Information Theory
• Donald Broadbent - earliest systematic investigations of selective attention
•First principle of human information processing: capacity is limited
Information Theory
• Donald Broadbent - earliest systematic investigations of selective attention
Second principle of human information processing: information sources can be selected
Stages of Selection
• Broadbent: Early Selection - a bottleneck exists early in the course of sensory processing that filters out all but the attended channel
• Alternative theory: Late Selection - the bottleneck exists not at the lowest stages, but at the highest - such as response planning, memory and consciousness
Stages of Selection
• Shadowing Task: ignore one input, repeat back the other
• Subjects are largely unaware of unshadowed message but…
• Certain words such as their name distract them!?
• Why is this puzzling?
Voluntary Orienting
• Attention can be oriented covertly – a commonly used metaphor is “the spotlight of attention”
Orienting Attention
• Posner Cue - Target Paradigm:
That was a validly cued trial because the x appeared in the box that flashed
Orienting Attention
• Posner Cue - Target Paradigm:
That was an invalidly cued trial because the x appeared in the box that didn’t flash
Orienting Attention
• Difference in response time (RT) or accuracy (%) is taken to indicate cost of having to reorient attention
Reflexive Orienting
• Attention can be automatically “summoned” to a location at which an important event has occurred:
Reflexive Orienting
• Attention can be automatically “summoned” to a location at which an important event has occurred:– Loud noise– Motion– New Object
• We call this attentional capture
• Contrast this to voluntary goal-directed orienting
• Is the Posner Cue-Target Paradigm testing reflexive or voluntary attention?
Transients
Reflexive Orienting
• The Posner cueing paradigm (with blinking boxes) confounds reflexive and voluntary orienting
Reflexive Orienting
• The Posner cueing paradigm (with blinking boxes) confounds reflexive and voluntary orienting
• How could we change the Posner cueing paradigm to make it assess only reflexive orienting?
Reflexive Orienting
• The Posner cueing paradigm (with blinking boxes) confounds reflexive and voluntary orienting
• How could we change the Posner cueing paradigm to make it assess only reflexive orienting?
• Make validity 50% (non-informative cue)
Reflexive Orienting
• The Posner cueing paradigm (with blinking boxes) confounds reflexive and voluntary orienting
• How could we change the Posner cueing paradigm to make it assess only reflexive orienting?
• Make validity 50% (non-informative cue)
• Viewers are still faster and more accurate!
Voluntary Orienting
• What is another way to make this paradigm a voluntary orienting paradigm?
Symbolic cues may orient attention towards another location.Stimulus cues orient attention to the stimulated location.
Symbolic Cue
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