Curve for All Grades• Average Score: 30 out of 44 (69%)

• Range: 15.5 (35%) to 42 (95%)

• Add 3 points to your score, and divide by 44 to get your percentage

Lower Upper Grade

88% 100% A

76% 87% B

63% 75% C

51% 62% D

0% 50% F

Attention• Selecting what is important

– Active, not passive, processing

– Kolers’ half-silvered mirror

– Efficiency of attending and ignoring

• How is information selected?

• Can we do things without attending to them?

• Attending and ignoring thoughts

Count passes Count passes 2 Asking directions Conversation

Pick a card and concentrate on it

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One card is removed

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Was it yours?

How is information selected?

• Filter model (Early selection)– One channel of information is attended, and only this channel is

processed• Channel = separable source of information

• Channels: one ear, one part of space, one kind of voice

– Very little reported from unattended ear (Cherry)

• Late selection– More information gets through than predicted by early selection

– Unconscious effects of information• Cocktail party effect

• Shifts of attention based on meaning (Gray & Wedderburn)

• Word meaning disambiguation experiment

• Galvanic skin response and shocked words

Early Selection Model

Early and Late Selection ModelsE

arly

Lat

e

Dichotic listening experiment - shadowingrobinsparrowbluejaybluebirdcanaryblackbirddoveparrotowlstorkpeacarrotgreen beansstring beansspinachbroccoliasparaguscorncauiliflowerbrussel sprouts

lettucecelerycucumberbeetsgreenstomatolima beansartichokesturnip

eggplantromainegreen peppersokra

larkswallowparakeetoriolefinchpigeonfalconravenhawkcrowsawhammerrulerscrewdriverdrillnailstape measuresawhorsesandpapersander

filetoolboxT-squarechiselrasppencilhacksawsquarebenchplierswrenchladderlathevisescrews

Insert name here

Left Ear (unattended) Right Ear (attended)

Attention switching to make meaningful sentence

Disambiguation from unattended ear

Attended ear Unattended ear

DogFare/FairPen…

SawTaxi/CircusHat…

When asked to report words from attended ear, listener tends to write “fare” when “Taxi” presented, but “fair” when “Circus” is presented.

Unattended information is not reported, but has an influence based on its meaning.

Can we do (fancy) things without attention?

• Automatic processes– Highly practiced– Few cognitive resources used

• Resources available for another task

– Fast– No longer consciously controlled

• Stroop effect

• Attentional capture - targets that become distractors are hard to ignore

• Negative priming - distractors that become targets are hard to attend

Stroop effect BLUEREDGREENYELLOWGREENBLUEREDGREENBLUERED

REDBLUEYELLOWGREENBLUEREDGREENYELLOWGREENBLUE

Color naming is easier if word is congruentAutomatic reading of word even when it is inappropriate

Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of many years.

Proofreading

Count the number of “F”s:

Tend to miss letters when the word they occur in is highly frequent.Automatic “gluing” of letter to its word

Targets that become distractors are hard to ignoreInitial task: Look for 7, ignoring 4, 5, and 6

After reversal: Look for 3, ignoring 5, 6, and 7

Distractors that become targets are hard to attend

Initial TaskReport blue object

Final TaskReport blue object

Hard, because lightning was distractor earlier

Control

Doing two things at once• Performing two tasks is easier if they use

different cognitive resources– Modularity (again)– Performing an auditory and a visual task is easier

than two auditory tasks or two visual tasks– Interference between hand control

• Track with left hand• Tone identification with right hand or vocally• Easier if vocal because two hand tasks interfere with each other• Finger wiggling (Turvey)

Dangerously divided attention

Attending to thoughts

• Thought suppression: trying not to think of something– Difficult to not think of white bears when asked not to– Repression is a poor way to not think of something– Better strategy: think of something else instead

• Improvement with “Think of red volkswagons instead”

– Practice suppressing thoughts makes them rebound stronger• Expression: Think about white bears as often as possible• Suppression: Try NOT to think about white bears• Many white bear thoughts if express after suppressing

A failure of selective attention• Synaesthesia - an involuntary impression of one sense when presented with another sense

– Examples: Alarm -> hot pink flashes. Middle C -> Blue.– Luria’s S. combined sight, sounds, taste, and touch– 1 in 2,000. Women 6 times more likely than men. Better-than-average memories, especially for details

• We all have weak synaesthesia– Poetry

• “The murmur of gray twilight” (Poe), “silver needle-note of a fife” (Auslander)

– Stroop interference across senses• High pitch -> sharper, more angular, brighter, and smaller image• Low pitch -> rounder, darker, and larger image• Task: discriminate high from low pitches• Faster to respond “high” when color is white rather than black• Faster to respond “low” when color is black rather than white

– McGurk effect: can’t ignore lips when listening to sound• “Ba” sound + “Ga” lips -> perception of “Da” or “Tha”

• Leakage between senses because integration is important

BrightDark

Low pitch

High pitch