Attention

(08-02-21)

● MEANING.
● FACTORS- EXTERNAL (VIDEO) & INTERNAL.
● TYPES
● SELECTIVE ATTENTION-DICHOTIC LISTENING- SHADOWING-COCKTAIL PARTY (VIDEO).
● DONALDS BROADBENT’S THEORY(1958) (VIDEOS).
● WHY EARLY ATTENTION (VIDEO).
● ANNE TREISMAN THEORY(1962) (VIDEOS).
● DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EARLY & LATE SELECTION MODEL.
● DIVIDED ATTENTION
● DUAL TASK PERFORMANCE
● KAHNEMAN'S THEORY
● CAPACITY & TYPES
● CRITICISM
Our knowledge about the world depends upon three basic
processes, called sensation, attention and perception.

These process are highly interrelated hence they are often

considered as different elements of same process called
cognition
ATTENTION- process through which certain stimuli are selected from a
group of others. Ex:-

ALERTNESS - individuals readiness to deal with stimuli that appear before

him/her. Ex:- Race -requires more alertness

CONCENTRATION - focusing of awareness on certain specific objects while

excluding others for the moment.

EX:- student during examination concentrates more on teachers instructions

ATTENTION

MEANING - means by which we actively process a limited amount of the

enormous amount of information available through our senses, our stored
memories, or other cognitive processes.

Includes both conscious and unconscious processes.

(ears,eyes,etc.)

➔ All activities require some kind of effort on the part of people. Attention in
this sense refers to “effort allocation”.
CONSCIOUS ATTENTION
Consciousness includes both the feeling of awareness and the content of
awareness, some of which may be under the focus of attention Therefore,
attention and consciousness form two partially overlapping sets.
Conscious attention serves three purposes in playing a causal role for cognition.
1.It helps in monitoring our interactions with the environment. Through such
monitoring, we maintain our awareness of how well we are adapting to the situation in
which we find ourselves.
2.It assists us in linking our past (memories) and our present (sensations) to give us a
sense of continuity of experience. Such continuity may even serve as the basis for
personal identity.
3.It helps us in controlling and planning for our future actions. We can do so based on the
information from monitoring and from the links between past memories and present
sensations.
Alan Watts -theory
TYPES OF ATTENTION

Attention Voluntary with

aroused will. Always a
without will goal behind it.

(Sustained by (Sustained by a (Obtained by (Obtained by

instincts) sentiment) single act of repeated acts
will) of will)
EXTERNAL/OBJECTIVE FACTORS.
❖ These are generally those characteristics of outside situation or stimuli which make
the strongest aid for capturing our attention.
NATURE OF STIMULI:- Studies show- human photographs are more likely to be attracted to
than the photographs of inanimate objects. Hence, an effective stimulus should be chosen for
capturing maximum attention.
INTENSITY OF STIMULI :- we are attracted more towards an immense stimulus (a loud sound
, a bright light, a strong smell, )
VARIETY:- A change and variety attracts attention more easily than sameness or absence of
change. The factor, contact or change is highly responsible for capturing attention of the
organism and contributes more than the intensity, size or nature of the stimulus. Ex:-
Shubham’s clock ticking.
REPETITION:- One may ignore a stimulus at first instance, but if repeated several times it
captures our attention. Ex: -miss-spelled words is more likely to be noticed if occurs twice in
the same para.
Demonstrations(EXTERNAL FACTORS) (1. 14:23 , 2. 16:56)
INTERNAL /SUBJECTIVE FACTORS.
❖ Predisposes an individual to respond to objective factors, to attend to those activities
that fulfill his desires and motives and suits his interest and attitude. Basically the
mental state of the perceiver. Two main categories- MOTIVATIONAL AND
COGNITIVE FACTORS.
INTEREST:- Be it any day-to day life activity we pay attention to the stimulus we are
interest. Interest is said to be mother of attention.
MOTIVES:- to a great extent our biological, hunger, thirst, sex or any basic motives,
influence attention.
MIND SET:- Person’s readiness to respond determines his attention. Ex:- At a time
when students are expecting the examination time table by the end of the semester
the time table put out on the notice board along with other notices would attract
their attention easily.
MOODS AND ATTITUDES:- What we attend to is influenced by the moods and
attitudes. Ex:- when we are disturbed or in angry mode we notice the smallest
mistake of others easily .
SELECTIVE ATTENTION CSU (PDF)- slide 38(experiment)
MEANING:- refers to the ability to perceive a particular stimulus of interest while ignoring
numerous other stimuli. / Ability to focus awareness on a single stimulus to the exclusion
of other stimulus.

DICHOTIC LISTENING (EXPERIMENT)- Colin Cherry(selective attention)

2 sounds are presented in each ear simultaneously, of
two different streams(typically speech) . The participant
then have to repeat out the speech of only one
ear(attended) and ignore the other one

SHADOWING - the process of repeating the word out at

the same time it is presented is called shadowing.
DICHOTIC LISTENING IS USED FOR- These tests may be
used in the assessment of children or adults with
possible central auditory nervous system dysfunction.

MONKEY BUSINESS ILLUSION - 16:35 min

BROADBENT’S FILTER THEORY/EARLY SELECTION(1958)
THEORY - VIDEO & Video 1-2min
PERCEPTUAL
PROCESS Broadbent argues that the
UNATTENDED unattended auditory
information receives very little
processing because the message
is filtered out based on perceptual
characteristics.
ATTENDED (loudness,pitch & timber)
Based on pitch,
colour,loudness

CRITICISM:-(COCKTAIL PARTY EFFECT) Moray found that even when participants ignore
most other high-level (e.g., semantic-study of meaning) aspects of an unattended message, they
frequently still recognize their names in an unattended ear .
He suggested that the reason for this effect is that messages that are of high importance to a person may
break through the filter of selective attention. But other messages may not.

AN ALL OR NOTHING FILTER

WHY IS IT CALLED AN EARLY SELECTION MODEL ?

The meaning is not taken

into consideration. Only the
physical characteristics of
the speech are filtered ex:-
the loudness, pitch and
timber of the speech.
ANNE TREISMAN, FILTER-ATTENUATION THEORY(1962)
Lecture- 38min & Video- 6min

1.Both unattended and attended msg

go through sensory.

UNATTENDED 2.Then goes through attenuator

which analyses msg on the following
ATTENDED basis:- Physical features, language &
meaning.

3. Then it’s meaning is understood in

more detail (based on the words
the lessening or weakening threshold)
in strength, value, or quality
of a stimulus or other factor.
4. Finally goes to the short term
memory .
THRESHOLD OF THE WORDS:-
Common/ imp words (low threshold)- need not come with full intensity and we would still pay
attention. Ex:- our name.

Uncommon words- (high threshold)- needs to come with full force through the filter(loudness, pitch
etc.) in order to pay attention to those words. Ex:- Rutabaga.
 EARLY vs. LATE SELECTION MODEL
Treisman and Broadbent posit that attention serves to determine the nature of
the information that gets into Short Term Memory. They are “Early Selection”
Models because they assume that attentional selection occurs early, before
information enters Short Term Memory.

Late Selection Models (Norman, 1968) assume that all information gets into
Short Term Memory but that information which isn't attended to is rapidly
forgotten (within a fraction of a second). They are called Late Selection Models
because the selection doesn't occur until fairly late in the process, when
information is already in Short Term Memory.

VIDEO- 10min
DIVIDED ATTENTION
MEANING:- Divided attention could be defined as our brain's ability to attend to two different stimuli
at the same time, and respond to the multiple demands of your surroundings. /Divided attention is a type
of simultaneous attention that allows us to process different information sources and successfully
carry out multiple tasks at a time. / Where two or more stimuli share cognitive resources.

➔ It is usually studied using dual task experiments.

➔ EX:- When you're eating and talking at the same time, or even when you're watching TV and
talking on the phone, you are using divided attention.( If we watch them closely, we will notice that they are
still allocating more effort to driving than to other activities, even though some attention is given to other activities. It
indicates that on certain occasions attention can be allocated to more than one thing at the same)However that becomes easy
as it comes almost automatically and require less attention to perform than new or slightly practiced activities

AUTOMATIC PROCESSING:- has three main characteristics; (i) It occurs without intention, (ii) It
takes place unconsciously, and (iii) It involves very little (or no) thought processes (e.g., we can read
words or tie our shoelaces without giving any thought to these activities).

Divided Attention 1:40 min - 7:15 min

 DUAL TASK PERFORMANCE
DUAL TASK PERFORMANCE- observers are required to perform two tasks simultaneously, and performance
in a given task is compared to when that task is performed alone as a single task.

Ex:- initially first draw a circle(using right hand) and then a triangle (using left hand) -perform only single
task . Then draw circle using right hand and triangle using left hand , simultaneously.

➔ Then compare both the tasks.

Single task

Dual task
KAHNEMAN’S THEORY - CAPACITY THEORY (1973)

ALLOCATES 1.The model suggests that capacity is not fixed but depends on
ATTENTION AROUSAL.(depends on difficulty of task) easy
-less,difficult-more

2.The amount of mental effort required by a task depends upon

the difficulty of the task and the degree of practice that an
individual has of it.

3. A central feature of the capacity model is the need to allocate

the available capacity.

4. The allocation of attention is determined by a combination of

various factors such as ‘momentary intentions’ and ‘enduring
dispositions’

5.Very important element in the allocation of attention is an

evaluation of demands on capacity.

Evaluation Process:- there is an ongoing evaluation of the particular demands of certain activities on attention
capacity.That is to say, activities that are particularly taxing on attention resources will lower attention capacity and
will influence the allocation policy - in this case, if an activity is too draining on capacity, the allocation policy will
likely cease directing resources to it and instead focus on less taxing tasks.
Allocation of attention is determined by a combination of various
factors such as ‘momentary intentions’ and ‘enduring dispositions’

➔ Enduring Disposition :- (automatic influences on attention)always important, the stimulus which always
captures our attention/built in

➔ Momentary Intentions:- (a conscious decision to attend to something). Momentary intentions

requiring a focused direction of attention rely on substantially more attention resources than enduring
dispositions. /Factors that are important at any particular time. Ex:- if you are in a conversation you
want to pay attention to one person.

These two factors interact and often the enduring dispositions will override the momentary intentions.

Ex:- you may be listening to one person (a momentary intention) but if someone else shouts your name your
attention shifts (because of an enduring disposition).
 CAPACITY & TYPES
➔ CAPACITY:- The term “capacity” derives from considering perceptual processing as a
communication channel. / The amount of information people can handle

1. UNLIMITED CAPACITY:- simply refers to the usual quality of processing being unchanged by
having to process additional stimuli (independence). The idea is that if additional stimuli do not
impact the quality of information that is transmitted per unit time about each stimulus, then that
processing has unlimited capacity.

2.LIMITED CAPACITY:- if processing has limited capacity then the quality of the information for a
given stimulus declines as increasing numbers of stimuli are processed (dependence). The idea is that
the outcome of a given process is either limited or not by how many stimuli must be processed.
 CRITICISM
➔ It is not very specific about the limits of capacity. Difficult to define these limits.

➔ Most serious problem of the model is that it does not adequately explain the strong influence of
similarity in dual task studies.

➔ The Kahneman model proposes that we have a limited capacity which is allocated by a single
central processor. This implies that any two tasks will interfere with each other if the capacity
needed for them exceeds the available capacity.

➔ Because, a number of studies suggest it is not the difficulty (and therefore capacity) but the
degree of similarity of the two tasks that is the most important factor in dual task performance.
Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by
the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem
several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.
Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its
essence. It implies withdrawal from some things to deal
effectively with others. —William James