Attention

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Attention

• Definition
• attention is the taking possession by the mind,
  in clear and vivid form, of one of what seem
  several simultaneously possible objects or trains
  of thought. Focalization, concentration, of
  consciousness are of its essence.
• William James (1890) Priniciples of Psychology

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Attention

• Types of attention
• selective
• sustained attention/vigilance
• divided
• why is attention important
• selective people are limited in their capacity
  to process incoming information therefore need
  to be able to focus on information that is
  relevant to their goals

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Attention

• sustained necessary in order maintain goal
  orientation
• divided frequently, it is functional to process
  two different streams of information

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Attention

• Attention is important to the study of memory
  because attention controls the cognitive
  processes governing the encoding of information
  at the time it is studied
• (e.g., type of orientation given at study)
• attention also directs processes at retrieval
• (e.g., nature of retrieval cue provided)

5
Attention

• Overview of todays lecture
• review different theories of attention
• Broadbents filter theory
• Treismans attenuation model
• late selection models
• capacity models
• automatic versus controlled processing models
• discuss implications for memory

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Attention

• Overview of todays lecture
• discuss implications for memory

7
Attention

• Broadbents filter model (1958)
• landmark model because it used an information
  processing analysis to develop a model to account
  for performance on selective listening tasks
• other seminal work
• Newell, Shaw, Simon (1958) human problem
  solving AI approach
• Chomsky (1957) proposed that people learn rules
  or grammars to acquire language

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Attention

• Broadbents filter model
• task modelled subject presented different
  messages played simultaneously to different ears
• task is very difficult, but why
• Broadbents model proposed that simultaneous
  processing is difficult to because pattern
  recognition has limited capacity only if
  information is processed by the pattern
  recognition system can it interpreted and
  remembered

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Attention

• Broadbents filter model
• sample experimental paradigm simultaneous
  presentation to the two ears of pairs of digits
  with a .5 second delay between successive pairs
  of digits
• left ear right ear
• 7 3
• 4 1
• 1 5

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Attention

• Broadbents filter model
• condition 1 report digits in any order
• subjects almost always reported digits by one ear
  and then the other
• condition 2 report digits by order of
  presentation

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Broadbent 1954
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Broadbents model
Sensory Store
Filter
Pattern Recognition
Short-term Memory store
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Attention

• Processing assumptions of Broadbents model
• sensory stores have relatively large storage
  capacity, but information decays over time
• perceptual channel (filter) has much smaller
  capacity and can accept 1 digit at a time
• it takes time to switch attention from one ear to
  the other

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Attention

• Note Broadbents model is an early-selection
  model because selection (filter) occurs prior to
  the analysis of the meaning
• thus, selection must be made on the basis of the
  physical characteristics of the incoming
  information
• thought experiment How many people have heard
  their name mentioned in a conversation that they
  were not following?

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Attention

• Dichotic listening and shadowing
• problems with thought experiment
• uncontrolled
• person who hears voice in unattended conversation
  may be switching attention
• to address these problems Cherry (1953) developed
  the dichotic listening and shadowing paradigm

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Attention

• Dichotic listening and shadowing results
• Treisman (1960) compound sentence study
• Jordan dunked the ball, and his basket won the
  game
• Marsha Ball sings marvelously, but her piano
  playing is incredible
• results showed that participants tended to switch
  ears when meaning was switched

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Attention

• Filter attenuator model
• Treisman proposed that the filter acts more like
  an attenuator ie, it allows for some information
  to come through

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Attention

• Late selection model (Deutsch and Deutsch (1963)
  and Norman (1968)
• according to these models information is
  processed to the level of meaning, but the
  limitation is in determining which information is
  to be selected into memory

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Late Selection Model
Sensory Store
Filter
Short-term Memory store
Pattern Recognition
Filter
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Testing early vs late selection models of
attention

• Initial tests
• Treisman and Geffen (1967)
• used a dichotic listening and shadowing task to
  evaluate early vs late selection models of
  attention
• in addition, participants were instructed to tap
  table whenever they heard a target word in either
  the shadowed or unshadowed message
• results detected target word 87 of time in
  shadowed message, but only 8 of time in
  unshadowed message

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Testing early vs late selection models of
attention

• Treisman and Geffen (1967) contd
• counterargument shadowing and tapping constitute
  two responses
• Marcel (1980) semantic priming experiment
• in semantic priming experiments it is well
  established that lexical decisions (is the string
  of letters a word?) and other types of judgements
  are made more quickly if the word preceding the
  target item (the prime) is semantically related
  to the target

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Testing early vs late selection models of
attention

• Marcel (1983) performed a study in which subjects
  were shown a word such as BREAD or PAPER briefly
  followed by a patterned mask of letter fragments
• In this situation, provided the experimental
  conditions report seeing letter fragments
• If, however, you present the subject a second
  word, and measure the time taken to identify the
  second word, subjects will perform better if the
  second word is related (e.g., performance to
  BUTTER) is better if the first word is BREAD
  rather than PAPER

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Late vs Early Selection Summary

• Thus, there seems to be evidence for unconscious
  processing of information, and other studies
  using other procedures have produced results
  consistent with this hypothesis

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Capacity models of attention

• Kahneman (1973) proposed that people have a
  limited capacity to process information
• thus, the function of attention is to allocate
  processing resources to various inputs
• one way to circumvent this limitation is to
  practice tasks so that they can be performed more
  automatically

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Capacity models of attention

• four factors that control attention
• enduring dispositions
• e.g., sudden motion, mention of name
• momentary intentions
• reflect current goals e.g., experimental
  instructions
• evaluation of demands
• e.g., if two tasks exceed capacity, prioritize
• arousal

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Automaticity

• When is a skill automatic?
• Posner and Snyder (1975)
• it occurs without intention
• it does not give rise to conscious awareness
• it does not interfere with other mental
  activities
• Stroop effect demonstration
• in this demonstration I want you to name the ink
  colours of the words as rapidly as possible

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Automaticity

• red yellow blue red
• green red yellow green
• blue green red yellow
• red green red yellow

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Automaticity

• red yellow blue red
• green red yellow green
• blue green red yellow
• red green red yellow

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Automaticity

• Stroop (1935) effect
• most people cannot avoid reading the words thus,
  it would appear that reading words occurs
  automatically without intent

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Automaticity

• Automaticity
• some tasks always appear to be performed
  automatically
• however, other tasks become automatic only after
  extended levels of practice

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Automaticity

• Automaticity
• Shiffrin Schneider (1977) investigated the
  effects of practice on memory search task
• study present small list of items to remember
  (letters or numbers)
• test present single item participant indicates
  as rapidly as possible whether item was part of
  study list
• Results RT increases with study list size
  however, with practice using a single list of
  items RT becomes flat

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Automaticity

• Automaticity
• Logan (1998) has proposed that as a task becomes
  practiced, the correct outcome becomes
  represented in memory, and that rather than using
  a rule or a procedure to obtain the outcome, the
  task cues the memory and the outcome is retrieved
  and produced