PSYC 213 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Driving Simulator, Jerky, Mental Chronometry
January 30th
Last class: what is attention?
Then: Everyone knows what attention is. William James
Now: Paschler ...no one knows what attention is, and ... there may even not
be an it there to be known about although of course there might be
Attention
There are many components and types
Is defined as actively monitoring and selecting information
Selective attention
Attending to relevant information and ignoring irrelevant information
Sometimes we fail to notice information that we havent selected for our attention
Change blindness
E.g., the Gorilla and ball-passing video task
Filter models of selective attention
Early selection models: Information is selected for attention on the basis of the
physical features of stimuli
Dichotic listening tasks, shadowing experiments
Late selection models: Information is selected for attention at the level of meaning
(semantics)
The Stroop Task; we are faster to read ink color when printed in a congruent
color name (RED) than in an incongruent color name (RED)
Controlled vs. automatic processing
Controlled processing: Needed for activities we must consciously attend to if were
going to execute them properly (in the Stroop task, that is ink color naming)
Automatic processing: Needed for activities that do not require attention to run
smoothly (in the Stroop task, that is word reading)
These processes interact!
The load theory
The demands of a task will determine when we filter out information
Demanding tasks (high perceptual load)
Attention acts as predicted by early filter models
Process only perceptual features of distracting information
Non-demanding tasks (low perceptual load)
Attention acts as predicted by late filter models
Process the meaning of distracting information
Also talks about the limits of our attention
Attentional blink
Rapid serial visual presentation of input
Participants have to look at a stream and find a target
Participants have to identify targets among distractors
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
If two targets are presented within 500 ms, the second one wont be identified
This shows that attention is limited because we dont process everything we
want to attend to
Also, using our attentional resources does take time
Using attention takes time!
Attention is like a rechargeable battery!
Attentional disorders
Unilateral neglect
One side of the parietal lobes is damaged
Patients are unaware of objects and information on one side of their body
If you ask them to draw an object, like a clock, they will only be able to draw
one side of it because they cannot represent the other side of the object in
their minds
Balints syndrome
Bilateral parietal lobe damage
Complete loss of spatial attention
They cant see more than one object at a time
They cant grasp for object in their world
They have problems fixating their eyes on things in space
This class
Further explore topics related to selective attention
Inattentional blindness
Attentional capture
Methods for assessing visual attention
Divided/Dual attention
Task switching
Mind wandering
Multi-tasking
Inattentional blindness
Selective attention: the processes that help direct attentional processes down a
particular track, and this means that we ignore other tracks around us
If this happens, this means that we can miss certain pieces of information
that can be right in front of us without us knowing that we are missing them
This is called inattentional blindness
Failing to recognize something even though it is in plain sight
Failure to attend to events that we expect to notice
Looking without seeing
Example: someone is driving down a plain road, checking the road, checking his or
her speed, etc., and all of a sudden there is a deer in front of him on the road. The
driver slams on his breaks and hopes not to hit it. The driver later on will say that
the deer came out of nowhere even though he was paying attention to the road.
However, it is just that the deer was not in the drivers barrier of attention
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Inattentional vs. change blindness
Change blindness: A failure to detect change in a display
Attention and memory
E.g., the card trick video where there are a bunch of changes
This involves attention working with memory
People dont hear or notice something different from one moment to
the next
This is about preparing a present visual input with something in
memory
Inattentional blindness: A failure to see something in a display that is right there
Attention and perception
More about attentional interacting with perception
Inattentional blindness
Four rules for inattentional blindness:
1. People fail to notice an event/object
2. The object/event is fully visible
It can been seen
3. The inability to notice the object/event is because of attention and not
because of visual features of the input
Not because someone is, say, wearing a camouflage suit and can
hardly be seen
4. The object/event is unexpected
The effect is not due to being distracted or not engaging attention
An inattentional blindness task
Two main features of this task
Participants arent expecting a target but are looking in the general area
Participants are using attention resources for some task
Mack and Rock (1998)
The experimenter will put a square in one quadrant of the screen without telling the
participant
If the participants were not told that there was a square in the corner, they
tend not to see it even if it is in their field of vision
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Then: (cid:498)everyone knows what attention is. (cid:499) william james (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:524) Now: paschler (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:524) (cid:498)no one knows what attention is, and there may even not be an (cid:494)it(cid:495) there to be known about (cid:523)although of course there might be(cid:524)(cid:499) Sometimes we fail to notice information that we haven(cid:495)t selected for our attention. Attending to relevant information and ignoring irrelevant information. Is defined as actively monitoring and selecting information. Early selection models: information is selected for attention on the basis of the physical features of stimuli. Late selection models: information is selected for attention at the level of meaning (semantics) The stroop task; we are faster to read ink color when printed in a congruent color name (red) than in an incongruent color name (red) Controlled processing: needed for activities we must consciously attend to if we(cid:495)re going to execute them properly (in the stroop task, that is ink color naming)
