What does attention do
Allow people to focus on one or a few things
Attention means what
Detecting signals for focused processing, orienting attention, and distraction
Focused attention is divided into what
Selective attention and divided attention
What is selective attention
Focusing on one stimulus and ignoring other stimuli
What are the models of attention
Attention as a filler, attention as a mental resource, and attention as a spotlight
What does Broadbent’s Filter Model assume
Attentional filtering on the basis of physical properties, filtering out of irrelevant information before analyzing meaning/content, and attentional filtering occurs early
What type of selection model is Treisman’s Attention Model
Late selection model
What does Deutsch and Deutsch’s True Late Selection Model assume
Unattended messages can be processed for meaning
What is capacity in Lavie’s Load Theory of Attention
Mental capacity and resource
What is load in Lavie’s Load Theory of Attention
Task difficulty
What is dichotic listening
The procedure of presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear
What is shadowing
The procedure of repeating a message out loud as it is heard
What is the cocktail party effect
The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli
What is early selection model
Model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering out of the unattended message
What is late selection model
A model of selcetive attention that proposes that selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning
What is attenuation model of attention
Anne Treisman’s model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages
What are the two stages of attenuation model of attention
1: An attenuator analyzes the incoming message and let’s through the attended message
2: Let’s through the unattended message at a lower strength
What is processing capacity
The amount of information input that a person can handle
What is perceptual load
Relation to difficulty of a task
What is a low load task
A task that uses free resources, leaving some capability to handle other tasks
What is a high load task
A task that uses most or all of a person’s resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks
What is load theory of attention
Proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out
What is fixation
In problem solving: People’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution
In perception and attention: A pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene
What is saccadic eye movement
Eye movements from one fixation point to another
