Selective Attention

What theories do we have for how

information actually gets weeded
out?
 Three types of theories
• Filter theories
• Attention filters out extraneous information so that
only the relevant stuff gets through to consciousness
• Bottleneck theories
• Similar to filter theories. Instead of a filter, there is a
bottleneck in the information stream where
information gets through based on prioritization.
• Attentional resource theory
• We have a limited amount of cognitive processing
capabilities. Different tasks draw on this differently.
Once it’s used up, performance starts to suffer.
 Filter theories
• Basic filter theory (Broadbent)
• Only information relevant to the current task gets processed.
• Ex: At a party, we filter out the other conversations, so we don’t really
process them much.
• Attenuation theory (Triesmann)
• We don’t completely filter irrelevant information out. Rather, it’s
strength is attenuated (weakened). The mind mostly ignores this
attenuated information, but if it is initially strong enough it can get
through.
• Ex: You will still hear your name at the party, even if you don’t know
who said it or what the context was.
• Late Filter theory (Deutsch & Deutsch)
• Similar to attentuation. Allows for the possibility that all information is
being processed at some level, but only the important stuff gets into
consciousness.
 Attentional resource theory
• Filter and bottleneck theories always have the problem
of being unable to specify the nature of the filter.
• Resource theory posits that attention is a quantity of
stuff (think RAM), and we each have a limited amount
• Different tasks consume different amounts of this stuff
in different ways.
• We can attend to multiple tasks so long as we have
extra stuff available. Once the stuff is used up…..
• Ex: Driving and talking to the person next to you vs.
driving and talking on the cell phone.
 The Stroop effect, revisited
Why does the Stroop effect happen?

Presumably, the automatic process of reading interferes

with the controlled process of color naming.

But what about driving and talking on your cell phone?

There, the controlled process of using your cell phone

interferes with the automatic process of driving.
Put another way, do automatic processes really not require any
attention?