Cognitive Process Psychology: Treisman Attenuation Theory, Slides of Psychology

Download Cognitive Process Psychology: Treisman Attenuation Theory and more Slides Psychology in PDF only on Docsity!

Cognitive ProcessesPSY 334

Chapter 3 – Attention

What is Attention? †

Attention is the allocation of limitedprocessing resources. † Visual features such as shape, color,texture, motion are processed in parallel. † Serial bottleneck – occurs when it is nolonger possible to process in parallel. „ When does it occur – early vs lateselection „ How do we select what to attend to?

How we Experience Attention †

Stream of consciousness -- we learn andremember what we attend to. † Paying attention results in a feeling ofmental effort. † Can be directed internally but also pulled(attracted) by external events. † Varies with arousal and fatigue. † Studied by looking at responsecompetition.

Auditory Attention †

The response competition comes fromhaving two ears. † Dichotic listening task – uses“shadowing.” „ Two different messages are presented,one to each ear. Subjects are asked tospeak what they hear. „ People can attend to only one message ata time.

Broadbent’s Filter Theory †

People do not remember the content ofthe unattended ear. „ Voice or noise, sex, but little else. † Broadbent’s filter theory proposed thatfiltering occurs early in processing basedon physical characteristics (pitch, ear). „ Neural evidence supports the ability toselect one ear to listen to. † Cocktail party effect – attention switchesbased on content of unattended ear.

Broadbent’s Early Selection

Only the selected informationgets through.

Treisman’s Attenuation Theory †

Treisman’s attenuation theory – subjectsdeemphasize but not filter out theunattended message. „ Meaning switched from one ear to theother. „ Some subjects switch ears even when toldnot to, following the semantic content. † Semantic criteria apply to all messages,filtered or not.

Treisman’s AttentuationTheory

All information passesthrough but some is weaker(attenuated).

Late Selection Theory

Decide what tosay Shadow bymeaning Shadow by ear

Testing the Theories †

Dichotic listening task: „ Shadow one message but listen for atarget word in both ears (tap when heard). † Late selection theory predicts nodifficulty hearing the target in either ear. † Attenuation theory predicts lessdetection in non-shadowed ear. „ 87% detection in shadowed ear „ 8% detection in non-shadowed ear

Visual Attention †

We can choose where to fixate our eyesfor greatest visual acuity. „ Other portions of the visual field areattenuated. † Visual attention need not be locatedwhere the eyes are fixed. † Posner – subjects can attend to objectsup to 24 degrees from the fovea. „ Shift of attention precedes eye movement.

Spotlight Metaphor †

Spotlight can be broad or narrow(degrees of visual angle). „ Broad areas processed less well. † A narrow focal point gives optimalprocessing but it takes time to move thefocus to other areas of the visual field. † We move our eyes around a complexvisual stimulus. „ Neisser & Becklen’s shadowing task.

Visual Search †

Feature-based serial search – Neisser „ Find the letter K in a string of letters. † Pop-out – locate a distinctive feature inan array without searching each item. † Treisman & Gelade – locating aconjunction of features takes longer thanlocating a single, distinctive feature. „ T among I’s & Y’s 400 ms „ T among I’s & Z’s 800 ms

Visual Pop-Out