Chapter 3: Attention

PSY 250 – Cognitive Psychology

Elyse K. Hurtado, Ph.D.
 Attentional Processing

• Controlled/focused/selective/voluntary/attentional processing
• Automatic/input/involuntary/preattentive processing

Voluntary attention

Amount of effort, focus, concentration

- +
Involuntary attention

Automatic Controlled

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 The Stroop Task
Name the color as quickly as possible.

GREEN BLUE RED YELLOW BLACK

ORANGE GREEN BLUE BLACK RED

BLACK YELLOW ORANGE BLUE GREEN

BLUE RED GREEN ORANGE YELLOW

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 The Stroop Task
Now name the color as quickly as possible.

GREEN BLUE RED YELLOW BLACK

ORANGE GREEN BLUE BLACK RED

BLACK YELLOW ORANGE BLUE GREEN

BLUE RED GREEN ORANGE YELLOW

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Demonstration – Visual Search

Search for the blue X

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Input Attention

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Controlled Attention

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 Types of Attention
• Selective attention
• Controlled attention
• Divided attention
• Input or automatic attention
• Multitasking
• Cognitive flexibility
• Mindfulness

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 Attentional Capture
• Selective attention
• Cocktail party phenomenon

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 Attention and Emotion
• Emotional cues capture our attention automatically

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 Mindfulness
• Non-judgmental, self-focused attention
• Awareness that arises through paying attention in the present
moment

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 Selective Attention
• Dichotic listening task
• Shadowing

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 Dichotic Listening Task
• Cherry (1953)
– Subjects asked questions about attended and
unattended messages
– Subjects unaware of the content of the unattended
message

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 Attentional Filter
• Evidence of leaky filter - some content gets through
• High relevance, i.e., your name
• High emotion, i.e., swear words
• High interest, i.e., male to female
• Right-ear advantage

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 Broadbent’s Early Filter Model
• Broadbent’s Early Filter Model of
Attention (1954)
– Bottleneck theory
– Limited capacity

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 Treisman’s Attenuation Theory
• Treisman’s Attenuation Theory of Attention (1964)
– “Leaky filter”
– Unattended information is weakened

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 Leaky Filter Evidence
• Moray (1969)
– Subjects heard words
accompanied by a mild electric
shock
– Measured explicit awareness
and implicit awareness
– GSR increased with associated
words

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 Working Memory and Attention
• Conway et. al. (2001)
– High and low working memory subjects
– http://cognitivefun.net/test/4
– Presented with dichotic listening task
– Findings
• High working-memory noticed name 20% of the time
• Low working-memory noticed name 65% of the time

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 ADHD - Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder

• Inattentive type
• Hyperactive-impulsive type
• Combined type

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 Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder
• Deficits in executive
function, top-down
attention, and
behavioral regulation
• Brain differences in
smaller basil ganglia,
decreased blood flow
to frontal lobes, and
lower levels of
norepinephrine and
dopamine

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 ADHD and Inhibition
• Cherry and Kruger (1983)
– Children ages 7 to 9
– Performed dichotic listening task
– Subjects asked to attend to one
message and ignore the other
– In the unattended ear
• Nothing
• Static
• Backward speech
• Forward speech
– Then asked to point to a picture that
was presented in the attended message
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 ADHD Medication
• Stimulants are effective for 70% of children
• Methylphenidate (Ritalin)
• Amphetamine and dextroamphetamine (Adderall)
• Non-stimulant (Strattera)

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Demonstration II – Visual Search

Find the target that is different

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Feature Present

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Feature Absent

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 Looking at Unusual Paragraphs
How fast can you spot what is unusual about this
paragraph? It looks so ordinary that you might
think nothing is wrong with it at all, and in fact,
nothing is. But it is atypical. Why? Study its
various parts, think about its curious working,
and you may hit upon a solution. But you must do
it without aid; my plan is not to allow any
scandalous misconduct in this psychological
study. No doubt, if you work hard on this possibly
frustrating task, its abnormality will soon draw
upon you. You cannot know until you try. But it is
commonly a hard nut to crack. So, good luck!
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 Bottom-Up Voluntary attention

versus Top-Down
• Bottom up processing
– Automatic, involuntary
Involuntary attention
attention
– Exogenous cues

Top Down
Bottom Up
– Stimulus- or data-
driven attention You do
not get
• Top down processing burned
– Controlled attention
– Endogenous cues
– Goal-driven

You get
burned 27
 Inattentional Blindness
• Simons & Chabris (1999)
– Subjects asked to
count basketball
passes between
players wearing
white
– http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=vJG698
U2Mvo

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 Gorilla Blindness
• Drew (2013)
– Superimposed a gorilla on radiology slides
– Radiologists were asked to scan images for cancer
nodules
– Findings – 83% of radiologists did not see gorilla even
when they looked right at it

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 Change Blindness
• Simons and Chabris (2002)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkrrVozZR2c

• O’Regan, et al. (1997)

– Identify difference between two pictures
– Most subjects take many flashes to identify
– http://www.gocognitive.net/sites/default/files/change_bli
ndness.v.0.93_0.swf

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 Driving and Cell Phone Use
• Strayer & Johnson (2001, 2003)
– Subjects were talking on the cell phone while driving
– Four-fold increase in risk of accident
– Function of how interesting the conversation was

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 Hands-Free Cell Phone Use
• Strayer & Drews (2006)
– Measured driving performance while talking on
handheld phone
– Compared performance with hands-free phone
• Equal effect
• 17% decrease in performance

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 Passenger Distraction
• Conversation not a major distraction when the person is present
• Risk for teenagers increases with number of passengers

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 Texting and Driving
• Texting causes 25% of all car
accidents
• Leading cause of death among
US teenagers

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 AT&T It Can Wait Campaign
• 70% of people use their smartphone while driving

• 60% of people read, send, or reply to text messages while driving

• 40% of people use social media while driving

• Distracted driving is responsible for hundreds of thousands of

deaths and injuries every year

AT&T VIDEO – It Can Wait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xXnsorfms 37
 Attention is a Resource
• Attention span
• Limited resource

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 Vigilance
• Mackworth Clock Experiment (1948)
– Detect when radar skips
– Findings
• Performance
declines
dramatically
in first hour
to 70%
• Levels off
after first
hour

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 Attentional Blink Paradigm
• Raymond, Shapiro and Arnell
(1992)
– Press a button when target
is seen (H or X)
– Sometimes subjects were
looking for one target,
sometimes two
– https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=5vyDtoJL2Gc

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 Attentional Blink
• Raymond, Shapiro
and Arnell (1992)
– It is difficult to
find the second
target if it
occurs soon
after the first
– Typical
attentional
blink is ½
second

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 Attentional Blink
• Multi-tasking
• Cognitive flexibility
• Attention as a limited resource
• Attentional blink

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 Kahneman’s Capacity Theory
• Daniel Kahneman’s Capacity Theory of Attention (1973)
– Attention is a limited resource
– Attention depends on the resource cost (cognitive load)
• Ability to focus does not vary with intent or motivation
• Resource cost
– Varies with the number and complexity of the tasks
– Varies with how mentally energized we are

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 Cognitive Effort
• Kahneman’s test (1973)
– Subjects performed tasks for a
high or low reward
– Measured arousal/effort by pupil
dilation
– Task difficulty, not reward,
predicted the effort

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 Simultanagnosia
• Bálint’s syndrome
• Dorsal or ventral
simultanagnoia
– Damage to parietal-occipital
or occipito-temporal
junction
– Perception or recognition is
limited to a single object

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4odhSq46vtU
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 Unilateral Spatial Neglect
• Damage to the right parietal lobe
• Causes attentional blindness to
the left visual field
• https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=w6AfzCNDmbY

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 Blindsight
• Damage to the visual
cortex
• Functionally blind but
able to report color,
shape and motion
• https://www.youtube.c
om/watch?v=3ky_f_Y_
bEU

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