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Attention and Consciousness
Attention and Consciousness
Sternberg
Chapter 4
Attention Is…
• The concentration of mental energy
that must be used to process incoming
information
– Selective
– Limited
– Both conscious and preconscious
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Preconscious Attention
Priming
BREAD NURSE CAT
Marcel (1983)
Condition Subliminally Consciously
Present Prime Present Prime
PALM
XXXX
PINE PALM
PINE
TOT Demonstration
• What is the name of Dagwood Bumstead’s dog?
Blindsight
• Person cannot consciously see a certain
portion of their visual field but still
behave in some instances as if they can
see it
• Being aware of doing something is
distinguishable from doing something
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
• Controlled processing
– Requires conscious control
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Is Typing Automatic or
Controlled for You?
• Do you type without thinking where your
fingers are? Are you a search-and-peck
typer?
• If you do type without using attention, what
happens when you think about the letters as
you are typing them?
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Negative-
Acceleration
Curve
Habituation
• Decrease in responsiveness when
exposed to a repeated stimulus
– People who smoke do not notice the
smell of cigarettes on their clothes, but
nonsmokers do
– People get used to hearing the chiming of
their clocks
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Dishabituation
• Change in familiar stimuli causes
one to notice it again
– Smokers who quit, suddenly notice how
much their clothes smell of smoke
– If clock breaks, suddenly owner notices
the clock isn’t chiming
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Habituation/Dishabituation Paradigm
• Allows psychologists to test abilities of
Infants and animals
• Measure subject’s arousal to see if a change
occurs when pattern or sound is changed
– If animal or infant dishabituates to a change,
then they can detect the change
– If the animal or infant does not dishabituate to a
change in stimuli, they did not detect the
change
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
• Signal Detection
• Searching
• Selective Attention
• Divided Attention
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Present Absent
False
Decision Present Hit Alarm
Correct
Absent Miss Rejection
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Search
• Actively searching for a target
• Number of targets and distracters
influence accuracy
• Feature search versus conjunctive
search
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Similarity Theory
• Disagrees with Treisman’s FIT theory
• Similarity between targets and distracters
is important; not number of features to be
combined
– The more shared features among items in
display, the more difficult to detect a
particular target
• Some findings cannot be explained by FIT
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Guided Search
• Cave and Wolf (1990)
• All searches have 2 phases
– Parallel phase
– Serial stage
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Selectivity of Attention
• Cocktail Party Problem
– How are we able to follow one
conversation in the presence of other
conversations?
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Broadbent’s Model
Sensory Working
Stores Memory
Multimode Theory
• Johnston & Heinz (1978)
• Difficulty of a task is determined by
when the selection takes place
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Neisser’s Synthesis
• Preattentive Processes
– Parallel
– Note physical characteristics
• Attentive Processes
– Controlled processes occur serially
– Occur in working memory
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Attentional-Resource Theories
Stroop Effect
Say the color the words red
are printed in as quickly yellow
green
as you can
blue
What errors do you make?
red
blue
Reading interferes with your
yellow
ability to state the color and
green
your reaction time is slower blue
red
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Divided Attention
• How many tasks can you do at once?
– e.g. driving & talking, radio, phone...
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Failed to Stopped
stop properly
On Cell Phone 82 28
No Cell Phone 352 1286
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4
Spatial Neglect
• Lesion on one side of brain causes
person to ignore half of their visual
field
Cognitive Psychology, Fifth Edition, Robert J. Sternberg
Chapter 4