Chapter 4

Attention
Attention

• Defining Attention
• Input Attention
• Selective Attention
• Attention as a Resource
• Neuropsychology
Attention

• What do we mean by attention?

• What does it mean to pay attention
• How much control do we have over
our attention
• Why are some things easy to pay
attention to and other so hard
Attention
(William James, 1890)

• “Every one 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 in order to deal
effectively with others…”
Attention
• We are constantly confronted with more
information than we can pay attention to
• There are limitations on how much we can
attend to at one time
• We can perform some tasks with little
attention
• With practice, some tasks become less
demanding of our attentional processes
Definitions of Attention

• The mental PROCESS that allows us

to select relevant information and
filter out irrelevant information
• Concentrating effort on a stimulus

• An activity within the cognitive system

Definitions of Attention

• The LIMITED mental RESOURCE that

allows us to optimize our processing
of certain information
• Mental fuel

• A resource necessary to run the

cognitive system

• E.g. Rush hour traffic & cell phone

Attention

• Defining Attention
• Input Attention
• Selective Attention
• Attention as a Resource
• Neuropsychology
Input Attention

• The basic process of getting sensory

information into the cognitive
system
• Seems automatic
• Very fast

• Alertness & Arousal

• Reflexive Attention
• Spotlight Attention
Alertness & Arousal

• Capacity to respond to the

environment
• Necessary for explicit
processing
• Processes involving conscious
awareness that the task is being
performed
• e.g, memorizing a word list
Alertness & Arousal

• May NOT be necessary for

implicit processing
• Processing with no conscious
awareness
• e.g., reading text faster a second
time even though you do not
remember reading it
Cognition Without Attention
(Bonnebakker et al., 1996)

• Gave a list of words during

anesthesia

• Gave an implicit memory test (word

stem completion) after anesthesia

• Showed implicit memory for words

heard while under anesthesia

• Implicit memory is VERY limited

Reflexive Attention
• Orienting toward an unexpected stimulus
(location-finding response)
• Reflexive response
• Important for survival
• Present very early in life
• Response to stimuli that are important or novel

• Over time, cease to be interesting 

Habituation
• A gradual reduction of the orienting response
Spotlight Attention

• Attention is like a beam of light:

• Information inside the beam is
easier to process
• Information outside the beam is
harder to process
• Mental shift of attentional focus 
visual attention
Spotlight Attention
• The mental attention-focusing
mechanism that prepares you to
encode stimulus information
• Cognitive process  deliberate

• Measure with:
• Spatial Cuing Task (Posner)
• Visual Search Task (Triesman)
Spatial Cueing Task
(Posner et al.,1980)
 Posner et al. (1980)
360 Responses were slower
Mean Response Time (ms)

after an invalid cue 

340 Inhibition

320
Responses were
300 faster after a valid
cue  Facilitation

280

260
Invalid Netural Valid
Cue Type
Your Data from Coglab!
Spatial Cueing

360
Mean RT (ms)

340

320

300

280
Invalid Neutral Valid
Cue Type
Triesman & Gelade (1980)

• Visual search for a target

• Disjunctive search
• Target different from distractors in ONE
feature (e.g., color or shape  T or bold)

• Conjunctive search
• Target was a combination of TWO
features (e.g., color and shape  bold T)
Visual Search Task
Disjunctive
Search

Disjunctive
Search

Conjunctive
Search
 Visual Search

2400
Mean Response Time (ms)

2000

1600
Conjunctive
1200
Disjunctive
800

400

0
1 5 15 30
# Distractors
Feature Integration Theory
(attention as glue to bind features together)

• Disjunctive Search
• No increase in RT across the
display sizes
• Visual search occurs in PARALLEL
across the region of visual
attention
• Search is automatic  Popout
Effect
Feature Integration Theory
(attention as glue to bind features together)

• Conjunctive search
• Increase in RT across the display
sizes
• Search is SERIAL (one-by-one)
• Attention can be only on one object at
a time
• Conscious, deliberate act
 Your Data from Coglab
Visual Search

1200
Mean Response Time (ms)

1000

800
Conjunctive
600
Disjunctive
400

200

0
4 16 64
Search Type
Attention

• Defining Attention
• Input Attention
• Selective Attention
• Attention as a Resource
• Neuropsychology
Attention
Input Selective
• Fast, automatic • Slower, conscious
processes of attention
attention
• Voluntary
• Early stages of allocation of
feature detection mental effort  pay
attention
• Data-driven
• Conceptually-
driven
Selective Attention

• The ability to attend to one

source of information while
ignoring other messages
• Filtering
• Vision --?
• Hearing --?
• Selective attention in hearing is
purely a cognitive process
Selective Attention

• Cherry (1953)
• How do we pay attention to what one
person is saying when we are
surrounded by other messages?
• Dichotic shadowing task
• Two messages are presented – one to each
ear
• Shadow the message in one ear (repeat)
• Ignore the message in the other ear
Selective Attention

• Cherry (1953)
• Subjects could NOT report the
content from the unattended
ear/channel
• Did not notice if the language
changed
• Did notice if the voice changed
• Male to female; human to tone
To Do List

• Attention as a filter
• Broadbent’s Filter Model
• Triesman’s Attenuation Model
• Deutsch & Deutsch Late Selection Model
• Norman’s Pertinence Model
• Johnston & Heinz Multimode Model
Outside world

Physical processing

Semantic processing

STM (awareness)
Theory 1:
Broadbent’s Filter Theory (1958)

• The filter is tuned to ONE message

based on physical characteristics
(e.g., loudness or pitch)
• Only one message goes through the
filter
• Therefore, only information in the
attended message can influence
performance
Broadbent’s Filter Theory (1958)
Outside world

Physical processing

Semantic processing

STM (awareness)
Theory 1:
Broadbent’s Filter Theory (1958)

• Filter goes between physical

and semantic processing
• Early selection
• Explains Cherry’s (1953) data
• Does not explain how we often
notice unattended info…
The Cocktail Party Phenomenon

• Moray (1959)
• Dichotic shadowing task
• Subjects noticed if their name appeared
in the unattended channel
• According to Broadbent’s model only
attended information is available for
cognitive processing but unattended
information somehow slips past the
filter!
Treisman (1960)

• Dichotic shadowing task

• Physical differences between the two
messages were removed
• Same speaker recorded both messages

• Not possible to have early selection

based on physical processing
• Predictions?
Treisman (1960)

• But…found that subjects could

shadow very accurately!
• Is selective attention based on
semantic (meaning) content?
• Dichotic shadowing task
• Coherent message being shadowed
switched to unattended channel
Treisman (1960)
Treisman (1960)
RIGHT EAR LEFT EAR
The The
Little Slow
Puppy Car
Lives Finally
At Broke
The Down
While House
On By
Summer The
Vacation Park
Treisman (1960)
• Subjects switched to the
message that completed the
meaning of the sentence
• Semantic elements of the
unattended message is
receiving some analysis
Theory 2:
Treisman’s Attenuation Theory
(1960, 1964)
• Middle Selection
• Still Early Selection but leaky  the
pillow filter
• Unattended information comes in more
weakly than attended information

• It is during the process of semantic

analysis that we make our selection of
messages  top-down effect
Outside world

Physical processing

Semantic processing

STM (awareness)
Theory 3:
Deutsch & Deutsch (1963)

• Late selection
• Selection takes place after all
messages have received full
physical and semantic analysis
Evidence for Late Selection

• Leaks from the unattended

channel
• Triesman (1964)
• Moray (1959)

• Implicit processing
• Corteen & Wood (1976)
Theory 3:
Deutsch & Deutsch (1963)

• Corteen & Wood (1976)

• Conditioned subjects to be afraid of a word (e.g.,
Amsterdam)
• Presented the word in the unattended channel
during shadowing
• Measured GSR
• Evidence for implicit processing

• Everything is processed semantically, even

if it does not reach awareness
Outside world

Physical processing

Semantic processing

STM (awareness)
Theory 4:
Norman’s Pertinence Model (1968)

• No “filter”
• Attention is the determined by:
•

• Sensory activation
• Loudness, distinctive voice

• Pertinence
• The importance of the information
Norman’s Pertinence Model (1968)
Theory 4:
Norman’s Pertinence Model (1968)

• All information comes into the

perceptual system
• Items with the highest combination
of sensory and pertinence are
selected for attention
• Selective attention is a continuous
process
Summary
• Selective attention can occur very
early based on physical
characteristics
• It can occur late based on semantic
content
• It can be influenced by both
permanent and temporary factors

ATTENTION IS FELXIBLE!!!
Theory 5:
Multimode Model
• Johnston & Heinz (1978)
• Attention is highly flexible process that
can operate in multiple modes
• Both early and late selection

• Subjects listened to multiple messages

that were
• Physically different
• Semantically different
• Physically and semantically different
Theory 5:
Multimode Model
• Remember information from the
target message while
monitoring a light
• If selective attention is difficult
(because of similarities of
competing messages) this should
slow detection of the light
Johnston & Heinz (1978)
• Having to listen to one message slowed
down detection
• Having to listen to two messages slowed
down detection more…
• It took a little extra attention when given two
types of cues

• But, it took a lot more attention when only given

one cue
• Physical only (early selection)
• Meaning only (late selection)
 Johnston & Heinz (1978)

200

150
Cost (ms)

Meaning & Physical Diff

100 Physical Diff Only

Meaning Diff Only

50

0
1 2
Number of Messages
Theory 5:
Multimode Models
• We alter the type of selection
depending on task demands
• But, later selection (semantic
processing) uses more of our
attentional capacity so it is slower
and less accurate
Attention

• Defining Attention
• Input Attention
• Selective Attention
• Attention as a Resource
• Neuropsychology
Attention as a Resource
• Attention is mental effort
• The mental resource that fuels cognitive activity

• Attention is limited
• Only so much of the fuel can be devoted to
mental tasks

• Contrast to automatic processes

Attention as a Resource
• As tasks become automatic they take
fewer resources  you can do more things
at once

• Brainstorm: Activities that are automatic

(they used to take cognitive resources,
but now they don’t because of practice)

• Can you increase the size of you pool of

resources?
The Stroop (1935) Task
RED BLUE GREEN YELLOW
YELLOW BLUE GREEN RED
• Name the ink color (ignore the
printed words)
• Congruent
• Incongruent
• Interference
• Word recognition is automatic, and it
interferes with color naming
The Stroop (1935) Task

960

920

880

840

800

760
Congurent Incongruent
Your Coglab Data
Stroop Effect

950
Mean Response Time (ms)

900

850

800

750

700
Congruent Incongruent
Automatic vs. Conscious
(Posner & Snyder, 1975)
Automatic Conscious
• Automatic • Voluntary
• No access to • Conscious
consciousness
• Requires lots of
• Consumes no
(few) resources cognitive
resources
• Fast (no more
than 1sec) • Slow
Practice and Automaticity

• Practice can make a task more

automatic
• Everyday Examples:
• Driving (today vs. at age 16)
• Reading (today vs. at age 6)

• Examples from Research:

• Spelke, Hirst & Neisser (1976)
• Shiffrin & Schneider (1977)
Spelke, Hirst & Neisser (1976)

• Gave subjects two difficult tasks

• Reading out loud and taking diction

• Lots of interference at first

• With LOTS of practice, no
interference
Shiffrin & Schneider (1977)

• Subjects given 1-4 letters (targets) to

detect
• e.g., B and R
• YES, if target was in the frame (1-4 distractors)

• Consistent mapping
• Same targets from trial to trial (practice)
• B&R

• Varied mapping
• Different targets from trial to trial
• B & R; 2 &7; 3 & B; M& Z…
Shiffrin & Schneider (1977)

• Should it be faster to search for

1 target or 4 targets?

• Should it be faster if there is 1

distractor or 4 distractors?
Shiffrin & Schneider (1977)

• With practice…
• For consistent mapping, search rates
were fast, regardless of how many
targets or distractors  automatic

• For inconsistent mapping, search rates

were longer for larger displays  not
automatic
• Conscious, controlled processing because the
stimuli they had to detect kept changing
Shiffrin & Schneider (1977)
Disadvantages of Automaticity

• Barshi & Healy (1993)

• Scanned multiplication problems for
errors (multiple times)
• Fixed-order condition
• Varied-order condition

• Fixed order: 55% detection rate

• Varied order: 90% detection rate
Disadvantages of Automaticity

• Everyday Examples:
• Landing a plane with no landing
gear (1983)

• Negative Transfer (In your new car,

reaching for where the radio knob
was on your old car)
Attention

• Defining Attention
• Input Attention
• Selective Attention
• Attention as a Resource
• Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology

• Mrs. S. (The Man Who Mistook

His Wife for a Hat – Ch8)
• What experiments would you do to
help you understand her problem?
Hemineglect
• Disruption or decreased ability to
pay attention to something in the
(often) left-visual-field
• Disorder of attention in which one half
of the perceptual world is negelected

• Cannot direct attention to half of the

perceptual world (regardless of the
modality of the stimulus)

• Not sensory damage

Patient with Hemineglect
Hemineglect

• Bisiach & Luzatti (1978)

• Have patients image standing at one end
of piazza and describe what they see
• Can only describe buildings on the right,
even when they imagine facing the
opposite way (what they had previously
omitted!)
• Neglect occurs for internal mental
representations
Hemineglect

• Duncan et al. (1999)

• Patients with hemineglect can
attend to stimuli in the neglected
field if nothing is displayed in the
right-visual-field
• Ability dramatically reduced if a
stimulus is present in the right-
visual-field