotic Listening • In general people can only process one message at a time • Able to process both messages under certain situations: • Both messages are delivered slowly • Main task is not challenging • Meaning of intended message is immediately relevant • Cocktail Party Effect • Wood & Cowan (1995) 1/3 of people report hearing their name in the message they are ignoring • Inversely related to working memory (High: 20%; Low: 65%) • Ecological validity?

  18. Selective Attention: Stroop Effect • We’re about to do an experiment • I am going to present you a series of words printed in different colors • Your task is to tell me the color of the text and ignore the meaning of the word • Lets get started

  19. RED

  20. BLACK

  21. RED

  22. YELLOW

  23. BLUE

  24. Selective Attention: Stroop Effect • This is known as the Stroop Effect • Created by James R Stroop (1935) • People longer to name the ink color when the word and printed color are incongruent (ie., RED in black ink) • Approx. 100 sec for 100 words • People can quickly name color when print color and word are same (ie., Black in black ink) • Approx 60 sec for 100 words • People take longer to pay attention to color when distracted by another feature of the stimulus (the meaning)

  25. Selective Attention: Stroop Effect • Theories behind Stroop Effect: • Parallel distributed processing approach • Pathway for color naming task • Pathway for reading task • More practice reading words than naming colors • Automatic process (reading) interferes with non-automatic process (naming colors)

  26. Selective Attention: Stroop Effect • The Stroop test has been presented in many forms since its inception • The Emotional Stroop Task: Word with strong emotional significance • Used by clinical psychologists • More time needed to name color of words which provoke strong emotional reactions • Ie., hairy and crawl for those with spider phobia • Hyper alter to such words (attentional bias) • Similar findings for Depressed individuals and individuals at risk for eating disorders when words are related to sadness or body shape CRAWL

  27. Selective Attention: Visual Search • Visual Search: Requires an observer to find an object in a visual display that has numerous distractors

  28. Selective Attention: Visual Search • Factors influencing visual search: • Frequency: More able to identify object that appears frequently (e.g., target represent in same background) • Isolated-feature/Combined feature effect • Feature-present/Feature-absent effect

  29. Selective Attention: Visual Search • Isolated-feature/Combined-feature effect • Treisman & Gelade (1980) • Part. able to quickly detect target when it differed from irrelevant items with respect to a simple feature Ie., Color • Same time to detect for A1 and A2 • Search for the blue X again • Now there is a big difference • Must search each irrelevant stimuli • Combined features

  30. Selective Attention: Visual Search • Feature-present/Feature-absent effect • Our cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information • Positive = Feature is present (bottom-up) • Negative = Feature is absent (bottom-up and top-down) • Based on Treisman & Souther (1985) • Royden et al. (2001) • Easier to spot a moving target if distractors still than a still Target if distractors moving

  31. Selective Attention: Saccadic Eye Movements During Reading • Saccadic Eye Movements During Reading • Saccade • Rapid movement of eyes (jumps) • Brings fovea over word

  32. Selective Attention: Saccadic Eye Movements During Reading • Selective attention in that this is an active search for new information (the words that are to be read) • Each saccade brings eyes forward 7-9 letters • Eyes alternate between jumps and pauses • Information processed during fixation (pause)

  33. Selective Attention: Saccadic Eye Movements During Reading • Perceptual Span • Number of letters and spaces perceived during fixation • 15 letters to the right of fixation and 4 letters to the left for English • Lopsided • We are looking for cues about what is to come (e.g., spaces and word length) • Saccades have predictable patterns • Jump to center of word • Jump past short or frequent words • Small saccades if next word is misspelled • Good readers have larger saccades and make fewer regressions

  34. Explanations for Attention • Similar brain regions activated which paying attention and during visual object recognition • Importance of cortex in attentional processes • The Orienting Attention Network • Executive Attention Network

  35. Explanations for Attention: The Orienting Attention Network • The Orienting Attention Network • Involved in selecting information from sensory input (Visual search) • Importance of the parietal lobe • Evidence from stroke victims (lesions) and PET scans • Unilateral spatial neglect http://www.labspaces.net/blog/1552/Hemispatial_neglect__a_one_sided_world

  36. Explanations for Attention: Executive Attention Network • The Executive Attention Network is responsible for the kind of attention required when task focuses on conflict (ie., Stroop Task) • Top down control of attention • Network begins to develop around age 3 • Importance of the prefrontal cortex • Network overlaps with areas of the brain related to general intelligence

  37. Explanations for Attention: Theories of Attention • Bottleneck Theories • Early approach to attention • Focused on limitations of attention • Bottleneck limits information we can attend to • As one message flows through bottleneck other information is left behind • Theory rejected: Information not lost at one point

  38. Explanations for Attention: Feature-Integration Feature-Integration Theory (Anne Treisman) The basic elements (continuum) focused attention slower serial processing identify one object at a time complex objects identify which features belong together distributed attention • register features automatically • parallel processing • identify features simultaneously • low-level processing

  39. Explanations for Attention: Feature-Integration • Research supports both types of attention • Related to Feature-integration: Illusory conjunction • inappropriate combination of features • occurs when attention is overloaded or distracted • features processed independently • binding problem (e.g., an apple) • illusory conjunctions with printed and verbal material • Hear dax and kay, report day • role of top-down processing

  40. Next Class • Consciousness • Exam Discussion • Finish reading Chapter 3

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