Module 3

Attention
INTRODUCTION
Attention is a fascinating cognitive ability to study
because it straddles the boundaries between low-level and higher-
level brain processes. Whilst the exact relationship between
attention and other cognitions such as working memory and
intelligence is still being mapped out, the fact that attention
can operate so early in the processing stream makes it inevitable
that it will have effects on any attempt to use the information
further down the line.
This topic is considered significant since attention is the
gateway to cognition. It may mediate other key variables which
contribute to an individual’s success and most of all, attention
skills likely impact on our happiness.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the module, students should be able to:
1. Explain the meaning of attention.
2. Differentiate the different theories which explain
attention.
3. Understand the different types of attention.
4. Analyze the functions of attention

DISCUSSION
What is Attention
 William James describes attention as “the taking possession
by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may
seem several simultaneous possible trains of thought.
Focalization [and] concentration of consciousness are of its
essence”. This view largely describes what we refer to as
“SELECTIVE ATTENTION”.
  Selective attention - ability to focus awareness on a single
stimulus to the exclusion of other stimuli.
- Ability to focus awareness on specific features in the
environment while ignoring others (text)
 Attention is the all important but poorly understood process
that can act to limit and affect our cognitive processing.
 Attention refers to the concentration and focusing of mental
effort. It is:
• Selective
• Shiftable
• Divisable
 Attention is the means by which we actively process a
limited amount of the enormous amount of information
available through our senses, our stored memories, or other
cognitive processes. It includes
• Conscious/Unconscious
• Attended/Unattended (no longer direct linkage – some
active attentional processing occurs without conscious
awareness)
• Aware/Unaware
• Direct/Indirect Measures
Attention: a state of awareness consisting of the sensations,
thoughts, & feelings that one is focused on in a given moment.
AWARE UNAWARE
CONSCIOUS UNCONSCIOUS
EXPLICIT IMPLICIT
ATTENDED UNATTENDED
Functions of Attention (What does attention do?)
1. Monitors our interaction with the environment.
2. Assists linking past (memories) with present (sensations) to
give continuity to our experiences
3. Helps us to control and plan future actions.

Filter Models vs Capacity Models

 Filter models assume that attention operates as a filter
that blocks the processing of some stimuli and allows
processing of other stimuli
 Capacity models assume the agent selects stimuli for
additional processing

Filter Models (Early Selection)

• Broadbent (1958) put forward the first well-defined model of
attention – a filter model with “early selection” – to account
for results from SHADOWING tasks and from DICHOTIC LISTENING
tasks.
• Cherry (1953) used a shadowing task, in which one (auditory)
message was to be repeated back out aloud (i.e., “shadowed”)
while a second auditory message was presented to the other ear.
a. Results suggest that very little semantic information from
the second (“non-attended”) message is absorbed.
b. Physical changes to the to-be-unattended message were more
likely to be noticed (e.g., the insertion of a pure tone,
changing the sex of the speaker, changing the intensity of
sound).
 Broadbent argues that the unattended auditory information
receives very little processing because the message is
filtered out based on perceptual characteristics.
L
• The Shadowing Task -listeners rarely noticed even when the
unattended message was spoken in a foreign language, reversed
speech, or words repeated 35 times.
 Shadowing - messages are presented to both ears but subject is
told to attend to only one of the messages and repeat it out
loud.
• By and large subjects find it easy to perform this task
• Subjects can remember what was said on the attended channel.
• Some things subjects DON'T know about the unattended channel
a. What words were spoken.
b. The topic being discussed.
c. The language of the voice.
• Some things subjects DO know about the unattended channel
a. Whether it was a human voice or just noise
b. Whether it was a male or female voice.
 Dichotic Listening
a. Subjects tended to report all the information coming to one
ear first then all the information coming to the other ear.
b. If subjects are required to report digits in the order of
arrival they did better the more time there is between
presentations.
c. Unable to follow/remember competing conversation.
 Cocktail party effect - ability to attend selectively to
one person’s speech among competing conversations but
highly relevant stimuli still detected

The Basic Claims of the Attentional Attenuation Model (

• Messages differ in terms of "subjective loudness". Paying
attention means increasing subjective loudness (turning up the
dial)
• When shadowing, messages from the shadowed ear have a higher
subjective loudness than messages from the nonshadowed ear.
• Different concepts have different awareness thresholds – these
are the subjective loudness required for that concept to be
noticed.
• Some concepts are permanently set with a low threshold for
awareness (like one's name) and others depend on context.
Evidence supporting the attenuation model
• Your name has a permanently low threshold for activation – It
will be recognized even if it is part of the “non-attended”
message (cocktail party effect).
• It explains contextual errors in shadowing. Concepts related to
the message in the shadowed ear temporarily have their
recognition threshold lowered.

Early vs Late Selection Models

 Triesman and Broadbent posit that attention serves to
determine the nature of the information that gets into
Short Term Memory. They are “Early Selection” Models
because they assume that attentional selection occurs
early, before information enters Short Term Memory.
 Late Selection Models (Norman, 1968) assume that all
information gets into Short Term Memory but that
information which isn't attended to is rapidly forgotten
(within a fraction of a second). They are called Late
Selection Models because the selection doesn't occur
until fairly late in the process, when information is
already in Short Term Memory.
 Early Selection models treat Short Term Memory as a
small box into which only a few items can fit. Attention
picks items to go into that small box.
 Late selection models treat Short Term Memory as large
box into which many items can fit but in which items
disappear quite rapidly unless they are attended to.
Capacity Theories
• Kahneman (1973) introduced the notion of “capacity” with
“attention” as a mental resource that could be shared or
distributed across multiple tasks.
• Johnston & Heinz (1978) developed the “multimode model of
attention” to reflect the increasing mental costs for selection
at various stages of processing.
 Johnston & Heinz (1978) “multimode model of attention” says
attention can operate at a number of different stages
 Wickens (1980) proposes a multiple resource model with
perceptual, cognitive, and outputrelated domains each separated
across the taskdefined verbal and spatial coding required. He
treats each “bin” as a separate pool of resources that a task
might draw on (and/or be constrained by limitations
encountered).

Consciousness one’s awareness of stimuli and events inside and

outside of one’s self; An awareness of the sensations, thoughts,
& feelings that one is attending to at a given moment; Awareness
of one’s surroundings and of what’s on one’s mind at a given
moment (per text)
Wakefulness and Awareness
a. Wakefulness: degree of alertness (awake vs. asleep)
b. Awareness: monitoring of information from environment and
from one’s own thoughts
c. Vegetative State: minimal consciousness; eyes may be open
but person is otherwise non-responsive
d. Coma: eyes are closed and person is unresponsive and
unarousable

Illustrations of “UNCONSCIOUS” Processing

 a. Subliminal Messages? – A stimulus that is presented below
the threshold for awareness (ex. Visual/auditory stimuli
that the conscious mind cannot perceive, often inserted into
other media such as TV commercials or songs)
• Greenwald “unconscious self-help” tapes… perceived
effectiveness.
• Greenwald/Merikle “perception without awareness”???
b. Mere Exposure – the more often you see a stimulus, the more
you come to like it. Form of influence w/o awareness
c. Priming – tendency for a recently presented word or concept
to facilitate responses in a subsequent situation. Quicker
to read “doctor” after “nurse” presented than after “apple”.
For example, if a child sees a bag of candy next to red
bench, he might begin looking for or thinking about the
candy the next time he sees a bench.
d. Prosopagnosia – (face blindness) inability to recognize
familiar faces, although brain activity increases despite
non-recognition. (from Greek word prosopon meaning face and
agnosia meaning non-knowledge)
e. Blindsight – damage to visual cortex resulting in the
encoding of visual info without awareness. A person can tell
where an object is although they claim they cannot see it.
f. Tip-of-the-Toungue (ToT) Phenomena or Lethologica– (usually
involuntary). It is an event of failing to retrieve a word
or term from memory. In such cases, a person is certain she
knows the word she is searching for.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION
Read the “black words”
Only in performing an experiment like this one on man attention
car it house is boy critically hat important shoe that candy the
old material horse that tree is pen being phone read cow by the
hot subject tape for pin the stand relevant view task sky be red
cohesive man and car grammatically house complete boy but hat
without shoe either candy being horse so tree easy that phone
full cow attention is hot not tape required pin in stand order
view to sky read red it nor too difficult.

When people do this type of task they do not effectively remember

the red words

Failures of Selective Attention

Ironic Processes - the harder one tries to control a thought or
behavior, the less likely one is to succeed, especially if
distracted, tired, or under stress.
Examples:
1) Do not think about a white bear
2) Subjects instructed to control a pendulum moved it more than
those not instructed.
3) Golfers were more likely to overshoot a putt when trying not
to do so.

Additional Learning
Attention / Psychology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrpFJcthIY0
Selective Attention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

REFERENCES
1. Bargh, J., & Morsella, E. (2008). The unconscious
mind. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), 73–79.
2. Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001). On the fragility of
skilled performance: What governs choking under
pressure? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130,
701–725.
3. Broadbent, D. A. (1958). Perception and communication.
London, England: Pergamon Press.
4. Cheesman, J., & Merikle, P. (1986). Distinguishing conscious
from unconscious perceptual processes. Canadian Journal of
Psychology, 40, 343–367.
5. Cheesman, J., & Merikle, P. (1984). Priming with and without
awareness. Perception and Psychophysics, 36, 387–395.
6. Cherry, E. C. (1953). Experiments on the recognition of
speech with one and two ears. Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America, 25, 975–979.