2. ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS What is Attention and
Consciousness The Nature of Attention & Consciousness:
Processing information (preconscious, controlled and automatic)
Habituation Focused and divided attention, signal detection
Problems of attention 3. TASKS What am I wearing? Last conversation
you had? Is the room hot or cold? Who are you seated beside/ in
front of? 4. WHAT IS ATTENTION? Attention is the means by which we
actively process a limited amount of information from the enormous
amount of information available through our senses, our stored
memories, and our other cognitive processes (De Weerd, 2003a; Rao,
2003) how we actively process specific information present in our
environment 5. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF ATTENTION? Attention allows you
to "tune out" information, sensations and perceptions that are not
necessarily relevant at that moment but instead focus your energy
on the information that is important. 6. FUNCTIONS OF ATTENTION 7.
WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? the feeling of awareness and the content of
awareness, some of which may be under the focus of attention your
individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings,
sensations and environment. Role of Consciousness First, it helps
in monitoring our interactions with the environment. Through this
we maintain our awareness of how well we are adapting to the
situation Second, it assists us in linking our past (memories)
andour present (sensations) to give us a sense of continuity of
experience. Third, it helps us in controlling and planning for our
future actions Example: Shuttle service 8. THE NATURE OF ATTENTION
AND CONSCIOUSNESS 9. PRECONSCIOUS PROCESSING Information that is
available for cognitive processing but that currently lies outside
of conscious awareness exists at the preconscious level of
awareness. In Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality,
the preconscious mind is a part of the mind that corresponds to
ordinary memory. These memories are not conscious, but we can
retrieve them to conscious awareness at any time. It includes
stored memories For eg. If asked to spontaneously describe our
bedrooms, though we may not be in the exact environment or thinking
of the room at the exact time, we can easily describe how it looks
and its contents. 10. PRIMING For e.g. if a person reads a list of
words including the word candy, and is later asked to complete a
word starting with can, the probability that he or she will answer
candy is greater than if they are not primed. 11. PROBLEMS WITH
PULLING PRECONSCIOUS INFO Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenonWe try to
remember something that is known to be stored in memory but that
cannot quite be readily retrieved People who can not come up with
the word, but who thought they knew it, could identify the first
letter, indicate the number of syllables, or approximate the words
sounds It is found in every culture, language and among
multi-lingual, bilingual and monolingual persons.. 12. PROCESSING
INFORMATION: CONTROLLED AND AUTOMATIC Automatic processes like
writing your name need no conscious control. They may be performed
without conscious awareness, but you may be aware that you are
performing them. *parallel processes: multiple automatic processes
occur at once eg reading while sharpening a pencil Controlled
processes are accessible to conscious control and even require it.
*Doing a math equation 13. THE NATURE OF ATTENTION AND
CONSCIOUSNESS Controlled Versus Automatic Processes Controlled
processes Require intentional effort; full conscious awareness;
consume many attentional resources; performed serially; relatively
slow Automatic Processes Little or no intention or effort; occur
outside of conscious awareness; do not require a lot of attention,
performed by parallel processing; fast 14. HABITUATION Habituation
We become accustomed to a stimulus, we gradually notice it less and
less (e.g. listening to music while studying) Dishabituation A
change in a familiar stimulus prompts us to start noticing the
stimulus again *Both processes occur automatically and require no
conscious effort. 15. VIGILANCE AND SIGNAL DETECTION We vigilantly
try to detect whether we did or did not sense a signal (a
particular target stimulus of interest) Vigilance A persons 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 Example (Mackworth, 1948) Participants
were watching when a clock hand took a double step Substantial
deterioration after half an hour of observation Vigilance can be
increased with training Paying attention over a long period of time
to see a stimuli at any given time Lifeguard, navy, teachers,
prison wardens, students, 16. Signal Detection Theory Selecting
particular stimuli from unnecessary ones Task- indicate when you
see a pigeon Outcomes 1.Hits/ true positives- accurately
identifying the target stimuli (a pigeon) 2.False alarms /false
positives- indicating the target when it isnt there (thinking youve
seen a pigeon but its a crow) 3. Misses /false negatives- not
noticing the target (you didnt see the pigeon) 4.Correct
rejections/true negatives- correctly identifying the absence of a
target (there is a crow but not a pigeon 17. FUNCTIONS OF ATTENTION
EXPOUNDED 18. SEARCH Scanning the environment for particular
features Whereas vigilance involves passively waiting for a signal
stimulus to appear, search involves actively seeking out the target
actively looking for something when you are not sure where it will
appear. Example: Rummaging through your room looking for a
particular book/shoes/clothes when it is particularly messy
Distracters Non-target stimuli that divert our attention away from
the target stimuli*Distracters- objects that are similar to what we
are searching for which then gives you false hope or causes false
alarm 19. FEATURE SEARCH Searching for an object or target with a
specific feature Say you were an assassin sent to kill someone in a
suit on wall street. Everyoneon wall street wears a suit. Your
target has specific features such as he is partially bald, has a
limp and carries a weathered, brown briefcase.Eg. Find the Capital
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOODOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 20. CONJUNCTION
SEARCH Searching for an object that has a combination of two
featuresOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ODOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ODDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 21.
BOTTLENECK / FILTER THEORIES Feature Integration Theory (Treisman
1986) Whenever we have previously identified a stimulus or target
by a specific feature we encode that to memory and whenever we want
to locate it we receive the feature of the stimulus or target from
memory. Similarity Theory The more the stimulus and distracter have
in common the harder it is to accurately point out what it is that
you are looking for. Guided Search Theory 1.Finding targets that
have similar elements to what you are looking for 2.Eliminating
those that do not fit the criteria of wat you are looking for 22.
SELECTIVE ATTENTION AND VISION Demonstrates the psychological
difficulty in selectively attending to the color of the ink and
trying to ignore the word that is printed with the ink of that
color Since reading is an automatic process (not readily subject to
your conscious control) you find it difficult intentionally to
refrain from reading and instead to concentrate on identifying the
color of the inkStroop task (1935) 1.Reading is an automatic
process 2.Colour naming is a controlled process 3.Our automatic
process of reading interferes with our ability to selectively
attend to colour naming 23. Read through this list of color names
as quickly as possible. Read from right to left across each lineRed
Yellow Blue Green Blue Red Green Yellow Yellow Green Red Blue 24.
Name as quickly as possible the color of ink in which each word is
printed. Name from left to right across each line. Red Yellow
BlueBlue Green Yellow Red Blue Green Yellow Green Red 25. In
lecturesSELECTIVE ATTENTION & HEARING1. Sir is lecturing but
your friend is speaking to you. You may choose to listen to sir and
take notes or listen to your friend and decide to read on the topic
covered in lecture. 2. You have one ear phone in and your friend
brings some gossip, you could disregard the music playing to the
point it becomes background music. Or you may especially like the
song playing and choose to focus on it.*Cocktail party effect- You
are engaged in a rather interesting conversation but you hear your
name and immediately try to find the source of the speaker. 26.
BROADBENTS MODEL OF EARLY SELECTION Depending on the physical
characteristics of messages (pitch, tone, etc) are used to select
one message for further processing and all others are lostWatching
television and baby starts to wail. Chances are you are going to
focus on the baby as their pitch is going to be louder than the
television. 27. TREISMANS MODEL OF ATTENUATION physical
characteristics are used to select one message for full processing
and other messages are given partial processing Using example of
lectures. If your friend is louder than lecturer then you will be
more focused on what they are saying than the lecturer 28. DEUTSCH
& DEUTSCH ON LATE FILTERING all messages get through, but that
only one response can be made (late selection) Example of listening
to music and friend is gossiping. You may be listening to both
however you will possibly respond to your friend later after your
mind has sorted between the music and what your friend has said.
29. DIVIDED ATTENTION/ DUAL PROCESSING trying to attend to two
stimuli at once and making multiple responses rather than making
one response to multiple stimuli (interference) Multi-tasking It is
easier to multitask when the activities do not require much focus
rewriting notes & listening music, watching a movie and
cleaning, Exercising and reading. The task becomes difficult when
both activities require that a good amount of your attention is
focused on the activities, cooking and doing laundry, taking care
of a younger sibling and doing homework 30. THEORIES We have a
single pool of resources that can be adequately distributed to all
our activities It is easier to divide resources to tasks tat use
different sensory processing visual and verbal vs verbal and verbal
activities We have multiple resources to our advantage that can be
used for our variety of activities 31. PROBLEMS OF ATTENTION When
individuals have problems: Focusing Sustaining Encoding Shifting
32. SPATIAL NEGLECT Spatial neglect (Martha Farah) Patients ignore
half of their visual field Attention deficits have been linked to
lesions in: The frontal lobe; The basal ganglia inability to
report, respond, or orient to stimuli, generally in the
contralesional space. 33. CHANGE BLINDNESS the inability to detect
changes in objects or scenes that are being viewed 34.
IN-ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS people are not able to see things that are
actually there 35. ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD)
Characterised by inattention, hyperactivity & impulsiveness.
There are three main types of ADHD, depending on which symptoms are
predominant: hyperactive-impulsive, inattentive, &
hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive behaviour 36.
THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE END^.^
