Attention

Definition?
● What is attention?
● Know it when you see it
● It is involved in everything!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY&feature=youtu.be
Multiple Approaches
● Attention theories today are split into three categories:
○ Filtering
○ Resource
○ Glue
Filtering
● Broadbent (1953) proposed we need attention to ignore
irrelevant stimuli
● A.k.a. all the distractors in our environment
● Attention is limited by how much we can focus on at a
time
Testable?

How would you test this claim that attention is like a

filter?
Research
● Shadowing task: competing messages in your ears
○ People are good at this
○ But bad at remembering what the competing message
was
● Does this mean the competing messages isn’t processed at
all?
● Cocktail party effect: an abrupt change in focus
● Oddly, people with lower working memory capacity are
affected more by the cocktail effect
BLACK/runs/MEOWS/funny
march/CAT/clock/LOUDLY
How does this explain the
gorilla?
Reflection Question 1
Fuel
Spotlight
● Attention is a moving spotlight
● Highlights what we are most interested in, and
attending to
● Tasks that measure gaze time and distance support this
● Fuel? Size of the spotlight, and it burns out
Capacity
● Kahneman (1973) proposed we have limited cognitive
resources
● We choose what to use our attention on
○ Interest
○ Awake
● Not all tasks are created equal
Capacity Research
● Dual-task method
○ Or divided-attention
● What are some dual tasks? How would you measure it?
How does this explain the
gorilla?
Reflection Question 2
Glue
● Treisman (1977) combined filter and spotlight theories
● Feature-integration theory of attention
● Two steps when attending to an object:
○ Identify features (automatic)
○ Focused attention to combine them (conscious)
Blue T Red X
Blue T Red X
Blue T Red X
How does this explain the
gorilla?
Reflection Question 3
Change Blindness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBPG_OBgTWg&feature=youtu.be
How do our theories explain
change blindness?
Reflection Question 4
Stroop
● People struggle with the Stroop task at first
● Why?
● We can’t “turn off” the reading part of our brain
● Reading is an automatic process
BLUE
Automatic vs. Controlled
● Stroop task = automatic vs. controlled processing
● Automatic processing: not controlled and require little to no
cognitive resources
● Once we’ve learned something well enough, it becomes
automatic
○ What other cognitive processes are automatic for you?
Skills?
● Controlled processing: intentional and consumes cognitive
resources
Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)
● Compared automatic and controlled processing of text
● Target detection task
Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)
● Trials with letters and number mixed together were
easy (MIXED)
● Trials with all letters or number were more difficult
(SAME)
● As number of distractors increased, even harder for
SAME trials
● As number of distractors increased, no real change for
MIXED trials
Schneider & Shiffrin (1977)
● Practice makes perfect
● Beginning: 55% accuracy
● 600 trials: reported as automatic
● 900 trials: ~90% accuracy
● 2100 trials → switch task = more difficult again