ATTENTION

Definition of Attention
● The concentration of mental effort on sensory and mental events
● Attention is the taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form,
of one out of what seem several simultaneously, possible objects or
trains of thoughts .... It implies withdrawal from some things in order to
deal effectively with others. (William James. Principles of Psychology)
● The means by which we actively process a limited amount of
information available through our senses, our stored memories and
cognitive processes
● Contemporary ideas of attention is on the premise that
– To human observer a myriad of cues that surround us at any
given moment.
– Our neurological capacity is too limited to sense all these
millions of external stimuli.
– If detected the brain is unable to process all of them.
– If the amount of information processed is beyond it's capacity it
fails being overloaded
 ?
● Why do we attend to certain stimuli and mental events
ignoring others?
● Why do we have to attend?
● To what extend of an event can be attended?
● How many events can we attend simultaneously ?
● Do we have any control over the stimuli we attend to ?
● How long is it possible to attend to one stimuli?
 ?
● Many routine processes requires lesser effort even though it is
complex. How is that happening?
● Can we actively process information even if we are not aware
of doing so! If so, what do we do, and how do we do it?
● What is the mental processing resulting in attention ?
● What happens to attention if my brain is damaged?
● Is it possible to improve attention? How?
 Concepts to be learned
● Vigilance
● Selective attention
● Divided Attention and multi-tasking
● Attentional control
● Automatic Processing
● Attention and Consciousness
 Theories to be understood
● Filter model-Broadbent
● Attenuation theory-Treisman
● Multimode theory-Johnston &Hainz
● Resource & capacity allocation model-Kahneman
● Schema theory-Neisser.
The Nature of Attention and
Consciousness
 Vigilance
● Vigilance refers to a person’s ability to attend to a field of
stimulation over a prolonged period, during which the person
seeks to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus of
interest.
● On many occasions, we vigilantly try to detect whether we did or
did not sense a signal—a particular target stimulus of interest.
● Through vigilant attention to detecting signals, we are primed to
take speedy action when we do detect signal stimuli.
 Selective attention
● The ability to focus on one message and ignore all others
● We constantly are making choices regarding the stimuli to which we
will pay attention and the stimuli that we will ignore. By ignoring or at
least deemphasizing some stimuli, we thereby highlight particularly
salient stimuli.
● The concentrated focus of attention on particular informational stimuli
enhances our ability to manipulate those stimuli for other cognitive
processes, such as verbal comprehension or problem solving.
 Divided attention
● The distribution of attention to two or more tasks
● We often manage to engage in more than one task at
a time, and we shift our attentional resources to
allocate them prudently, as needed.
 Automatic processing
A type of processing that occurs without intention (it automatically
happens without the person intending to do it), at a cost of only some
of a person’s cognitive resources.

● Posner and Snyder (1975) offered three criteria for cognitive

processing to be called automatic processing
– (1) It must occur without intention
– (2) it must occur without involving conscious awareness
– (3) it must not interfere with other mental activity.
 Selective Attention
● The ability to focus on one message and ignore all others
● Selective attention is analogous to shining a flash-light in a
darkened room to illuminate the things in which we are
interested while keeping the other items in the dark.
● The concentrated focus of attention on particular informational
stimuli enhances our ability to manipulate those stimuli for other
cognitive processes, such as verbal comprehension or problem
solving.
Bottom-up and top-down processing
● Attention can be categorized into two distinct functions
● Bottom-up processing - Referring to attentional guidance
purely by externally driven factors to stimuli that are salient
because of their inherent properties relative to the
background.
● Top-down processing - Referring to internal guidance of
attention based on prior knowledge, willful plans, and current
goals.
 Cherry's Experiment
● Colin Cherry (1953) studied the process of tracking one conversation in
the face of the distraction of other conversations (cocktail party problem)
● He studied selective attention in a more carefully controlled
experimental setting. He devised a task known as shadowing.
● In shadowing, you listen to two different messages. Cherry presented a
separate message to each ear, known as dichotic presentation. You are
required to repeat back only one of the messages as soon as possible
after you hear it. In other words, you are to follow one message (think of
a detective “shadowing” a suspect) but ignore the other.
● Cherry’s participants were quite successful in shadowing distinct
messages in dichotic-listening tasks, although such shadowing
required a significant amount of concentration.
● The participants were also able to notice physical, sensory changes in
the unattended message—for example, when the message was
changed to a tone or the voice changed from a male to a female
speaker. However, they did not notice semantic changes in the
unattended message. They failed to notice even when the unattended
message shifted from English to German or was played backward.
 Filter and bottleneck theories
● A filter blocks some of the information going through and thereby selects only a
part of the total of information to pass through to the next stage.
● A bottleneck slows down information passing through.
● The models differ in two ways. First, do they have a distinct “filter” for incoming
information? Second, if they do, where in the processing of information does the
filter occur (early or late)?
● Proponents of both the early and the late-filtering mechanisms propose that
there is an attentional bottleneck through which only a single source of
information can pass. The two models differ only in terms of where they
hypothesize the bottle- neck to be positioned.
 Spotlight theories

● Resembles the idea that we have a small field

of vision and it is hard to see things outside of
this spotlight region, although attention can be
shifted by moving this light.
 Filter model-Broadbent
● Developed by Broadbent in 1958. (Bottleneck Model)
● Theory posits that we filter information right after we notice it at the sensory
level.
● Multiple channels of sensory input reach an attentional filter. Those channels
can be distinguished by their characteristics like loudness, pitch, or accent.
● The filter permits only one channel of sensory information to proceed and reach
the processes of perception. We thereby assign meaning to our sensations.
● Other stimuli will be filtered out at the sensory level and may never reach the
level of perception.
Filter model-Broadbent
 Attenuation theory-Treisman
● To explore why some unattended messages pass through the filter, Anne Treisman
conducted some experiments.
● She had participants shadowing coherent messages, and at some point switched the
remainder of the coherent message from the attended to the unattended ear.
● Participants picked up the first few words of the message they had been shadowing in the
unattended ear (Treisman, 1960), so they must have been somehow processing the
content of the unattended message. Moreover, if the unattended message was identical to
the attended one, all participants noticed it. They noticed even if one of the messages was
slightly out of temporal synchronization with the other (Treisman, 1964a, 1964b).
● Treisman also observed that some fluently bilingual participants noticed the identity of
messages if the unattended message was a translated version of the attended one.
● Her findings suggested that at least some information about
unattended signals is being analyzed.
● Treisman proposed a theory of selective attention that involves a
later filtering mechanism.
● Instead of blocking stimuli out, the filter merely weakens
(attenuates) the strength of stimuli other than the target stimulus.
● So when the stimuli reach us, we analyze them at a low level for
target properties like loudness and pitch.
● Treisman proposed that selection occurs in two stages, and
she replaced Broadbent’s filter with an attenuator.
● The attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of
– Messages its physical characteristics—whether it is high-pitched
or low-pitched, fast or slow;
– Language—how the message groups into syllables or words
– its meaning—how sequencesof words create meaningful phrases.
● You may listen for the voice of the person you are talking to in a
noisy bar, for example. If the stimuli possess those target properties,
we pass the signal on to the next stage; if they do not possess those
target properties, we pass on a weakened version of the stimulus.
● In a next step, we perceptually analyze the meaning of the stimuli
and their relevance to us, so that even a message from the
unattended ear that is supposedly irrelevant can come into
consciousness and influence our subsequent actions if it has some
meaning for us.
Attenuation theory-Treisman
 Deutsch and Deutsch Late Filter Model
● Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) developed a model in which the
location of the filter is even later.
● They suggested that stimuli are filtered out only after they have
been analyzed for both their physical properties and their
meaning. This later filtering would allow people to recognize
information entering the unattended ear.
● For example, they might recognize the sound of their own names
or a translation of attended input (for bilinguals).
Deutsch and Deutsch Late Filter Model
 Johnston and Heinz’s Multimode Theory
● Johnston and Heinz (1978) proposed a more flexible model in which selection is
possible at several different stages of processing.
● According to Johnston and Heinz, attention is flexible in that people can shift from early
modes of attention (processing only the physical characteristics of the sensory stimuli) to
late modes (processing the meaning of sensory stimuli)
● Voluntary control enabes an individual to select information for further procesing
● They made the following two main assumptions:
– The more stages of processing that take place prior to selection, the greater are the demands on
processing capacity.
– Selection occurs as early in processing as possible given the task demands (in order to minimise
demands on capacity).
Johnston and Wilson (1980) experiments
● Pairs of words were presented together dichotically (i.e. one word to each ear),
and the task was to identify target items consisting of members of a
designated category.
● The targets were ambiguous words having at least two distinct meanings. For
example, if the category were ‘‘articles of clothing,’’ then ‘‘socks’’ would be a
possible target word.
● Each target word was accompanied by a non-target word biasing the
appropriate meaning of the target (e.g. ‘‘smelly’’), or a non-target word biasing
the inappropriate meaning (e.g. ‘‘punches’’), or by a neutral non- target word
(e.g. ‘‘Tuesday’’).
● When subjects did not know which ear targets would arrive at (divided attention),
appropriate non-targets facilitated the detection of targets and in- appropriate non-
targets impaired performance. Thus, when attention needed to be divided between
the two ears, there was clear evidence that the non-target words were processed for
meaning.
● On the other hand, when subjects knew that all the targets would be presented to
the left ear, the type of non-target word presented at the same time had no effect on
target detection. This suggests that non-targets were not processed for meaning in
this focused attention condition, and that the amount of processing received by non-
target stimuli is only as much as is necessary to perform the experimental task.
 Schema theory-Neisser
● In 1967, Ulric Neisser said that attention is a dynamic process that seeks information
consistent with the current situation
● He synthesized the early-filter and the late-filter models and proposed that there are two
processes governing attention:
● Preattentive processes: These automatic processes are rapid and occur in parallel.
They can be used to notice only physical sensory characteristics of the unattended
message. But they do not discern meaning or relationships.
● Attentive, controlled processes: These processes occur later. They are executed
serially and consume time and attentional resources, such as working memory. They
also can be used to observe relationships among features. They serve to synthesize
fragments into a mental representation of an object
 Resource and Capacity allocation Model
Kahneman
● Kahneman (1973) provided a more flexible explanation of attention than the
focused attention theorists.
● He observed that humans can attend to more than one thing at a time, particularly if
we are skilled at a task.
● Kahneman’s capacity theory of attention provides an alternative to theories which
explain man's limitations by assuming the existence of structural bottlenecks.
● Instead of such bottlenecks, a capacity theory assumes that there is a general limit
on man's capacity to perform mental work. It also assumes that this limited capacity
can be allocated with considerable freedom among concurrent activities
● He suggested that a limited amount of attention is
allocated to tasks by a central processor.
● Many factors determine how much attentional capacity
can be allocated and how much is needed for each task.
● Some tasks might be relatively automatic(in that they
make few demands in terms of mental effort) despite the
fact they have a high information load
●
Kahnemann proposes that
– 1) Some activities are more demanding and therefore require more mental
effort than others
– 2) The total available processing capacities may be increased or decreased by
other factors such as arousal
– 3) Several activities can be carried out at the same time , provided that their
total effort does not exceed the available capacity
– 4) Rules or strategies exist which determine allocation of resources to various
activities and to various stages of processing. Attentional capacity will therefore
reflect the demands made at the perceptual level, the level at which the input is
interpreted or committed to memory and the response selection stage
 The model should be read beginning with the boxes labeled Possible
Activities. These boxes correspond to structures that have received an
information input (not shown in the model).
● Each such structure can now be "activated," i.e., each of the possible activities
can be made to occur, by an additional input of attention or effort from the
limited capacity. Unless this additional input is supplied, the activity cannot be
carried out.
● Any type of activity that demands attention would be represented in the model,
since all such activities compete for the limited capacity. Activities that can be
triggered by an information input alone are not considered in the model.
● Different mental activities impose different demands on the limited capacity.
An easy task demands little effort, and a difficult task demands much. When
the supply of attention does not meet the demands, performance falters, or
fails entirely.
● According to the model, an activity can fail, either because there is altogether
not enough capacity to meet its demands or because the allocation policy
channels available capacity to other activities.
● In addition, of course, an action can fail because the input of relevant
information was insufficient. Thus, we may fail to detect or recognize a signal
because we were not paying attention to it. But there are signals so faint that
no amount of attention can make them plain.
● A capacity theory deals with three central
questions:
– (1) What makes an activity more or less demanding?
– (2) What factors control the total amount of capacity
available at any time?
– (3) What are the rules of the allocation policy?
● The key observation that variations of physiological arousal
accompany variations of effort shows that the limited
capacity and the arousal system must be closely related. A
wavy line suggests that capacity and arousal vary together
in the low range of arousal levels.
● In addition, arousal and capacity both increase or decrease
according to the changing demands of current activities
● The two central elements of the model are the allocation policy and the
evaluation of demands on the limited capacity.
● The evaluation of demands is the governor system that causes capacity (or
effort) to be supplied, as needed by the activities that the allocation policy has
selected. The policy itself is controlled by four factors:
● (1) Enduring dispositions which reflect the rules of involuntary attention (e.g.,
allocate capacity to any novel signal; to any object in sudden motion; to any
conversation in which one's name is mentioned);
● (2) Momentary intentions (e.g., listen to the voice on the right earphone; look
for a redheaded man with a scar);
● (3) The evaluation of demands: there appears to be a rule that when two
activities demand more capacity than is available, one is completed;
● (4) Effects of arousal: systematic changes of allocation policy in high arousal
 Automatic Processing
A type of processing that occurs without intention (it automatically
happens without the person intending to do it), at a cost of only
some of a person’s cognitive resources.

Three attributes characterize automatic processes (Posner &

Snyder, 1975).

– Concealed from consciousness.

– Unintentional
– Consume few attentional resources.
● Many tasks that start off as controlled processes eventually
become automatic ones as a result of practice.
● This process is called automatization (also termed
proceduralization).
● Examples
– Driving a car
– Thinking and speaking a foreign language
– Reading
● How do processes become automatized?
● A widely accepted view has been that during the course of practice,
implementation of the various steps becomes more efficient. The
individual gradually combines individual effortful steps into integrated
components that are further integrated until the whole process is one
single operation.
● An alternative explanation, called “instance theory,” has been proposed by
Logan (1988). Logan suggested that automatization occurs because we
gradually accumulate knowledge about specific responses to specific
stimuli.
– Eg. Child learning basic mathematics
● Does practice effects automacity?

● The effects of practice on automatization show a negatively

accelerated curve.

● In such a curve, early practice effects are great. Later practice effects
make less and less difference in the degree of automatization.
● Do we make errors when we engage in Automatic Processes ?

● An extensive analysis of human error shows that errors can be classified

either as mistakes or as slips (Reason, 1990).

– Mistakes are errors in choosing an objective or in specifying a means of

achieving it.

– Slips are errors in carrying out an intended means for reaching an

objective.
● Mistakes involve errors in intentional, controlled processes. Slips often
involve errors in automatic processes.
 Slips Associated with Automatic
Processes
● Occasionally, when we are distracted or interrupted during
implementation of an automatic process, slips occur. However, in
proportion to the number of times we engage in automatic
processes each day, slips are relatively rare events (Reason, 1990).
– Capture errors
– Omissions
– Perseverations
– Description errors
– Data driven errors
– Associative-activation errors
– Loss of activation errors
● Capture error

We intend to deviate from a routine activity we are implementing in

familiar surroundings, but at a point where we should depart from the
routine we fail to pay attention and to regain control of the process;
hence, the automatic process captures our behavior, and we fail to
deviate from the routine.

– Eg. Change of clothes

● Omissions

An interruption of a routine activity may cause us to skip a step or

two in implementing the remaining portion of the routine.
– Eg. Distraction by phone call

●
Perseverations

After an automatic procedure has been completed, one or more

steps of the procedure may be repeated.
– Eg. Ignition of car
● Description errors

An internal description of the intended behavior leads to performing the

correct action on the wrong object.
Eg. Using fridge

● Datadriven errors

Incoming sensory information may end up overriding the intended

variables in an automatic action sequence.

Eg. Calling problem

● Associative-activation errors

Strong associations may trigger the wrong automatic routine.

Eg. Come in
● Loss-of-activation errors

The activation of a routine may be insufficient to carry it through

to completion.

Eg. What am I doing here?