Cognitive Psychology |Lecture 3|8th Oct
ATTENTION
William James |1890
“Everyone knows what attention is”
Pasher |1998
“Nobody knows what attention is”
WHAT ATTENTION IS?
- Understanding cognitive psychology like a jigsaw – do not know how pieces of
attention fit together
- Exciting and challenging – open to debate
- Nobody knows – or nobody agrees? – not a single term, umbrella term for a variety
of psychological phenomena
- Agreement – characterized by a limited capacity for processing information, and this
allocation can be intentionally controlled
Sensation
- the physical stimulation of the sense organs
- raw material from which our conscious experience of objects is constructed
- ability of our sense organs to detect various forms of energy
Perception
- interpretation of the sense data
- our view of the world, of things & people
- the process of constructing a description of the surrounding world
Purposes of attention
- as humans we are being constantly bombarded with sensory information
- attention allows us to focus on that which is relevant and filter out that which is less
relevant
- 2 issues: selection and capacity
o must be able to shift our attention to focus on relevant material and ignore
irrelevant material, not always conscious choice, brain decides
o limited attention resources need to be utilised effectively
, SHIFTS OF ATTENTION
Visual selective attention: overt vs covert shifts in attention
COVERT SHIFTS OF ATTENTION
Herman von Helmholtz |1894
-while keeping his eyes fixated on the central cross, he covertly directed his
attention away from the cross (white circle)
When the room was briefly illuminated > he could report letters within
attending region, but not those at other locations
“Attentional orienting”
SPATIAL SHIFTS OF ATTENTION
Endogenous cueing task: conscious (the arrow indicates where to pay
attention, so we shift it)
Exogenous cueing task: unconscious (no arrow, but our attention starts
shifting itself, because there is no change happening)
TWO ATTENTIONAL SYSTEM
Endogenous orienting: voluntary, controlled, goal - directed. We choose to
direct our attention (shifting attention from slides and lecturer)
Exogenous orienting: involuntary, reflexive, stimulus driven, pre-attentive
- attention can be automatically “summoned” to a location which an important event
has occurred (loud noise, motion, new object, light)
- we call this attentional capture
SELECTIVE ATTENTION AS A FILTER
- Selective attention: in visual processing, we are often unable to process all the
information present in visual scene, even if we wanted to
- Or we may not want to process all the information in a scene, even if we can
- Selective attention is the process by which relevant information is selected for
further processing, and irrelevant information discarded
o Relevant through choice (endogenous)
o Through capture (exogenous)
STAGES OF SELECTION – at what point do we decide to attend to?
The cocktail party problem | Cherry, 1953
- early work on auditory attention
2
ATTENTION
William James |1890
“Everyone knows what attention is”
Pasher |1998
“Nobody knows what attention is”
WHAT ATTENTION IS?
- Understanding cognitive psychology like a jigsaw – do not know how pieces of
attention fit together
- Exciting and challenging – open to debate
- Nobody knows – or nobody agrees? – not a single term, umbrella term for a variety
of psychological phenomena
- Agreement – characterized by a limited capacity for processing information, and this
allocation can be intentionally controlled
Sensation
- the physical stimulation of the sense organs
- raw material from which our conscious experience of objects is constructed
- ability of our sense organs to detect various forms of energy
Perception
- interpretation of the sense data
- our view of the world, of things & people
- the process of constructing a description of the surrounding world
Purposes of attention
- as humans we are being constantly bombarded with sensory information
- attention allows us to focus on that which is relevant and filter out that which is less
relevant
- 2 issues: selection and capacity
o must be able to shift our attention to focus on relevant material and ignore
irrelevant material, not always conscious choice, brain decides
o limited attention resources need to be utilised effectively
, SHIFTS OF ATTENTION
Visual selective attention: overt vs covert shifts in attention
COVERT SHIFTS OF ATTENTION
Herman von Helmholtz |1894
-while keeping his eyes fixated on the central cross, he covertly directed his
attention away from the cross (white circle)
When the room was briefly illuminated > he could report letters within
attending region, but not those at other locations
“Attentional orienting”
SPATIAL SHIFTS OF ATTENTION
Endogenous cueing task: conscious (the arrow indicates where to pay
attention, so we shift it)
Exogenous cueing task: unconscious (no arrow, but our attention starts
shifting itself, because there is no change happening)
TWO ATTENTIONAL SYSTEM
Endogenous orienting: voluntary, controlled, goal - directed. We choose to
direct our attention (shifting attention from slides and lecturer)
Exogenous orienting: involuntary, reflexive, stimulus driven, pre-attentive
- attention can be automatically “summoned” to a location which an important event
has occurred (loud noise, motion, new object, light)
- we call this attentional capture
SELECTIVE ATTENTION AS A FILTER
- Selective attention: in visual processing, we are often unable to process all the
information present in visual scene, even if we wanted to
- Or we may not want to process all the information in a scene, even if we can
- Selective attention is the process by which relevant information is selected for
further processing, and irrelevant information discarded
o Relevant through choice (endogenous)
o Through capture (exogenous)
STAGES OF SELECTION – at what point do we decide to attend to?
The cocktail party problem | Cherry, 1953
- early work on auditory attention
2
