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Cognitive Psychology, 2 Ed

1. The chapter discusses theories of selective and divided attention including filter theories and capacity theories. 2. Filter theories propose that an attentional filter operates early or late in processing to select stimuli. Capacity theories propose attention has a limited overall capacity. 3. Automatic processes like the Stroop effect demonstrate some stimuli are processed without intention while controlled processes require conscious effort.

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29 views

Cognitive Psychology, 2 Ed

1. The chapter discusses theories of selective and divided attention including filter theories and capacity theories. 2. Filter theories propose that an attentional filter operates early or late in processing to select stimuli. Capacity theories propose attention has a limited overall capacity. 3. Automatic processes like the Stroop effect demonstrate some stimuli are processed without intention while controlled processes require conscious effort.

Uploaded by

aloysius
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Cognitive Psychology, 2nd Ed.

Chapter 4
Selective vs. Divided Attention
Selective attention: Process one stimulus
while ignoring another.
Divided attention: Process both stimuli, by
giving some attention to each.
Shadowing: Dichotic listening task where
input from one ear is repeated aloud.
Selective attention to the shadowed message
results in the ignored message not being
perceived and remembered.
Filter Theories: Early Selection
Attentional filter operates after sensory
processing but prior to meaningful semantic
processing.
Explains why ignored messages in shadowing
task can’t be remembered—they were not
semantically processed.
Explains why sensory features of the ignored
message (e.g., pitch) are processed and
remembered.
Filter Theories: Attenuation
Failures of selective attention occasionally
occur—for example, noticing one’s own name
in the ignored message.
An attenuation filter lowers the strength of
the sensory signal in the ignored message,
making it less likely to be perceived.
Important stimuli—such as one’s name pass
through the filter without attentuation.
Filter Theories: Late Selection
However, experiments showed even
unimportant stimuli received semantic
analysis. For example, semantic priming
from a stimulus that backward masking
deletes from conscious perception.
Late selection filter occurs after sensory
and semantic analysis but before
response selection.
Capacity Theories of Attention
Depending on the task used, the filter
seemed to be either early or late in
processing. The ability to divide attention
instead of selectively attend was also
important to model.
Capacity theories drop filters and assume
attention is limited in overall capacity.
Mental effort: the proportion of available
attentional capacity given to a task.
Capacity Theories of Attention
Single capacity: Assumes attentional
capacity is undifferentiated.
Multiple resources: Assumes there are
multiple attentional capacities.
 auditory vs. visual perceptual modalities
 perceptual vs. cognitive resources
 vocal vs. manual response modalities
Automatic Processes
Stroop Effect: Color names are printed
in compatible or incompatible ink colors.
Task is to name the ink color. Errors
and response times increase for
incompatible (RED printed in green ink)
compared with compatible (RED printed
in red ink).
Automatic vs. Controlled
Processes
Automatic Processes Controlled Processes
 unintentional  intentional
 unconsious  conscious
 effortless  effortful
Visual Attention
Visual attention is like a spotlight on the
visual field. Brain circuits read out the
contents of the spotlight, disengage it,
and move it to a new location.
Spatial Neglect: A breakdown in visual
attention whereby some areas of the
visual field are not perceived.
Executive Attention
Attention given to manipulating and
controlling mental representations and
processes.
Supervisory attentional system that inhibits
inappropriate responses and activates
appropriate ones.
Anterior cingulate gyrus deep in the frontal
lobe inhibits automatic responses in Stroop
task, for example.
Perceptual Binding
Visual attention is needed for
integrating stimulus features (e.g.,
color, shape, and location) in
perception.
Inattentional blindness and attentional
blink illustrate failures to bind features
in the absence of attention.
Subliminal Perception
Perception without attention—according to
feature integration theory, unattended stimuli
are unbound features and thus not perceived.
However, individual features do register
because of pre-attentive processing and can
be measured on appropriate test.
Familiarity and emotional preference also
register from subliminal stimuli.

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