ATTENTION AND

CONCIOUSNESS
 An 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

Allows us to use
ATTENTION our limited
mental
resources
judiciously to
respond
speedily and
accurately to
interesting
stimuli.
 PURPOSE IN COGNITION
(1) helps in monitoring our
interactions with the environment

(2) it assists us in linking our past

(memories) and our present
(sensations) to give us a sense of
continuity of experience
CONCIOUSNESS
(3) controlling and planning for our
Includes both the future actions.
feeling of awareness
and the content of
awareness, some of
which may be under
the focus of attention.
 FUNCTIONS OF ATTENTION
We vigilantly try to detect whether we did or did not
sense a signal—a particular target stimulus of interest.
Through vigilant attention to detecting signals, we are
primed to take speedy action when we do detect
signal stimuli.

VIGILANCE
A person’s ability to attend to a field of stimulation
SIGNAL over a prolonged period, it detects the appearance
of a particular target stimulus of interest.
DETECTION the individual watchfully waits to detect a signal
And Vigilance stimulus that may appear at an unknown time.
Needed in settings where a given stimulus occurs only
rarely but requires immediate attention as soon as it
does occur.
SIGNAL Is a framework to explain how people
pick out the few important stimuli when
they are embedded in a wealth of

DETECTION irrelevant, distracting stimuli.

Often is used to measure sensitivity to a

THEORY (SDT) target’s presence to detect a target

stimulus (signal).

Hit False Misses Correct

(True Positive) Alarms (False Negatives)
Rejection
Identify the (False Positives) Fails to observe (True Negatives)
presence of incorrectly the presence of Correctly
target identifies the a target identifies the
presence of a absence of a
target that is target
actually absent
WHAT PART OF BRAIN?
Amygdala Thalamus
Plays a pivotal role in the Involves in vigilance
recognition of emotional
stimuli.

ACTIVITVATION STATES
Burst Tonic State
hyperpolarization of the Relative hyperpolarization
resting membrane
potentially increases
relative to its surrounding
 FUNCTIONS OF ATTENTION
We often engage in an active search for particular stimuli
- actively and often skillfully seeking out a target.

Search refers to a scan of the environment for particular

features – actively looking for something when you are
not sure where it will appear.

DISTRACTERS - it is the non-target stimuli that divert our

attention away from the target stimulus.
EXAMPLE:
For instance, have you ever picked up your parents or
friends at a crowded place and tried to locate them

SEARCH
among the masses of people streaming around? That’s
what we called searching.

As we try to have attentiveness or watchfulness, when we

are searching for something, we may also experience by
making false alarms.
 TWO KINDS FEATURE SEARCH
requires identification of a pop-out target,

OF SEARCH defined by a single feature.

CONJUNCTION
SEARCH
Requires identification of
a target defined by a
combination of two
features.
FEATURE- INTEGRATION THEORY
PROPONENT: Anne Treisman

Explains the relative ease of conducting

feature searches and the relative
difficulty of conducting conjunction
searches.

This theory focuses on the sense of sight

and the information that the eye sees
and focuses on. It emphasizes the
differences in visual information and how
the brain processes that information.
 SIMILARITY THEORY
The principle of similarity simply states that
when items share some visual
characteristic, they are assumed to be
related in some way. The items don’t
need to be identical, but simply share at
least one visible trait such as color, shape,
or size to be perceived as part of the
same group.
GUIDED SEARCH THEORY
The individual simultaneously activates a mental
representation of all the potential targets. The
representation is based on the simultaneous
activation of each of the features of the target.
(Parallel Stage) - Evaluation

the individual sequentially evaluates each of the

activated elements, according to the degree of
activation. Then, the person chooses the true targets
from the activated elements. (Serial Stage) -
Selection
FUNCTIONS OF ATTENTION
Is the process that allows an individual to select and
focus on particular input for further processing while
simultaneously suppressing irrelevant or distracting
information.

SHADOWING
You are listening to two different messages an
required a significant amount of concentration

COCKTAIL PARTY PROBLEMS

The process of tracking one conversation in the face
of distraction of another conversation.

According to Colin Cherry, 1953. He observed that

cocktail parties are often settings in which selective
attention is salient.
Dichotic Presentation
BROADBENT’S
According to one of the earliest theories
of attention, we filter information right
after we notice it at the sensory level

MODEL Multiple channels of sensory input reach

an attentional filter. Those channels can
be distinguished by their characteristics
The filter permits only one channel of like loudness, pitch, or accent.
sensory information to proceed and
reach the processes of perception. We
thereby assign meaning To our
sensations
SELECTIVE
CLUE:

Accusation might be misleading,

but gestures speaks the truth

FILTER MODEL
Moray found that even when
participants ignore most other high-level
(e.g., semantic) aspects of an
unattended message, they frequently
still recognize their names in an
unattended ear.

The reason for this effect is that

messages that are of high importance to
a person may break through the filter of
selective attention. But other messages
may not.
 LATE FILTER
Proposed by Deutsch and Deutsch (1963)
A late selection or response selection
model.

MODEL All information in the unattended ear is

processed on the basis of meaning, not
just the selected or highly pertinent
Information that is relevant for the task information.
response gets into conscious awareness.
This model is consistent with ideas of
subliminal perception; in other words, that
you don’t have to be aware of or
attending a message for it to be fully
processed for meaning
FUNCTIONS OF ATTENTION
We often manage to engage in more than one task
at a time, and we shift our attentional resources to
allocate them prudently, as needed. To obtain this,
they should have different modalities (ex. Verbal and
visual)
ATTENTIONAL BLINK
Slowing resulting from simultaneous engagement in
speeded tasks, When people try to perform two
overlapping speeded tasks, the responses for one or
both tasks are almost always slower
ARE YOU PRODUCTIVE WHEN
YOU’RE MULTITASKING?
David Meyer ,et.al (2007) have found that working on
more than onetask at the same time not only makes
you slower but also increases your chances of making
mistakes.
FACTORS THAT AROUSAL

AFFECTS TASK DIFFICULTIES

ATTENTION
ANXIETY

SKILLS
CLUE

Once I did it, I can’t

forget it and I will love to
do it again
 INSPECTION TIME
Is the amount of time it takes you to inspect items and make a
decision about them.

It requires concentrated bursts of focused attention.

Is the length of time for presentation of the target stimulus after

which the participant still responds with at least 90% accuracy.

INTELLIGENCE
AND ATTENTION
 REACTION TIME
(Choice Reaction Time)
Intelligence can be understood in
terms of speed of neural
conduction.

The smart person is someone

whose neural circuits conduct
information rapidly.

INTELLIGENCE
AND ATTENTION
WHEN ATTENTION FAIL US
Attention Change
Deficit Blindness Spatial Neglect
Hyperactivity Inability to detect changes It is an inattentional
in objects or scenes that dysfunction in which
Disorder are being viewed. participants ignore the half of
their visual field that is
(ADHD) contralateral (on the opposite
side of) the hemisphere of the
Have difficulties in
focusing their attention in
Inattentional brain that has a lesion.

ways that enable them to

adapt in optimal ways to
Blindness Extinction may be
patients are not able to
that
their environment
people are not able to see disengage their attention from
things that are actually the stimulus in the ipsilateral
there. field.
 HABITUATION DISHABITUATION
Refers to a change in a
Involves our becoming
familiar stimulus prompts us
accustomed to a stimulus so
to start noticing the stimulus
that we gradually pay less
again.
and less attention to it.

ADAPTATION
AROUSAL Lessening of attention to a stimulus
A degree of physiological that is not subject to conscious
excitation, responsivity, and control. It occurs directly in the
readiness for action, relative to a sense organ, not in the brain. We
baseline. Arousal often is can exert some conscious control
measured in terms of heart rate, over whether we notice
blood pressure, something to which we have
electroencephalograph (EEG) become habituated, but we have
patterns, and other physiological no conscious control over sensory
signs. adaptation.
 AUTOMATIC SLIPS ASSOCIATED (MISTAKE)
PROCESS CAPTURE OMMISIONS
like writing your name ERRORS An interruption of a routine
activity may cause us to skip
involves no conscious control.
For the most part, they are a step or two in
We intend to deviate implementing the remaining
performed without conscious from a routine activity
awareness. Nevertheless, you portion of the routine.
we are implementing in
may be aware that you are familiar surroundings,
performing them. They but at a point where
demand little or no effort or we should depart from
even intention. the routine we fail to
pay attention and to
PERSEVARATION
regain control of the
Parallel Processing – process; hence, the After an automatic procedure
multiple automatic processes automatic process has been completed, one or
being carried out captures our behavior,
more steps of the procedure
simultaneously. and we fail to deviate
from the routine.
may be repeated
SLIPS ASSOCIATED (MISTAKE)
DESCRIPTION DATA-DRIVEN
ERRORS ERRORS
An internal description of the intended
behavior leads to performing the Incoming sensory information may end
correct action on the wrong object. up overriding the intended variables in
an automatic action sequence.

ASSOCIATION-ACTIVATION ERRORS
An internal description of the intended behavior leads to performing the correct action on
the wrong object.
SLIPS ASSOCIATED CONTROLLED PROCESS
(MISTAKE) are accessible to conscious control and even
require it. Such processes are performed serially.
LOSS-OF-
ACTIVATION
AUTOMATIZATION
ERRORS (Proceduralization)
Many tasks that start off as controlled processes
eventually become automatic ones as a result
The activation of a routine
of practice is called Automatization.
may be insufficient to
- For example, driving a car is initially a
carry it through to
controlled process. Once we master driving,
completion.
however, it becomes automatic under
normal driving conditions. Such conditions
involve familiar roads, fair weather, and little
or no traffic.
STROOP EFFECT
CLUE

Sometimes the loud

ones aren’t.

A 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. It is not readily subject
to your conscious control
CONSCIOUSNESS OF MENTAL PROCESS
Not everything we do, reason, and perceive is
necessarily conscious.We may be unaware of stimuli
that alter our perceptions and judgments

PRECONSCIOUS - anything that could potentially be

brought into the conscious mind.

E.g. unable to come up with the right word in a

sentence even though we know that we know the right
word
How conscious are we of our complex
mental processes?
One view (Ericsson & Simon, 1984) is that people have
quite good access to their complex mental processes.

A second view is that people’s access to their complex

mental processes is not very good (e.g., Nisbett &
Wilson, 1977)
What’s That Word Again?
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon
(Lethologica)
It is a phenomenon in which you try to remember
something that is stored in memory but that cannot
readily be retrieved.

It is universal; It is seen in speakers of many different

languages.

Older adults have more tip-of-the-tongue experiences

compared with younger adults
 CLUE
When Blind People Can See
The laser tells the truth.
Blindsight
People with cerebral blindness have
normal eyes but suffer from partial or
total loss of vision due to damage of
the visual part of the cortex: the
occipital lobe. Some people with
cerebral blindness may still respond to
visual stimuli that they do not
consciously perceive.
They able to correctly identify colors,
movements, object positions and
even the emotion shown in facial
expressions, but reported that they did
not see any of these
THANK
YOU….