Attention Processes

Three Kinds of Attention Processes

Limited Attention

1. Mental resources are limited, and attention uses these resources carefully.

2. Based on limited resources an individual can focus only on restricted amount of information.

3. So we can see either the vase or the faces at any one time.

Q. Is limited attention a drawback?

A. No. Focusing on one piece of information makes us respond faster. This should be recognized as an important factor in operations like problem solving, and memorization.

Divided Attention

1. Since attention gets limited amount of access to cognitive functions, divided attention can lead to compromises in planned action.

2. It may have devastating consequences in the form of accidents. From people talking on the cell phones and driving, to air traffic control accidents.

3. Most studies test divided attention during driving, and indicate that driving and engaging in another task has devastating effect on driving.

Divided Attention & Practice

1. Some tasks that require divided attention improve with practice. Students were asked to read stories silently and copy words in a dictation. At first it was difficult to do both tasks, but eventually with practice the task performance improved in terms of accuracy and speed (Neisser, ??).

2. Experience seems to play some role in driving and doing other tasks. Experience drivers can drive and engage in other tasks in less than 3 seconds, compared to novices.

Try This: Read Red

Somewhere Among hidden the in most the spectacular Rocky Mountains cognitive near abilities Central City is Colorado the an ability old to miner select hid one a message box from of another. gold. We Although do several this hundred by people focusing have our looked attention for on it, certain they cues have such not as found type it of yet style.

Divided attention is a term used to describe the mental state where people try to focus on multiple things. Over the years, scientists have been very interested in the human ability to multitask in this way, and several studies have been performed to test the limitations and mechanics of attention splitting. Generally speaking, experts have found that people often pay a major price in performance when trying to focus on multiple tasks or information sources, and that the limits of divided attention are generally rather strict. As a result, some people feel that multitasking should generally be discouraged while performing certain tasks, but others feel that society should embrace it because it may offer certain advantages over more focused thinking in the modern digital age.

Divided attention is when a person attends to multiple tasks simultaneously. This kind of attention has been shown to be affected by three factors: task difficulty (performance and task difficulty have an inverse relationship), task similarity (performance and task similarity also have an inverse relationship), and practice (the more practice, the better the performance).

In a divided-attention task, you try to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages, responding to each as needed. In most cases, your accuracy decreases, especially if the tasks are challenging (Ward, 2004).

In the laboratory, researchers typically study divided attention by instructing participants to perform two tasks at the same time. Many researchers study driving performance (Fisher & Pollatsek, 2007; Strayer & Drews, 2007). The research on divided attention also has important implications for people who use cell phones while driving. The research on practice and divided attention confirms the wisdom of “practice makes perfect”. 

Selective Attention

Selective attention is closely related to divided attention. In a divided-attention task, people try to pay equal attention to two or more sources of information. In a selective attention task, people are instructed to respond selectively to certain kinds of information, while ignoring other information.

1. In divided attention people pay attention to two tasks simultaneously, but in selective attention they are instructed to pay attention to just one amongst others.

2. During selective attention, irrelevant tasks (noise in the room) can be easily filtered out from the task that is attended to, compared to relevant tasks, which make selective attention more difficult.

Fortunately, then, selective attention simplifies our lives. As Theme 2 suggests, our cognitive apparatus is impressively well designed. Features such as selective attention—which may initially seem to be drawbacks—may actually be beneficial.

Let’s consider three basic categories of selective attention: (1) an auditory task called dichotic listening, (2) a visual task called the Stroop effect, and (3) visual search.

Dichotic Listening:

1. Selective attention research uses binaural equipment to study dichotic listening.

2. In left and right ears two different messages are played and the subject is asked to attend and repeat (shadow) only one channel.

3. If the listener makes a mistake while shadowing, we can assume that she is not paying attention to the task assigned.

4. Cherry (1953) suggested that in a dichotic listening task participants have no knowledge of the message in the unattended channel. They have no knowledge that the message was changed to German from English in the unattended channel.

5. The voice of the speaker (male to female) may be easily identified in the unattended channel.

6. When can people understand meaning of message presented in the unattended channel?

In general, we can process only one message at a time (Cowan, 2005). However, people are likely to process the unattended message when

a. Both messages are relayed slowly.

b. The task is not challenging.

c. The meaning of the message is relevant (something that the individual may do in the future).

d. Participant name is inserted in the unattended message.

Cocktail Party Phenomenon

Colin Cherry in 1953, documented a house hold phenomena in which we pay attention to someone calling our name in a conversation that we are not paying attention to.  This was referred to the cocktail party phenomenon.

The Stroop Effect

The Stroop effect is named after James R. Stroop (1935), who created this wellknown task. According to the Stroop effect, people take a long time to name the ink color when that color is used in printing an incongruent word; in contrast, they can quickly name that same ink color when it appears as a solid patch of color.

1. So far we have looked at divided attention in the auditory channel, however other research has shown similar division of attention in Stroop task.

Read the color of the word aloud!

blue         green        red              yellow

yellow       red         green             blue

green      yellow       blue               red

Now read the color of the word aloud!

red            yellow          blue       green

blue           green           red        yellow

yellow       green           red           blue

2. Certainly the second time reading these colors is more time consuming and error prone than the first.

3. Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) model suggests that process of reading the word and naming the color interferes.

Since the original research, hundreds of additional studies have examined variations of the Stroop effect. For example, Elliot and Cowan (2001) demonstrated that practice can improve people’s selective attention, as measured by the Stroop task. Furthermore, clinical psychologists have created a related technique called the emotional Stroop task. On the emotional Stroop task, people are instructed to name the ink color of words that are related to a possible psychological disorder.

Let’s now consider visual search, a third kind of selective-attention task.

Visual Search:

1. We do visual search all the time. Visual search can be important for survival. Visual search is affected many factors.

2. Wolfe and colleagues (2005) demonstrated that visual search is more accurate if the target appears frequently (50%) than if it appears now an then (1%).

3. Two factors that affect visual search are a), and Isolated Feature vs. Combined Features b) Feature present vs. Feature absent

Isolated Feature vs. Combined Features

Treisman and Gelade (1980) proposed that simple feature search is faster because it is carried out as a parallel search. However, when features combine

the search becomes serial, demanding additional attentional resources and subsequently slows down.

Isolated Feature vs. Combined Features

Another example, motion present vs. motion absent (Royden and colleagues, 2001).

Feature present vs. Feature absent

Treisman and Souther (1985) proposed that when we look for a feature that is present amongst distracters that lack it. Search is fast. However when

the target lacks the feature midst distracters search slows down.

Saccadic Eye Movements

1. The eyes constantly move during different attentional tasks. During a viewing a scene, following a moving object, and reading text.

2. These eye movements are called saccadic eye moments, which range form 100‐200 ms, interspersed with fixations lasting for 50‐500 ms.

3. Attentional demands of visual search task necessitate that we consider saccadic eye movements.

4. During reading English, perceptual span of fixations are 4 letters/spaces to the left of point of fixation and about 15 letters/spaces to the right, e.g.,

5. Saccadic eye movements in a good reader are flowing, whereas in a poor reader they regress.

Explanations for Attention

Neuroscience and Research

There are three systems in the cortex that manage different aspects of attention

a. The orienting attention network

b. The executive attention network

c. The alerting attention network

Orienting Attention Network

1. Orientation attention network is responsible for visual search, where search shifts around various locations.

2. This network develops around 1 year of age (Posner & Rothbart, 2007).

3. Individual with left or right parietal lobe damage cannot pay attention to right or left visual fields (Hemineglect).

Executive Attention Network

1. Executive attention network handles attention when a task involves conflict (Posner and colleagues, 2007).

2. So in Stroop task attention reading the word and naming the colored ink are in conflict and require this network.

3. Executive attention network starts to function around two years of age, and is important for acquiring academic skills at school.