2.1C Thinking and remembering 2021/2022- Problem 1 – Where’s your head at?
What determines what we pay attention to?
Why is attention limited?
Different forms of attentions → selective and divided attention
Inattentional blindness: failure to Dichotic listening: set of headphones with diff speech streams in each
notice unexpected objects or events ear, with the task of repeating each syllable spoken into your left ear as
when attention is focused elsewhere. quickly and accurate as possible → you won’t be able to notice if
We appear able to process only one speaker in right ear switches to diff language or diff speaker with
stream of info at a time: effectively similar voice or if what they’re saying makes sense. If the person states
filtering other info from awareness. your name: you’ll only notice 1/3d of the time, and then only because
To a large extent, we perceive only you still devote some of your limited attention to the ignored speech
that which received the focus of our stream. In this task, you will tend to notice only large physical changes
cognitive efforts: our attention. e.g. switch from male to female speaker, but not substantive ones.
Inattentional deafness: the auditory Selective listening: a method for studying selective attention in which
version of inattentional blindness. people focus attention on one auditory stream of information while
People fail to notice an unexpected deliberately ignoring other auditory information.
sound or voice when attention is
focused on other aspects.
Focused attention is crucial to our powers of observation, making it possible for us to zero in on what we want
to see or hear while filtering out irrelevant distractions. Consequences: we can miss what would otherwise be
obvious and important.
Neisser et al. (1970): made a visual version of the dichotic listening task with a video of 2 partially transparent
and overlapping events. Participants often failed to notice unexpected events in the ignored video stream and
were unaware of events happening outside the focus of their attention, even when looking right at them.
However, researchers dismissed these results because of the transparent, ghostly appearance and figured
people would notice if the display were fully opaque and vivid. 20 years later → Gorilla experiment.
- People are more likely to notice - People are more likely to notice - Another crucial influence is the
unexpected objects that share unexpected objects that share effort you put into the attention-
features with the attended items features with the attended items demanding task. The more distracted
in display e.g. if counting players in display e.g. if counting players we are, the less likely we are to be
in black → people are more in black → people are more likely aware of our surroundings. Under
likely to notice gorilla because to notice gorilla because color of conditions of distraction, we
color of gorilla = black. But even gorilla = black. But even unique effectively develop tunnel vision.
unique items (e.g. red cross items (e.g. red cross traversing a - The greater the demands on
traversing a black and white black and white display) can go attention, the less likely people are to
display) can go unnoticed. unnoticed. notice objects falling outside their
attention.
Who is better in noticing unexpected objects?
Studies differ: the ability to perform a task does not predict the likelihood of noticing.
Interesting: we think we see and remember far more of our surroundings than we actually do (we rarely
experience a study situation such as the gorilla experiment in which we are forced to confront something
obvious that we just missed).
, Why is it important?
Our ability to focus attention intently might have been more evolutionary useful than the ability to notice
unexpected events. For an event to be unexpected, it must occur relatively infrequently.
Most events don’t require our immediate attention, so if inattentional blindness delays our ability to notice the
events, the consequences could well be minimal.
However:
Inattentional blindness has more consequences in modern society because we face greater distractions and
move at greater speeds e.g. a small delay in noticing something unexpected can mean a big difference.
Discussion Questions
1. Many people, upon learning about inattentional blindness, try to think of ways to eliminate it, allowing
themselves complete situation awareness. Why might we be far worse off if we were not subject to
inattentional blindness?
2. If inattentional blindness cannot be eliminated, what steps might you take to avoid its consequences?
3. Can you think of situations in which inattentional blindness is highly likely to be a problem? Can you
think of cases in which inattentional blindness would not have much of an impact?
Sternberg book Problem B
What affects our ability to pay attention?
How can we pay attention to many things at the same time? If possible?
What kind of theories are there that explain how and when we process information?
How do these theories differ from each other?
Colin Cherry (1953): Cocktail party problem: paying attention to one conversation whilst there’s the distraction
of other conversations.
Experimented with shadowing: listening to two diff messages by dichotic listening (see above).
In a noisy restaurant, 3 factors help you to attend only to the speaker that you want to listen to:
1. Distinctive sensory characteristics of the target’s speech e.g. high versus low pitch, pacing and
rhythmicity.
2. Sound intensity (loudness)
3. Location of the sound source, you might turn one ear toward and the other ear away from target
speaker (recent studies found this less important than harmonious and rhythmic target sounds).
Theories of selective attention belong to the group of
filter(blocks some of the info going through thus selects only a part of the total of info to pass through
the next stage) and
bottleneck theories(slows down info passing through and filters so that only most important info is
perceived).
1. Broadbent’s Model: one of the earliest theories of 3. Attenuation Model (Anne Treisman): explored
attention - we filter info right after we notice it at the more why some unattended messages pass through
sensory level. the filter. Suggests that at least some info about
Multiple channels(loudness, pitch, accent) of sensory unattended signals is being analyzed →
input reach a filter that permits only one channel of Theory of selective attention that involves a later
sensory info to proceed and reach the processes of filtering mechanism: instead of blocking stimuli, the
perception. Other stimuli will be filtered out at the filter only weakens (attenuates) the strength of
sensory level and may never reach the level of distracting stimuli.
perception e.g. proven by Cherry’s findings that
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