ATTENTION:Single-mindedness, In Shadowing Paradigm, Attention and meaning

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ATTENTION (continued):Implications, Treisman’s Model, Norman’s Model >>

Cognitive Psychology PSY 504

Lesson 07

ATTENTION

Attention is a perfect example of a cognitive psychology area. Philosophers and Scientific

Experimenters unite again to unravel attention. Philosophers theorize and scientists experiment

to reach the same goal. Computer scientists help us with simulation e.g., a camera attached with

computer. Cognitive psychologists also work with computer scientists for making simulations,

although this is not their primary job.

From Sensory Memory most of the information is discarded. Some of it is selected for further

processing. Attention plays a crucial role in this stage of selection of information.

What is attention?

Attention is conceived of as being a very limited mental resource. Numerous metaphors can help

us to think about the limited-resource characteristics of attention.

Some common metaphors;

Is it a spotlight? A beam? (On stage)

One person is standing on stage and the beam light is just fallen on him not on whole stage.

Is it a filter? A sieve (dirt is thrown, flour)

Like you are standing in a party you just listen those people in which u r standing.guest tunes in

to one message and filters out others.

Is it a bottleneck? a narrow lane? (not enough liquid, traffic can flow)

Attention: A bottleneck?

This figure is showing just attended information comes out.

Is it a limited resource? (petrol, manpower etc.)

Like skilled manpower. Countries have a lot of manpower but highly educated people are few.

Limited metaphors are;

Cognitive Psychology PSY 504

Energy: We use electricity according to its capacity. If attention is powered by a fixed

electrical current. Given the fixed energy supply, attention would be allocable to only so

many tasks. If allocated to more, the performance would degrade or a fuse would blow.

Spatial or workspace: in workspace only so many tasks can be performed. Like hundred

employees are not fitten in a small room. We fit few people in small room.

Demons: attention as a small set of agents like demons, that can perform tasks but only

one at a time.

Single-mindedness

Attention is single-minded sense so it is not double-minded sense. In terms of metaphors,

this single-mindedness would mean that only enough energy, only enough workspace, or only a

single attention demon was available for one task or process. So it means one thing at a time.

Attention is a demanding task. It has a capacity to perform only one demanding task. Attention

can't perform two demanding tasks simultaneously.

But what about walking and talking? Driving and talking, and smoking? Because tasks that are

practiced to the point at which they do not make excessive demands can be performed

simultaneously. We cannot simultaneously do mental addition and carry on a conversation is that

each activity in itself involves multiple attention-demanding subcomponents. So it is clear that

whether or not attention is truly single-minded, its capacity is severely limited.

Limitations in sensory tasks

The limited capacity of attention is the root cause of the reporting limitations demonstrated in

visual and auditory reporting tasks. Attention appears to be the real reason for whole report

performance. Limitations of the icon and echo are actually the limitations of attention. All the

information gets into sensory memory, but to be retained, each unit of information must be

attended to and transformed into some more permanent form. Sensory information needs to be

stored in a form that can be retained. Selection for this transformation happens only to attended

items. Most information is lost because attention has limited capacity.

Dichotic Listening Tasks

Cherry (1953); Moray (1959) conducted an experiment on how subjects select what sensory input

they attend to. This experiment has involved a dichotic listening task.

In dichotic listening experiment subjects wear a set of headphones. They hear two messages,

one ear presented with one message, the other ear with another message. Subjects pay attention

to (shadow) one message and tune out the other. Psychologist discovered that very little about

the unattended message is processed in a shadowing task. Subjects cannot tell what language

was spoken or report any of the words spoken even if the same word was repeated over and over

again. Subjects reported hearing very little from the other ear

In Shadowing Paradigm

The messages come in Left Ear are: ran, house, Ox, Cat....

In Right Ear the messages come are: Tea, job, books, look....

People are asked to attend to left ear. Then they report the messages that came from left ear: ran

house, Ox, Cat. And they report nothing from the left

Early Selection Model

Early selection means information is selected early, soon after the sensory store. It happens

early on in this system. Higher level processing is not done. The meanings of the words do

not have an impact at this stage in this model. The attention must be itself is a lower level

process.

Cognitive Psychology PSY 504

Early Selection Model

The figure is showing that information is coming from right and left ears. But before going to

bottom line information from one ear is blocking other ear's information. So according to this

figure attention is early selection process and low level process.

Attention and meaning

Two undergraduates at Oxford, Gray and Wedderburn (1960), conducted an experiment.

And they demonstrated that subjects were quite successful in following a message that jumped

back and forth between ears.

Shadow meaningful messages that were given to the subjects were;

Left Ear: John Eleven books

Right Ear: Eight writes Twenty

Instructed to shadow the meaningful message, subjects reported: John writes books. Thus,

subjects are capable of shadowing a message on the basis of meaning rather than physical ear.

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