Introduction to attention and Selective Attention
What is attention-
● Attention can mean several things
● William James 1890s ‘’attention.. Taking possession of the mind’’
● Attention of processing to a particular task
● Processing-tend to be looking at it, visual*
General types of attention-
● not as a single process but an ‘umbrella’ term for a set of processes that
assist in our information processing.
● William James (1890) made a distinction between two ‘modes’ of attention
1. Active attention: This is where attention is controlled ‘top-down’, i.e. it is
controlled and purposefully deployed due to some motivational reason for
attending to a specific item e.g point and look
2. Passive attention: This is where attention is deployed in a ‘bottom-up’ fashion
because of some property of external stimuli e.g loud bang
● This distinction, between bottom-up and top-down deployment of attention is still
very much in use today.
● Basically, if we are able to attend to something we are able to process much
more of it.
Attention isn’t just separated by what effects it’s deployment-
● deploy our attention
● either focus our attention on a single thing or region of space, or we can divide
● Focused(selective) attention: This form of attention is the kind of thing we see
when we present participants with two or more stimuli and ask them to attend
(and/or respond) to only one of them e.g monkey illusion keep track ball
● Divided Attention: We can think of this like multitasking, as above we present
the participants with multiple stimuli/inputs but ask the participant to attend
(and/or respond) to all of them. E.g boy who spotted all in monkey illusion
● consider attention to be an effortful process
● Attention requires effort
● above approaches tells us something different about the way we are able to
process the world.
● In many cases the best way of looking at attention is not what processes there
are, but what the effect of attention is
, Examples-
● Selective attention: To what extent can the man ignore the screaming woman
and listen to the headphones?
● Selecting out one input or output
● Divided attention: To what extent do I have the capacity to listen to the phone
conversation while at the same time input a phone number
● May have phone calls/texting
Perception lectures link-
● Perception is all about bringing information in from the senses.
● Perception is involved in the interpretation of the input and, essentially packaging
it up.
● But there is more information there than we can possibly process.
● Between perception and consciousness we have a memory and attention
bridge
Where is the bridge, Sensory Buffer-
● When it comes to attentional filtering of the vast amount of information that
enters our senses, the first place that we see this occurring is at the level of
sensory memory.
● a memory system the way the sensory memory system works ties together the
link between perception and consciousness
● Able to select what we want and don’t want- sensory buffer. Too much
information would lead to sensory overload
Sensory Bridge-
● information that comes into the senses is buffered
● Go into block and select out information we need
● The aim of this buffer is to hold all the incoming information until the attentional
system can act on it.
● This provides a valuable block to the incoming information long enough for the
attentional system to select the important information
Types of sensory memory- exam
● The two memory systems that you need to know are the ones relating to vision
and audition.
● Vision ICONIC
● Audition ECHOIC
What is attention-
● Attention can mean several things
● William James 1890s ‘’attention.. Taking possession of the mind’’
● Attention of processing to a particular task
● Processing-tend to be looking at it, visual*
General types of attention-
● not as a single process but an ‘umbrella’ term for a set of processes that
assist in our information processing.
● William James (1890) made a distinction between two ‘modes’ of attention
1. Active attention: This is where attention is controlled ‘top-down’, i.e. it is
controlled and purposefully deployed due to some motivational reason for
attending to a specific item e.g point and look
2. Passive attention: This is where attention is deployed in a ‘bottom-up’ fashion
because of some property of external stimuli e.g loud bang
● This distinction, between bottom-up and top-down deployment of attention is still
very much in use today.
● Basically, if we are able to attend to something we are able to process much
more of it.
Attention isn’t just separated by what effects it’s deployment-
● deploy our attention
● either focus our attention on a single thing or region of space, or we can divide
● Focused(selective) attention: This form of attention is the kind of thing we see
when we present participants with two or more stimuli and ask them to attend
(and/or respond) to only one of them e.g monkey illusion keep track ball
● Divided Attention: We can think of this like multitasking, as above we present
the participants with multiple stimuli/inputs but ask the participant to attend
(and/or respond) to all of them. E.g boy who spotted all in monkey illusion
● consider attention to be an effortful process
● Attention requires effort
● above approaches tells us something different about the way we are able to
process the world.
● In many cases the best way of looking at attention is not what processes there
are, but what the effect of attention is
, Examples-
● Selective attention: To what extent can the man ignore the screaming woman
and listen to the headphones?
● Selecting out one input or output
● Divided attention: To what extent do I have the capacity to listen to the phone
conversation while at the same time input a phone number
● May have phone calls/texting
Perception lectures link-
● Perception is all about bringing information in from the senses.
● Perception is involved in the interpretation of the input and, essentially packaging
it up.
● But there is more information there than we can possibly process.
● Between perception and consciousness we have a memory and attention
bridge
Where is the bridge, Sensory Buffer-
● When it comes to attentional filtering of the vast amount of information that
enters our senses, the first place that we see this occurring is at the level of
sensory memory.
● a memory system the way the sensory memory system works ties together the
link between perception and consciousness
● Able to select what we want and don’t want- sensory buffer. Too much
information would lead to sensory overload
Sensory Bridge-
● information that comes into the senses is buffered
● Go into block and select out information we need
● The aim of this buffer is to hold all the incoming information until the attentional
system can act on it.
● This provides a valuable block to the incoming information long enough for the
attentional system to select the important information
Types of sensory memory- exam
● The two memory systems that you need to know are the ones relating to vision
and audition.
● Vision ICONIC
● Audition ECHOIC
