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Chapters
4 & 13:
Attention
&
Emotion
Multiple Meanings of Attention
Attention is very hard to define
The term “attention applies to a wide range of
phenomena:
1. Arousal
2. Alertness
3. Consciousness awareness
First identification of the pattern relies almost exclusively on data-driven
processing whereas later identification relies heavily on conceptually driven
processing.
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Basics of Attention
Attention as a limited mental resource
– Limited mental energy that powers cognition
•
– A mental commodity necessary to run cognition
– A filter or funnel
Alertness and Arousal
• Explicit Processing:
– Involving conscious processing, conscious awareness that a task is
being performed, and usually conscious awareness of the outcome of
that performance
– Easy to communicate
– Declarative/episodic
• Implicit Processing:
The Orienting Response
and Attention Capture
• Habituation
• Posner:
– Work on visual attention focus
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The Orienting Response
and Attention Capture
Posner’s Spatial cuing task
YOU WILL SEE A FOCUS POINT, “+ AND AN
ARROW, FOLLOWED BY A BOX
SIMPLY SAY WHETHER THE BOX IS ON THE LEFT
OR RIGHT OF THE SCREEN
Posner’s spatial cuing task
Posner Experiments on Response
Time
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The Orienting Response
and Attention Capture
Posner’s Spatial cuing task
• Benefit/Facilitation:
– Useful cue = fast RT
• Cost:
– Misleading cue = slow RT
• Spotlight attention:
The Orienting Response
and Attention Capture
Visual Search
Treisman examined spotlight attention in visual search and
pattern recognition.
ON THE NEXT SLIDES, SIMPLY SAY “T AS SOON AS YOU FIND THE
BOLD-FACED T
SAY IT AS FAST AS YOU CAN, BUT MAKE SURE
YOU HAVE IDENTIFIED IT BEFORE YOU SAY IT
Input vs. Controlled Attention
• Remember feature detectors?
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A Disorder of Attention: Hemineglect
• Hemineglect:
Drawings copied by a patient with
hemineglect
Object-based neglect is demonstrated by the copying
performance of a patient with left hemineglect
Draw
Black
Draw
White
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Selective Attention
and the Cocktail Party Effect
• Filtering or selecting:
– The mental process of eliminating those distractions is
called filtering or selecting
Selective Attention
and the Cocktail Party Effect
• Dual Task or Dual Message Procedure:
– Two tasks or messages are presented such that
one task or message captures attention as
completely as possible.
Selective Attention
and the Cocktail Party Effect
Shadowing task
– With headphones, listen and repeat a
message in real-time while ignoring message
in other ear
– High success (after lots of practice)
– Participants remembered physical
characteristics of ignored message but not
content
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Broadbent’s filter theory
of selective attention
(Attention)
Problems with Broadbent
Unattended info filtered out early
- Ignored based on physical characteristics
- Is it?
Treisman
All incoming messages get some anaylsis
Treisman’s Attenuation Theory
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Both Broadbent and Treisman are
Selection Models
• Two things about selective attention:
1. Selective attention can occur very early in processing,
based on very low-level, physical characteristics, as
Broadbent proposed.
2. It can be influenced by both permanent and
temporary factors. Permanent factors include
important information such as your name, as well as
overlearned and personally important factors.
Selective Attention
• Inhibition
irrelevent info gets pushed down or suppressed.
• Irrele ant information suppressed
Ex. mind wandering, zoning out
Selective Attention
• Priming
– Respond faster when cued to expect a stimulus
(concept is mentally activated)
• Negative Priming
Slower responding to a target when that target
was to be ignored item on the previous trial.
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Attention as a Mental Resource
• Psychological Refractory Period or Attentional
Blink:
A brief slow-down in mental processing due to having
processed another very recent event.
A Synthesis for Attention and Automaticity
• Attention = mental capacity
– Can’t use more than you have
ADHD, normal attentional limits, or lots of explicit
processing depletes resources
– More practice -> more automaticity -> more resources
available to do more stuff
Stimulants can help with mental capacity.
Ex. Adderall
Automaticity!
• Posner characteristics:
– Occurs without intention, without a conscious decision
– Not open to conscious awareness or introspection
– Consumes few if any conscious resources (attention)
– (Informal fourth criterion) Operates very rapidly, usually with 1s.
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Automatic and Conscious Processing
Theories
• Conscious Processing:
– Occurs only with intention, with a deliberate decision.
– Open to awareness and introspection.
Disadvantages of Automaticity
• Can’t always turn it off
• Action Slips:
• Also, Highway Hypnosis
The Stroop Task
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Emotion
Emotions are Universal
• Babies
born
blind
• Blind
Runners
Emotions are Physiological (in part)
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Emotion and Attention
• Emotional Stroop Task
– Words presented in various colors
– The task is to name the colors.
– Naming times are slowed for emotion-inducing
items.
Emotion and Attention
• Suppression vs. Cognitive reappraisal
– Effect on feeling, problem solving, brain activity
Emotion and Memory
• Yerkes-Dodson Law
– Why?
– Weapon focus/Band-aid
robbers
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Choking
• Outcome-based pressure
• Monitoring pressure
Ok Fine, But What ARE Emotions?
• Where do they come from?
Body Sensations & Emotions
• Common sense theory
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Body Sensations & Emotions
• James-Lange Theory
Body Sensations & Emotions
• Schacter s Cognitive Arousal Theory
– Happy vs. Angry man experiments
– Attraction in dangerous situations
– Coffee dates & scary movies
Body Sensations & Emotions
• Facial Feedback Hypothesis
– Somotosensory cortex & facial processing
– The key to happiness!
– Also, mirror neurons
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