2. Outline
What is Attention?
Orienting
Cueing Attention
Visual Search
Selective Attention
Dichotic Listening Tasks
Bottleneck Theories
Divided Attention
Capacity Model
Automatic vs. Controlled Processing
Visual Neglect
3. What Is Attention?
Definition
Attention is the process by which the mind
chooses from among the various stimuli that
strike the senses at any given moment
• allows only some info to enter into consciousness
Related Concepts:
Alertness
Concentration
Selectivity
Control
4. Big Issues in Attention
Facts that drive attention
research
We are bombarded by more
information than we can attend to
• Selective Attention
• Divided Attention
• Automaticity
Some tasks can be performed
with little, if any, attention
5. Orienting
We don’t passively see or hear
We actively look and listen
Different ways to orient to a stimulus
Overt Orienting
Covert Orienting
Attentional Gaze
Attention can be drawn to a particular
location independent of where our
eyes are looking or our ears are
oriented
6. Cuing Attention
Give people a cue where a
target will appear in the
visual field
Manipulate the kind of cue
Valid Cue
Neutral Cue
Invalid Cue
How does cue affect
performance?
7. Results
Different kinds of
cues are possible
Voluntary Orienting
• Endogenous Cue
• Arrow
Automatic Orienting
• Exogenous Cue
• Flashing light
25. Shadowing Results
Physical attributes of unattended channel
are detected
Male vs. female voice
Human vs. musical instruments
Semantic attributes of unattended
channel were missed
Don’t notice foreign language
Don’t notice repeated items
28. Attenuation Model (Treisman)
Present a story in dichotic listening task
Story switches from attended ear to
unattended ear
Participant mistakenly shadows from attended
ear to unattended ear
Attended Ear: Unattended Ear:
She had peanut butter freaking laser beams
you keep using that word and jelly sandwiches
29. Problems with Early Models
Memory for unattended channel may depend on
familiarity or importance
Cocktail party effect
There are effects of practice
There is implicit memory for the unattended
channel even when there isn’t explicit memory
Shock study
People can shadow meaningful message that
switch from ear to ear
Treisman
Memory for unattended channel affected by
similarity to attended channel
30. Context Effects
Attended ear:
“They were standing near the bank”
Unattended ear:
One of the following was presented
• “river”
• “money”
Participants interpreted “bank” as
a riverbank if they heard “river”
a financial bank if they heard “money”
32. Problems with Late Models
Even if pertinence is controlled for
We are more likely to notice effects in the
attended channel (87%)
We are less likely to notice effects in the
unattended channel (8%)
If selection is late
Why do we feel like we’re consciously
selecting early?
Neuro evidence
Enhanced neural processing at early stages
34. Bottleneck Theories
All information gets into sensory register
Somewhere along the way, information is
filtered or selected for attention
Early
• at perceptual level
Late
• at response level
Only selected information makes it into
awareness and long-term memory
35. Divided Attention
Dual task experiments
Get people to perform
multiple tasks and look at
the effects on performance
Often find that
performance suffers
• This breakdown of
performance when two tasks
are combined sheds light on
the limitations and nature of
the human information-
processing system
36. Dual Task Performance
Divided attention is difficult when:
Tasks are similar
Tasks are difficult
When both tasks require conscious attention
Divided attention is easier when:
Tasks are dissimilar
Tasks are simple
When at least one of the tasks does not
require conscious attention
Tasks are practiced
37. Capacity Theories
Tasks take mental effort
We have limited mental
effort to allocate to all
demands on our attention
Conscious control of
allocation
Some tasks require more
attention than others
38. Resource Allocation Model (Kahneman)
What Affects Allocation?
Resources
• Arousal
• Available Capacity
Other Effects
• Enduring Dispositions
• Momentary Intentions
39. Different Processes
Some tasks are easier to perform than
others and don’t seem to affect attention
Especially tasks that are well practiced
Other tasks are tedious and require our
conscious attention
Two types of processing:
Automatic or pre-attentive processing
Controlled or attentive processing
41. Neely (1977)
Priming study, using a lexical decision task
4 primes
BIRD, BODY, BUILDING, XXX
Manipulated expectancies of the target
BIRD - types of birds
BODY - building parts
BUILDING - body parts
XXX - bird, body parts, and building parts equally
often
Short (e.g., 250ms) and long (e.g., 2,000ms) SOAs
42. Neely (1977) Results
BIRD (expect types of birds)
BIRD - robin
• facilitation for bird targets at short and long SOAs
BODY (expect building parts)
BODY - door
• facilitation for building targets at long SOAs, but
not at short SOAs
BODY - heart
• inhibition for body targets at long SOAs, but
facilitation at short SOAs
43. Automatic vs. Controlled
Automatic Processes
Fast and efficient
Unavailable to
consciousness
Unavoidable
Unintentional
Controlled Processes
Slow and less efficient
Available to
consciousness
Controllable
Intentional
