Cognitive Psychology

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Cognitive Psychology Chapter 4.3 Attention
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11/22/2009

• Outline
• Controlled attention
• Selection Models
• Late Selection
• Multimodal theory
• Attention as a resource
• Automaticity
• Awareness
• Driven to distraction
• Hemineglect

Study Question. If you were a researcher
interested in studying perception without
awareness, which model of selection would you
likely prefer Early or late selection? Why?
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Attention

• Controlled attention
• Treismans Experiment

I saw the girl jumping in ... Dooohhh! was wishing
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Attention

• Controlled attention
• Treismans Attenuation Model

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Attention

• Controlled Attention
• Late Selection Theory
• The Deustch - Norman model
• All inputs are recognized
• Inputs are forgotten easily unless attended
• The bottleneck occurs in STM
• Two determinants of selection
• Strength of input
• importance (i.e., pertinence)
• Item with the highest combination of both gets
  activated

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Attention

• Controlled Attention
• The Deustch - Norman model

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Attention

• Attention as a mental resource
• Kahnemans model

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Attention

• Resolving the locus of the bottleneck
• Johnston Heinzs (1978) multimode theory
• Measured shadowing resources using a dual task
  procedure.
• Shadowing based on pitch (early) or semantic
  category (late)
• Hit a button when a dot appeared on a screen
  (detection).
• Results

310 ms n/a
433 ms 5.3
370 ms 1.4
482 ms 20.5
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Attention

• Automaticity
• Posner Snyders characterization
• Automatic Controlled (Conscious)
• Without intention - With intention
• Awareness is not necessary - Awareness is
  necessary
• Requires few resources - Resource demanding

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Attention

• Awareness and Automaticity
• Approaches to dissociations
• Simple dissociations
• H.M. and procedural memory
• E.g., Sidis Dissertation
• Double dissociations
• Complete separability of two processes
• Clinical dissociations
• The processes in opposition approach

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Attention

• Acquiring Automaticity
• Mowbrays Study
• Spelke et al.s study
• The disadvantages of Automaticity
• It can be hard to undo
• C.f. Spontaneous recovery.
• There are times when we ought to be attending,
  but do not.
• Barshi and Healys study (Automatic
  proof-reading)
• Inattention blindness
• Driving

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Attention

• The cell phone diversion
• Strayers Research
• Used a driving simulator
• Single vs. dual task
• Hands free vs. hand held
• No difference
• Can drivers recognize objects that they have
  fixated on?
• Recognition accuracy for fixated objects about
  half when conversing
• Even when fixation duration is equated
  performance was far worse
• The inattentional blindness hypothesis
• Cell-phone conversation disrupts performance by
  diverting attention from the external environment
  associated with the driving task to the cellphone
  converstation.

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Attention

• The cell phone diversion
• Strayers Research
• What about strategic reallocation?
• There are important and unimportant objects
• Two-Alternative forced choice recognition
• Drivers rated the importance of the items.
• Performance was significantly poorer in the dual
  task.
• even when fixation duration is controlled.
• Absolutely no effect of the importance of the
  object on the inattentional blindness effect.

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Attention

• The cell phone diversion
• Strayers Research
• ERP study
• The P300 Related to attentional allocation.
• Larger P300 leads to better memory.
• Decreases in P300 is associated with complex
  tasks that draw resources.
• Car tailing paradigm.
• EEG starts measuring when car ahead breaks
  (randomly)

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Attention

• The cell phone diversion
• Strayers Research
• ERP study
• 50 reduction in the amplitude of the P300
• Slower reactions and fewer processing
  resources.

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Attention

• The cell phone diversion
• Strayers Research
• Conversing on the phone vs. with a passenger
• Instructed to drive 8 miles down a freeway and
  exit at a truck stop.
• Only 12 of drivers with a passenger missed the
  exit.
• About 50 talking on a cell phone missed the
  exit
• The passengers assisted the drivers

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Attention

• The cell phone diversion
• Strayers Research
• Conversing and driving vs. drinking and driving
• Car-tailing paradigm
• Compared .08 alcohol intoxication with hands
  held and hands free.
• No differences were observed between the cell
  phone conditions

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Attention

• The cell phone diversion
• Strayers Research
• Conversing and driving vs. drinking and driving
• Summary of results

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Attention

• Hemineglect (hemi-inattention)
• A disruption in the ability to look at something
  in the (often) left visual field of attention and
  pay attention to it.

Hemineglect