CHAPTER 3

ATTENTION AND PERFORMANCE

LIMITATIONS ON INFORMATION
PROCESSING
 CHAPTER OUTLINE

 What Is Attention?

 Limitations in Stimulus Identification

 Limitations in Response Selection

 Limitations in Movement Programming

 Decision Making Under Stress

 Summary
 CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
Chapter 3 describes the role of attention as a limiting factor
in human performance. This chapter will help you to
understand.

 Attention and its various properties and definitions

 Attention as a limitation in the capacity to process

information

 Attention as a limitation in the capability to perform actions,

and

 Performance under conditions of increased stress.

 FOCUS ON APPLICATION 3.1
 William James on Attention
 “taking possession by the mind . . . of one out of . . .
several . . . trains of thought.”

 “focalization . . . of consciousness.”

 “withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with

others.”
CHAPTER OUTLINE

What Is
Attention?
 ALL OF THE PRECEDING EXAMPLES REPRESENT
DIFFERENT USES OF ATTENTION. BUT WHAT
IS ATTENTION? IN OUR VIEW, ATTENTION IS A
RESOURCE (OR “POOL” OF SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT
RESOURCES) THAT IS AVAILABLE AND THAT CAN BE
USED FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES.

IN MANY RESPECTS, ATTENTION IS LIKE A BANK

ACCOUNT, WHICH CONTAINS
FINANCIAL RESOURCES THAT ALLOW US TO
PERFORM ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING. THE WAYS IN
WHICH THESE ATTENTION RESOURCES ARE
ALLOCATED DEFINE HOW WE USE
ATTENTION.
 FIGURE 3.1
ATTENTION REMAINING FOR A FIGURE 3.1
ATTENTION REMAINING FOR A SECONDARY TASK IS REDUCED
WHEN THE PRIMARY TASK IS MORE COMPLEX (B) COMPARED TO
WHEN THE PRIMARY TASK IS SIMPLE (A).SECONDARY TASK IS
REDUCED WHEN THE PRIMARY TASK IS MORE COMPLEX (B)
COMPARED TO WHEN THE PRIMARY TASK IS SIMPLE (A).
Limitations in
Stimulus
Identification
 SOME EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT INFORMATION
PROCESSING IN THE PERIPHERAL, SENSORY STAGES
OF THE INFORMATION-PROCESSING MODEL CAN BE
DONE IN PARALLEL. WITH PARALLEL PROCESSING,
TWO OR MORE STREAMS OF INFORMATION CAN
ENTER THE SYSTEM AT THE SAME TIME AND CAN BE
PROCESSED TOGETHER WITHOUT INTERFERING WITH
EACH OTHER. FOR OTHER TASKS, HOWEVER, THE
CAPACITY OF INFORMATION EXCEEDS THE LIMITS OF
ATTENTION, REQUIRING THAT WE SWITCH ATTENTION
BETWEEN COMPETING SOURCES. STILL OTHER
RESEARCH REVEALS THAT SUSTAINED ATTENTION
TENDS TO WANE AFTER EXTENDED PERIODS OF
INFORMATION PROCESSING. THESE INFLUENCES ON
SENSORY INFORMATION PROCESSING ARE DISCUSSED
IN THE NEXT SECTIONS.
 PARALLEL PROCESSING
Information from different aspects of the visual display, such as the color and
the shape of objects, can apparently be processed together without
interference. Evidence for parallel processing in stimulus identification
comes from an analysis of the Stroop effect (Stroop, 1935; MacLeod, 1991).
Imagine that you are a research subject, asked to respond as quickly as
possible by naming the color of the ink in which words are printed, as in
figure 3.2. In some cases, the words printed have no semantic relationship to
the colors in which they are printed, as in list a. In other cases, as in list b,
the ink colors compete with the names of the words themselves. The Stroop
effect is the tendency for the set of stimuli on the right to require longer
completion times to name the colors than those on the left. Evidence suggests that
the color of the ink and the word that the ink spells are initially
processed together and in parallel. The interference is caused later on by the
two stimuli competing for different responses.
 FIGURE 3.2
THE STOOP EFFECT.
TIME YOURSELF WHILE NAMING THE COLORS OF THE
WORDS PRINTED IN EACH LIST.

There is also considerable parallel processing of the sensory signals

from
the muscles and joints associated with posture and locomotion, and
people
seem to handle these together and without much awareness. The
idea is that,
considering the processes occurring in the stimulus identification
stage, some sensory information can be processed in parallel and
without much
interference—that is, without attention.
 INATTENTION BLINDNESS
The previous section illustrates how stimulus
information can be processed in parallel, even
despite efforts to block it out. And yet,
sometimes a very simple, goal-directed visual
search, such as looking for a specific entrance
or building number, seems to absorb our
attention, making us “blind” to other things.
Some remarkable findings by several research
groups have shown that we can miss seemingly
obvious features in our environment when we
are engaged in attentive visual search.
 FIGURE 3.3
THE INATTENTION-BLINDNESS EFFECT. SUBJECTS (OBSERVERS OF THE VIDEO)
COUNTED THE NUMBER OF BASKETBALL PASSES MADE AMONG THE SUBJECTS
IN WHITE T-SHIRTS. LATER, ABOUT HALF OF THESE SUBJECTS DID NOT
RECALL SEEING THE “GORILLA” WALK THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE GROUP.

This phenomenon, which has been given the label “inattention blindness,”
was originally discovered by Neisser and Becklen (1975), who used a
similar task, but with a woman with a parasol instead of a person in a gorilla
suit. The effect has been studied vigorously since the Neisser–Becklen
findings were published
 SUSTAINED ATTENTION

World War II generated a push in research on sustained attention in order to

better understand the limits of radar operators who were on the lookout for
enemy aircraft. Mackworth (1948), who was a leader in this research,
devised a task in which subjects would watch the pointer of a clock-like
apparatus jumping second by second. But, occasionally, after long, irregular
(unpredictable) intervals, the pointer would jump by 2 s. Detection of these
latter jumps was found to be reliable for the first 30 min of work but
declined dramatically thereafter. These were termed “vigilance decrements,”
or decreases in vigilance.
FIGURE 3.4 AN AIRPORT SECURITY GUARD IS REQUIRED TO
SUSTAIN EFFORT OVER LONG PERIODS OF TIME
Limitations in
Response
Selection
 I
Interference between tasks is never more obvious than when the performer
must perform two actions simultaneously, with each task requiring mental
operations, such as answering a telephone call while pouring water into a
coffee maker. Both activities are thought to be done during response
selection because they require that choices be made among several possible
alternative responses—which hands to use to pour the water and pick up the
telephone, which ear to listen with, monitoring the water so as to not spill
any and to not pour too much, and so on. These activities are governed by
controlled processing, which is thought to be (a) slow; (b) attention
demanding, with interference caused by competing processing; (c) serially
organized, with a given processing task coming before or after other
processing tasks; and (d) volitional, easily halted or avoided altogether.
Relatively effortful, controlled processing is a very large part of conscious
information-processing activities, involving mental operations among
relatively poorly learned, or even completely novel, activities. Having to
perform two information-processing tasks together can completely disrupt
both tasks.
COSTS AND BENEFITS OF AUTOMATICITY

Automatic performances, whose benefits are nearly obvious, are related to

processing information in parallel, quickly, and without interference from
other processing tasks. For example, after much practice, high-level
volleyball players can read their opponents' movement patterns automatically
to mean that the ball will be spiked from, say, their left side (e.g., see Allard
& Burnett, 1985). But what if, after consistently producing a pattern leading
to a play to the left, the opposing team uses the same pattern leading to a play
to the right? The defenders' automatic processing of the pattern would lead to
a quick decision and a movement to counter the expected play, a response
That would be hopeless as far as combating the actual play is concerned.
AUTOMATICITY ALLOWS HIGHLY SKILLED ATHLETES TO
PROCESS INFORMATION ABOUT THEIR
OPPONENTS’ MOVEMENTS QUICKLY AND RESPOND.
 DEVELOPING AUTOMATICITY

How do people develop the capability to process information automatically?

Practice, and lots of it, is a very important ingredient, so you should not
expect to see automaticity develop quickly. Practicing for automaticity is
generally most effective under a “consistent-mapping” condition, where the
response generated is related consistently to a particular stimulus pattern.
For example, the response to a red light during driving is always to bring the
vehicle to a stop. This is in contrast to a “varied-mapping” condition, where
a given stimulus sometimes leads to one response and sometimes to another
response (Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977). An example is the incredible variety
of button layouts on different brands of TV remote-control units, where a
given function (changing the channel) requires pressing different buttons
depending on the brand. The diversity of such “varied-mapping” conditions
makes automatic processing almost impossible to achieve, and such tasks
require considerable controlled processing to avoid making errors.
 RESPONSE SELECTION AND DISTRACTED DRIVING

Distracted driving is an excellent example involving attention’s limited

capacity. But an important question is: Does distracted driving affect the
response selection stage or the movement programming stage? Laws passed
in many U.S. states and other countries have banned the use of handheld cell
phones during driving. Why? The assumption is that the hand operation of a
cell phone interferes with the operation of a motor vehicle; this argument lays
the blame for the cell phone–driving dual-task deficit as a movement
programming limitation. But the research suggests otherwise, and is quite
conclusive that hands-free and handheld phones are about equally
problematic in exceeding the attentional capacity limits of the driver. The
source of the problem lies in the capacity demanded by the phone
conversation, and not whether the driver is holding on to, looking at, or
manipulating the phone (e.g., Strayer & Johnston, 2001). The physical actions
involved in manipulating the cell phone do not add significantly to the
attention demands required in carrying on a conversation while driving (see
Ishigami & Klein, 2009, for an important review of this research). The
discussion in Focus on Research 3.1 provides more information about the
methods used to understand the attention demands of distracted driving .
 FOCUS ON RESEARCH 3.1

Distracted-Driving Research

Researchers have used varying approaches to understand the effects

of various distractions, such as speaking on a cell phone, on the
control of a vehicle. The obvious problem with doing the most
logical type of research—using drivers in real traffic situations—is
that it brings other drivers, the research participants, and sometimes
the experimenters themselves into potentially dangerous situations,
which is unethical. So, researchers have devised different methods to
assess the attentional cost of performing various tasks while driving.
 LIMITATIONS IN MOVEMENT PROGRAMMING

As you’ll recall from chapter 2, the movement programming

stage is the third in the sequence of information-processing
stages. Here, after the performer has perceived what the
environment will allow, and after having chosen a response that
meets those demands, the performer must still organize the
motor system in order to actually execute the action. In this
stage, the performer must make critical adjustments that occur
at various levels (e.g., in the limbs, muscles, and spinal cord).
These adjustments take time, of course. A good example is the
action of a fencer, who must preprogram a movement despite
having to execute the movement in the face of a potentially
changing environment. In the following example the programmed
action is somewhat complicated, involving a move toward the
center shoulder and then followed by a sudden change in the
action
 THE FENCER ON THE LEFT HAS FAKED ONE MOVE AND IS NOW IN THE
PROCESS OF MAKING A SECOND MOVE, ALLOWING HER TO SCORE A POINT
AND REVEALING LIMITATIONS IN THE MOVEMENT PROGRAMMING STAGE.

Focus on Research 3.2 The Double-Stimulation Paradigm Research on the psychological

refractory period (PRP) uses the “double-stimulation paradigm,” in which the subject is
asked, for example, to respond to a tone (Stimulus1 ) by lifting the right hand from a key
as quickly as possible. A very short time following the tone a light (Stimulus2 ) might
appear; the subject is to respond by lifting the left hand from a key as quickly as possible.
The separation between the onsets of the two stimuli, called the stimulus-onset asynchrony
(SOA), might range from zero to a few hundred milliseconds. Researchers are usually
interested in reaction time (RT) to the second stimulus (RT2 ) as a function of the SOA.
(See the paradigm timeline shown in figure 3.5a.)
 FIGURE 3.5 THE DOUBLE-STIMULATION PARADIGM (A) AND RESULTS FROM

EXPERIMENT BY DAVIS (1988) (B), SHOWING THAT RT2 IS LENGTHENED GREATLY AT THE SHORTEST SOAS
 FIGURE 3.6 AN INFORMATION-PROCESSING BOTTLENECK IN THE
MOVEMENT PROGRAMMING STAGE OCCURS WHEN TWO STIMULI (S1 AND
S2 ) ARE PRESENTED 100 MS APART. IN (A), THE FIRST STIMULUS ENTERS
THE INFORMATION-PROCESSING SYSTEM. IN (B), THE SECOND STIMULUS
IS INTRODUCED, BUT IT IS DELAYED AT THE BOTTLENECK WHILE THE
FIRST RESPONSE IS PROGRAMMED. THIS IS SIMILAR TO WHAT HAPPENS IN
RESPONSE TO A FAKE IN RAPID SPORTS
 THE PROBE-TASK TECHNIQUE

Some researchers have used a different approach to studying the

attention demanded during the movement programming stage,
called the probe-task technique. Here, the researcher would have
the subject perform one task (called the primary task; it could be
either discrete or continuous in nature). At some strategic point in
the performance of the primary task, the researcher would probe
(or test) the attention demanded in the main task by presenting a
secondary task, usually a discrete stimulus, such as tone or light
(the probe stimulus).
FIGURE 3.7 THE ATTENTION DEMANDS AS MEASURED BY PROBE RT AT VARIOUS
POINTS
DURING THE VISUALLY-GUIDED POINTING MOVEMENT TO EITHER A SMALL OR
LARGE
TARGET. THE STRAIGHT LINE DENOTES AVERAGE RT TO THE PROBE STIMULUS
WHEN NO
POINTING MOVEMENT IS BEING MADE.
PRODUCING TWO MOVEMENTS AT THE SAME TIME INTRODUCES A GREATER
CHALLENGE IF THE MOVEMENTS ARE INCOMPATIBLE, AS WHEN A DRUMMER
PLAYS A FASTER BEAT WITH ONE HAND THAN WITH THE OTHER.
 FOCUS OF ATTENTION DURING ACTION

A relatively recent research interest regarding the movement programming

stage concerns a performer’s recommended focus of attention. Would the
performer be better off directing his focus to an internal source, for example
by monitoring the ongoing movement, or would attention be directed more
effectively at an external target, such as an object to be struck or the intended
effect that the action will have on the environment? Considerable research
conducted by Wulf and her colleagues suggests that, in almost all situations,
an external focus of attention results in more skilled performance than an
internal focus of attention. These studies have revealed very impressive
benefits to performance, seen in a wide variety of laboratory and sport tasks,
and for children, adults, and healthy older adult.
 DECISION MAKING UNDER STRESS

Arousal, the level of excitement produced under stress, is a common aspect

of skill performance situations. This is certainly true of many athletic
events, where the pressure to win and the threat of losing, as well as crowd
influences, are important sources of emotional arousal for players. The
level of arousal imposed by a situation is an important determinant of
performance, particularly if the performance is dependent on the speed and
accuracy of decision making
 INVERTED-U PRINCIPLE

One can think of arousal as the level of excitement or activation generated

in the central nervous system. For example, low levels of arousal are
associated with sleep-like states, and high levels are associated with the
agitated and extremely alert states found in life-threatening situations. The
influences of arousal level on performance have been studied for many
years. The inverted-U principle (or, theYerkes-Dodson, [1908] law)
represents an early view of the relationship between arousal and
performance. The idea is that increasing the arousal level generally
enhances performance, but only to a point. Performance quality peaks at
some intermediate value of arousal, and performance actually deteriorates
as the arousal level rises further—
hence the inverted-U function
FIGURE 3.9 VARIATIONS TO THE INVERTED-U PRINCIPLE
 FOCUS ON APPLICATION 3.2

Automotive Panic

It was a fairly normal morning—the 35-year-old teacher reported that

she had just dropped her son at day care before heading to school.
She stopped for coffee at the local drive-through and moved the
transmission lever from Drive to Neutral in order to reach for her
purse. After putting the cup in the coffee holder, she intended to put
her foot on the brake while she changed the transmission from
Neutral back to Drive.
 PERCEPTUAL NARROWING

One important change in information processing that

occurs with high arousal
is perceptual narrowing—the tendency for the
perceptual field to shrink
under stress. (This phenomenon is sometimes known
as “tunnel vision,” in
which the world seems to be viewed as through a pipe
such that the entire
focus is on central vision.
 CHOKING UNDER PRESSURE

One of the most dramatic occasions in high-profile sporting events occurs

when an individual or team, seemingly on the way to certain victory, does the
unimagined thing, plays sloppily, and loses. Relatively recent examples of
team collapses include the 2011 Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves
baseball teams, both of which blew large leads in September and failed to
make the playoffs. Rory McIlroy provided an individual example in the 2011
Masters golf tournament when he shot 7 over par on the back nine in a
Sunday collapse. Everyone can probably recall events like this, and there is
no shortage of examples in every sport, it seems.
 SUMMARY

A good way to think about attention is to imagine a “pool” of resources

such
that, if the information-processing activities from a given task exceed the
resources available, performance of this task and perhaps a second task
attempted at that the same time will suffer. Under a limited set of
circumstances, processing can be done “in parallel”; that is, performance on
two tasks can be done together, without interference. As in common
cocktail party circumstances in which we can ignore the conversations
around us, focusing on a conversation with a given person can occur until,
for example, your name is spoken in a nearby conversation.