PSYC105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Inattentional Blindness, The Cocktail Party, Sensory Memory
10 May 2018
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PSYC105 Lecture
X: Cognitive Psychology
Attention and awareness
What is attention?
• “...the process of focusing conscious awareness, providing heightened sensitivity to a limited
range of experience requiring more extensive information processing.” (Burton, Westin &
Kowalski, 2012)
• Attention determines what we experience and what we don’t experience
Why is attention necessary?
• “At any given moment, people’s awareness encompasses only a tiny portion of the stimuli
implanting on their sensory systems” (Pashler, 1998)
A general model of attention
• Sensory input → sensory memory (Automatic, preattentive processing) → selector →
working memory (conscious, attentive processing)
• Attentional mechanisms decide what information reaches awareness and thus the focus of our
thoughts and actions
• Attention is proposed to be the gate between sensory processing and awareness
• All sensory input enters the sensory memory store where it is processed pre-attentively
• Some of it is selected to pass through the gate into consciousness
The “Cocktail Party” Phenomenon
• Ability to focus one’s auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of
other stimuli
Dichotic Listening Task
Filter Model of Attention
• Attention restricts information available for further processing
• Information selected based on physical characteristics (preattentive processing)
• Early selection theory
Problems with Filter Model
• Hearing one’s own name will grab attention (Moray, 1952)
• Participants shift shadowing between ears when it makes more (semantic) sense (Treisman,
1960)
• Preattentive Semantic Analysis
• Information can be selected on the basis of non-physical/sensory features
Treisman’s Attenuation Theory
Early vs Late Selection
• Early selection - attention can filter information on the basis of physical features (e.g. Colour
or motion)
• Late selection - attention can also filter information after additional processing on the basis of
meaning
Late Selection Model
• All stimuli are processed to the level of meaning
• Relevance determines further processing and action (i.e. Whether they become the focus of
attention)
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