Cognitive Psychology: Theory, Process, and Methodology - Dawn M. McBride, J. Cooper Cutting 2019

Attention

Questions to Consider

· When somebody tells you to “pay attention” what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

· What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

· How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

· What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

· How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Introduction: How We Pay Attention

Imagine that you are at a crowded party. Suppose you are looking for your friend Brandon, who wears a stocking cap and has a bushy beard. As you scan the crowd you see lots of hats and some beards, and eventually you see your friend talking to a girl with blond hair. After making your way through the noisy crowd you chat with him and his date. When you get over to them, you immediately notice the new nose ring Brandon has gotten since you last saw him. You listen to them talk for a while and can follow most of the conversation, but it is difficult with the noise of the music and all of the other conversations going on. Suddenly you hear your name mentioned across the room. You glance over to where you heard your name and another friend is telling some people about the trip the two of you took to go skiing last weekend. When you turn back around, Brandon is still talking about the movie he saw last week and you realize you didn’t miss any important parts of the conversation. You continue listening to him talk about the movie. The woman standing next to him starts to talk about a movie coming out next week she wants to see and you realize that she has red hair and is not the same person who was there when you walked up. While your attention was diverted across the room, Brandon’s date had walked off to get another drink and a new person had joined the conversation, but you hadn’t even noticed!

William James (1842—1910), one of the first American psychologists, said, “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought” (1890, p. 403). However, the idea that “everyone knows what attention is” does not mean that attention is not difficult to define such that it can be studied in research. It seems to be one of those concepts where you “know it when you see it,” but you have trouble coming up with a clear definition. One of the reasons for this is that attention is involved in almost all aspects of cognitive processes (e.g., perception, memory, language, problem solving). The scenario just described illustrates several aspects of attention: focused attention on the conversation while attempting to filter out other sounds around you, the capture of your attention by your name spoken across the room, and the failure of your attention in noticing that a different person was standing nearby when your attention came back to the conversation. James’s statement implies that attention has a clear conscious element—we pay attention to something by choosing something in the environment to hold in our current consciousness to the exclusion of other things in the environment. This could mean focusing on the words of the text and ignoring the sounds (e.g., background music) and other sights (e.g., the surface your book is lying on or the other things on your computer screen) in your current environment. Alternatively, you could begin to think about your plans for tonight even as you read, focusing your attention on your thoughts instead of on what you are reading (necessitating a rereading of the last paragraph). In this chapter, we consider the different ways that cognitive researchers have described attention and how it operates and some of the aspects of attention researchers have studied.

Views of Attention

As researchers have attempted to define attention as a cognitive process, several metaphors have arisen to aid in the description of what attention is (Fernandez-Duque & Johnson, 1999). Attention has been described as a filter of information, as a spotlight focused on an aspect of the environment, and as glue that binds features of the environment together. In this section, we consider each of these descriptions of attention and what they have contributed to our understanding of this complex cognitive process.

Attention as an Information Filter

One idea of how attention operates as a cognitive process is as a filter of information. In other words, attention works to filter out the irrelevant stimuli in the environment such that the only aspect(s) of the environment left in our consciousness is what we choose to pay attention to. According to Broadbent (1958), a researcher who used this description of attention in his model, our attention is limited by the amount of information we can focus on at a particular time. This occurs due to our attention process paring down the vast amount of information in the environment to just a small amount we can focus on. Thus, there is a “bottleneck” in our processing that filters out everything except the information we are attending to (see Figure 4.1). The filter acts as an early processor of the information to only let in what is relevant to one’s current task or focus.

Some support for the filter model of attention comes from research using what is known as a shadowing task. In this task, subjects are asked to repeat a message played over headphones to one ear. During this task, a competing message is played to the other ear such that subjects must focus their attention on the target message they have been asked to repeat. Research (e.g., Cherry, 1953) has shown that subjects can complete this task quite well. When subjects are asked what they heard in the competing message, they often cannot accurately report the content of that message, supporting the idea that it was filtered out during the shadowing task.

Shadowing task: a research procedure where subjects are asked to repeat (i.e., shadow) a message heard over headphones

Figure 4.1 Attention as an Information Filter With Limited Capacity

Source: Photo from Jupiterimages/Creatas/Thinkstock.

However, this does not mean that the competing information is not being processed at all. If a salient stimulus is played in the nonattended ear (e.g., the subject’s name), some subjects are able to switch their attention to the other message during the task, as occurred in our party scenario at the beginning of the chapter. This is known as the cocktail party effect, and research has shown that about a third of subjects will detect their name in the nonattended message (Moray, 1959; Wood & Cowan, 1995). The cocktail party effect suggests that more salient (i.e., important) information can get through the filter to capture attention.

Cocktail party effect: an effect of attention where one’s focus changes abruptly due to a salient stimulus (such as one’s name) in the environment

Conway, Cowan, and Bunting (2001) investigated the factors that contribute to the cocktail party effect in subjects. What causes some people to detect their name in the unattended message? Subjects were asked to repeat a message played over headphones in their right ear, while ignoring the competing message played in their left ear (see Figure 4.2). For all subjects, their first name was inserted into the message played in their left ear. A posttest questionnaire examined whether subjects detected their name in the nonshadowed message. Subjects also completed a task where they had to verify the accuracy (responding with yes or no) of mathematical equations while also remembering words presented with the equations. This type of task tests a subject’s ability to keep track of several pieces of information at once and is known as a working memory task (see Chapter 5 for more discussion of working memory). The score on this task indicates the capacity of one’s working memory abilities. Thus, the researchers hypothesized that the score on this task would be related to the subjects’ ability to filter out the competing message in their left ear during the shadowing task. Subjects were grouped according to their score on the working memory task into high- and low-score groups. Results of the study showed that more of the low-score subjects (65%) noticed their name in the competing message than the high-score subjects (20%). These results support the researchers’ hypothesis that individual differences in filtering abilities influence the cocktail effect.

Figure 4.2 An Example of the Shadowing Task From the Conway et al. (2001) Study

Source: Photo from Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Thinkstock.

Other research suggests that the salience of the message in the competing ear is not the only factor in switching attention. Treisman (1960, 1961, 1964) showed that subjects report information from the competing message in a shadowing task when the information is meaningfully related to the information in the attended-to message. For example, if a sentence is separated such that alternating words are presented to different ears, the subject will sometimes report the full sentence. In other words, if “BLACK/runs/MEOWS/funny” is presented to the right (attended) ear and “march/CAT/clock/LOUDLY” is presented to the competing left ear, subjects will sometimes report the capitalized words as part of a meaningful sentence: BLACK CAT MEOWS LOUDLY. This suggests that information in the competing channel is not being completely filtered out. Thus, either the filter occurs early in the perceiving process (as suggested by Broadbent’s filter model), but is only a partial filter, or attention acts as a full filter but occurs later in the perceiving process such that most or all of the information is being processed to some degree before the relevant information for one’s attention has been selected (Fernandez-Duque & Johnson, 1999).

Treisman (1960) suggested a modified filter model of the first type: An early process partial filter allows some information to pass through but only after it has been attenuated (i.e., decreased in importance according to the relevance of the information). This is as if some of the information (e.g., information in the competing message in a shadowing task) is being passed through the filter but at a lower volume than the most relevant information (e.g., information in the attended-to message). This is known as the attenuation theory of attention. Figure 4.3 illustrates how this might work for the CAT example described earlier. The attenuator filters the incoming information such that it allows the attended message to come through at full strength, but the meaning-related parts of the competing message come through at lower strength because they are in the less relevant message for the shadowing task (the ear not being attended to). Treisman also proposed a second stage of processing in the form of a dictionary unit where information is stored with a threshold value. The lower the threshold, the more likely the information is attended to. Thus, information with a low threshold, such as important information like one’s name or meaning-related information to the attended-to information, can reach one’s consciousness, even if it comes through the attenuator with a low strength (see Figure 4.3). Treisman (Treisman & Gelade, 1980) later revised her ideas about how attentional processes work (see the Attention as a Feature Binder section that follows), but her attenuation theory shows how models of cognitive processes go through revision when new results suggest that the original model is not quite right.

The attenuation theory relies on the separation between what is operating at the level of consciousness and what is operating below consciousness or without our awareness. When someone performs the shadowing task described here, the information in the attended ear is in the person’s consciousness—they are intentionally attending to the information in the attended ear. However, according to the attenuation model, the information in the unattended ear is attended to at a level below the level of consciousness until relevant information is detected and attention is switched to this information and it enters consciousness. In this way, the listener is controlling their attention to the attended information, but an automatic process filters information from the unattended ear and allows some of that information (the most important information) to get through to the conscious level. This difference between conscious controlled processing and automatic processing will be important in additional descriptions of attention discussed in this chapter.

Figure 4.3 Treisman’s (1960) Attenuation Theory of Attention

Attention as a Limited Resource

Some models of attention have focused on its description as a limited resource. In this section we describe how attention has been examined as a spotlight focusing on different information in the environment and as a mental resource available for a task.

Attention as a Spotlight

A popular description of attention among researchers is as a spotlight. In this model, attention is viewed as the spotlight of our consciousness that is focused on some aspect of the environment that currently has our attention. The spotlight can be moved around the environment as our attention shifts to different things, either intentionally or automatically as something salient captures our attention (e.g., if something moves or is brightly colored). This description led researchers to consider what people focus their attention on in the environment and to develop methods that aided in that goal. For example, in some studies researchers have measured where one’s gaze is directed in a display of stimuli. In other studies, how easily a target stimulus can be detected is measured.

Stop and Think

· 4.1. Attention is an important process for many cognitive tasks. Describe some ways that attention is important in the tasks you perform as a student.

· 4.2. Describe how Treisman’s attenuation model would explain how you can study with background music playing without it interfering with your task. How would this model describe your ability to hear your text alert on your phone without losing concentration in your studying?

· 4.3. Can you think of other ways to describe attention processes besides the filter metaphor? (Continue reading for some ideas.)

Some support for a spotlight description of attention comes from studies showing that shifts of attention affect the speed with which a task is performed. Such studies have shown that the reaction time to complete a task (e.g., respond when the number 7 appears) is linearly related to the distance from the position where one’s attention is currently focused. In an example of this type of study, LaBerge (1983) asked subjects to complete one of two tasks on each trial: categorize a five-letter word or respond if the number 7 appears on the screen. The categorization task in the letter condition (i.e., decide if the center letter of the word is a letter from A to G) was designed to focus subjects’ attention on the center of the screen. The target number 7 or nontarget stimuli (T or Z) were then presented either at the center of the screen or in positions where the other letters in the word appeared on other trials (i.e., to the left or right of the center of the screen). Figure 4.4 illustrates this condition of the experiment. Reaction times to respond to the 7 increased linearly as the 7 appeared farther from the center of the screen. See Figure 4.5 for the results from LaBerge’s study. These results indicate that attention moves from the center of the screen to the target in the same way that a spotlight would be moved around in space to focus on different aspects of the environment. However, despite this evidence for an analog spotlight model, results from other studies (e.g., LaBerge & Brown, 1986; LaBerge, Carlson, Williams, & Bunney, 1997) have suggested that attention may be more distributed as a preparatory process for selective attention to focus on a specific location.

Attention as a Mental Capacity

Additional descriptions of attention as a limited resource are present in capacity models of attention. According to this type of model, attention has a limited capacity due to the limited amount of cognitive resources available for a task. Thus, attention depends on the amount of mental effort required for a task in relation to the cognitive resources currently available for the task. The spotlight description of attention can be seen as a type of capacity model because attentional resources are limited by the size of the spotlight. However, later capacity models focused more on how interference from multiple tasks can tax attentional resources and cause decreased performance on one or both tasks.

Figure 4.4 Illustration of the Letter Condition in LaBerge’s (1983) Experiment

Figure 4.5 Results From the Letter Condition in Experiment 1 of LaBerge’s (1983) Study

Kahneman (1973) proposed one such capacity model of attention. In his model, attention is a limited cognitive resource that can be allocated to different tasks based on our intentions. Tasks that are more difficult than others (e.g., driving during rush hour with many cars on the road versus driving early in the morning with very few cars on the road) require more attention, and we allocate more attention to those tasks when performing them. We have control over the tasks we choose to allocate more resources to, and this choice also depends on our interest in the task and our current intentions. When you are doing assigned reading or sitting through a lecture, do you find you are able to pay more attention when topics that are more interesting to you are discussed? You might also focus more attention on review sessions where your intention is to perform well on an upcoming exam than on other classes where an exam is not coming up for a while (see Photo 4.1).

Photo 4.1 You might pay more attention to a lecture that is more interesting or more important to you than other lectures.

ESB Professional/Shutterstock

Kahneman (1973) also suggested that arousal can influence our mental resource capacity (i.e., the level of cognitive resources we have available for tasks at any given moment). For example, when you first wake up in the morning, your arousal level is typically fairly low (unless you have overslept and are late), whereas later in the morning after you have been awake for a few hours, your arousal level increases. Thus, you have more cognitive resources available for tasks later in the morning than when you first wake up.

he description of attention proposed in Kahneman’s model is supported by studies using the divided-attention or dual-task method. In these studies, subjects are asked to complete two tasks at once (dual-task condition) to compare with performance on these tasks when they are performed alone (single-task condition). In other words, subjects’ attention is divided across the tasks in the dual-task condition. A decrease in performance under dual-task conditions suggests that there are not enough attentional resources for both tasks. Further, if only one task shows a decrease in performance, this reveals which task received less attention from subjects (e.g., because it was more difficult or less important).

Dual-task method: a research procedure where subjects are given two tasks to perform at once—to compare with performance on one task alone—to examine interference due to the second task

Photo 4.2 Can you focus on both driving and talking on the phone at the same time?

Shutterstock.com/Daxiao Productions

An example of this type of study was conducted by Strayer and Johnston (2001) to examine the level of attentional resources available for driving while talking on a cell phone (see Photo 4.2). Subjects performed a task to simulate driving where they were asked to use a joystick to keep their car icon on a road they were moving on. As they performed the task, red lights or green lights appeared (the icon changed colors), and subjects were asked to hit a brake button as quickly as possible in response to the red lights. After some practice with the task, subjects’ performance in responding to red lights (whether they responded to the light and how quickly they responded) was measured as they performed this task on its own. Subjects were then asked to perform the task at the same time they performed a second task: listen to a radio channel of their choice, talk to a confederate (someone who was part of the experiment) on a handheld cell phone, or talk to a confederate on a hands-free cell phone. Driving performance was then compared for the single task and dual-task conditions in the three groups of subjects. In the radio control groups, subjects’ driving performance did not change from single to dual-task conditions. However, in both cell phone groups, subjects missed more red lights and responded more slowly to red lights when they talked on the phone while driving. These results are shown in Figure 4.6. Studies like Strayer and Johnston’s help identify situations where cognitive resources are not sufficient for good performance of the intended tasks and show that our attentional resources are limited.

Attention as a Feature Binder

As described in the Attention as an Information Filter section earlier in this chapter, Anne Treisman refined her ideas about attention into what she called the feature-integration theory of attention (Treisman & Gelade, 1980; Treisman, Sykes, & Gelade, 1977). In this model of attention, separate stages of processing contribute to focused attention. The first stage is an automatic identification and processing of the features within a scene in the environment. These features could be the colors, shapes, or brightness present in the scene. Because this processing occurs automatically, we are typically not aware of the identification of these features, and this stage occurs before attention processes kick in. In other words, it happens outside of our conscious awareness. The second stage in the model involves conscious, focused attention to combine the features of the scene and allows us to understand and think about what we are focused on in the scene. In this stage, attention is viewed as the glue that binds the features of the objects together. Thus, this second stage operates at the level of consciousness. Figure 4.7 illustrates the stages of this model.

Figure 4.6 Results From Experiment 1 of Strayer and Johnston’s (2001) Driving Performance Study

Source: Strayer and Johnston (2001, figure 1).

Figure 4.7 Treisman’s Feature-Integration Model

Source: Photo from Donald Miralle/Digital Vision/Thinkstock.

Treisman and Gelade (1980) presented evidence from several experiments to support the feature-integration model. In these experiments, subjects were asked to identify a target based on color, shape, or both color and shape (called the conjunction condition, because it involved a conjunction between both color and shape). For example, in Experiment 1 of their study, subjects had to identify whether any blue letter, an S, or a green T was present in the display (see Figure 4.8 for examples of these conditions). Reaction time to detect the target was measured. When the target differed by only one feature from the distractors (blue letter or an S), subjects very quickly detected the target in all displays, regardless of how many items were in the display. However, when they had to detect a conjunction target (a green T), subjects were slower as the number of distractors increased. In other words, the blue letter and the S seemed to pop out of the display easily because there was only one feature difference with the distractors, but subjects had to search for the conjunction target based on both features and it took longer to search with more items to search through. The search was harder when two features differed between the target and distractors, illustrating the importance of the features in attending to the target.

Stop and Think

· 4.4. What does it mean that attention is a “limited mental resource”?

· 4.5. Can you think of situations in your own life where attempting to complete multiple tasks at once showed the limits of your attention abilities?

· 4.6. The results of the Strayer and Johnston study showed that driving abilities are inhibited when subjects talked on the phone. What do these results mean for new laws requiring “hands free” cell phone use while driving?

Consider the six displays in Figure 4.8. How easy is it to find the blue T in the top two displays compared with the green T in the bottom two displays? Many people report that the blue T in the first displays and the brown S in the middle displays seem to pop out of the rest of the distractors and are easily detected. This illustrates a concept known as attention capture. It shows how our attention can be easily attracted to something that is different from the rest of a scene (in Figure 4.8 by one important feature). This was seen in the chapter-opening party scenario when you noticed Brandon’s new nose ring. It seemed to pop out at you and capture your attention because it was something you had not expected to see. The attention capture phenomenon illustrated by this example and in Figure 4.8 provides support for the feature-integration model of attention. The more features that must be integrated in using attention to search for an object in a scene, the more difficult and slow the search is.

Figure 4.8 Conditions in Treisman and Gelade’s (1980) Experiment 1

The feature-integration model is also consistent with current knowledge of brain function in processing features of scenes. As described in Chapter 3, different sensory systems are designed to receive and process different types of sensory input from the environment. Due to localization of function in the brain (see Chapter 2), information from different modalities (e.g., visual, auditory, tactile) is processed in different brain areas. Further, as described in Chapter 3, recent cognitive neuroscience studies (e.g., Fiebelkorn, Foxe, Schwartz, & Molholm, 2010; Zaretskaya, Anstis, & Bartels, 2013) have shown evidence of feature binding in the occipital and parietal cortex areas of the brain. For example, single-cell recording studies have provided evidence for feature integration based on features presented to the visual fields in each eye (Baars, 2007). Feature areas of the visual cortex respond to the features presented to both eyes’ visual fields, but activation only occurs for the consciously attended features in the temporal cortex where conscious identification takes place.

Further evidence for feature integration was presented by Zaretskaya et al. (2013). These researchers conducted fMRI scans during a task in which subjects identified whether the display illustrated movement of local features of the display or global features of the display. Local feature movement was created by moving each of four dots on a screen within its quadrant of the screen. Global feature movement was created by moving each of the four dots across a larger area of the screen. Figure 4.9 shows the displays used in the task. Subjects fixated on the red dot in the center of the screen for each trial. They were then asked to identify whether they saw local or global movement in each display by pressing one of two buttons. The researchers examined the brain activity that accompanied each type of display (see Figure 4.10) and found that activity in the right parietal cortex was present in the global condition that was not present in the local condition. These results indicate that distinctive brain activity is present when features of a display are bound together to view a global percept. Thus, this model of attention is consistent with the results of current studies examining the connection between attentional processes and brain function.

Figure 4.9 Displays Used in the Zaretskaya et al. (2013) Study

Source: Zaretskaya et al. (2013, figure 1).

Figure 4.10 Brain Activity Data From the Zaretskaya et al. (2013) Study

Source: Zaretskaya et al. (2013, figure 2).

How Attention Affects Our Perceptions

So far in this chapter we have discussed the way that attention has been defined and studied based on those definitions. Throughout these research studies, interesting effects of how we use our attention have been discovered. Specifically, researchers have identified several ways that attention influences our perception of the environment. We have discussed some of these concepts already: the attention capture phenomenon where objects pop out of a scene, the cocktail party effect where salient or important stimuli attract our attention automatically, and the limitations of our attention abilities in attempting multiple tasks at once in dual-task situations. In this section, we explore some additional effects of attention that have come from research in this area: detecting changes in the environment, attentional boosts to performance based on congruencies between targets and responses, and deficits in our attention due to interference from automatic processing.

Stop and Think

· 4.7. Identify some features that are likely relevant for focusing attention on a particular object (e.g., a picture, a clock) in your current environment.

· 4.8. How do the two stages of the feature-integration model of attention differ?

· 4.9. Imagine you are focusing your attention on a person in a crowd. For each of the three models of attention—filter model, spotlight model, feature-integration model—explain how this task would work.

The Gorilla in the Room: Inattentional Blindness

Some now classic experiments have shown our inability to notice a major change in our environment due to attention focused on other aspects of the environment. Daniel Simons (e.g., Simons & Chabris, 1999; Simons & Levin, 1998) illustrated this phenomenon in some interesting studies, demonstrating that many subjects do not notice major changes in the environment such as a change in the person asking a question or a gorilla dancing across the scene.

Imagine that you are walking across the quad at your school and someone stops to ask you where the student union building is. While you are giving the person directions, some students walk between you and this person carrying a large art project that blocks your view of the person. You stop and wait for them to walk by and then continue giving directions. If the person you were talking to had been replaced by someone else when your view was blocked, would you notice? This is a similar situation to the one described in the opening party scenario, where you did not notice that a different person had joined your conversation while your attention was diverted by hearing your name across the room. Most people think they would notice, but Simons’s research has shown that many do not. Simons and Levin (1998) created the situation just described in their study. After the unsuspecting subject finished giving directions, the researcher informed the subject that they were conducting a study and asked the subject if he or she noticed anything unusual when the object passed between them. See Photo 4.3 for an illustration of the situation in this study. In Experiment 1, only 7 of the 15 subjects noticed the change, and in Experiment 2, only 4 of the 12 subjects noticed the change.

Inattentional blindness (also change blindness): failure to notice a change in the environment

Photo 4.3 Would you notice if the person you were giving directions to changed to a different person when your view was blocked?

Figure 1, Simons, D. J. & Levin, D. T. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (1998) 5: 644. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208840

Try this for yourself. Take the test for selective attention on Daniel Simons’s website (www.simonslab.com/videos.html). Did you notice the change? This phenomenon has been called inattentional or change blindness because people fail to notice a change in the scene through lack of attention. One possibility is that the subjects have their attention focused on other aspects of the scene, keeping them from noticing the change. An example of this lack of attention is seen in the scenario from Simons and Chabris’s (1999) study. In their study, subjects were shown a video of people passing a basketball (like the video on Simons’s website). Some people wore white shirts and others wore black shirts. Subjects were asked to count the number of passes made by one of the teams (black shirts or white shirts). However, while the passing task was going on, either a person wearing a gorilla suit or a person carrying an open umbrella walked through the scene. At the end of the video, subjects were asked to write down their count for the number of passes. Then they were asked if they noticed anything unusual in the video. If they failed to report the gorilla or umbrella, they were explicitly asked if they saw these in the video. Overall, more than half of the subjects did not notice the gorilla or umbrella. This number was actually lower (56%) for people who did not notice the gorilla, even though this event seems more unusual and more likely to capture attention. These studies show that not all salient events will capture our attention in a scene.

Incompatibilities Tax Attention: The Simon Effect

Have you ever used the roller ball on a computer mouse (or track pad) to make the text on the screen move down? Or played a game where you moved the joystick down to go faster and up to go slower? With practice, you likely were able to do these tasks, but it was probably harder to do the first time you played because the action and the response were not consistent. These examples illustrate the decrement to attention that occurs when a task and response are incompatible.

This effect was first shown by Richard Simon (1969; Simon & Rudell, 1967; Simon & Wolf, 1963). The task was fairly simple: Subjects were asked to press a key on the left side when they saw or heard one target and a key on the right side when they saw or heard a different target. For example, they might press the left key when they heard the word left over headphones and the right key when they heard the word right over headphones (Simon & Rudell, 1967). Results showed, however, that subjects’ reaction time to complete this simple task was affected by the location of presentation. Subjects were much slower when the word right was presented in the left ear and when the word left was presented in the right ear. In another example of the task, Nicoletti and Umiltá (1989) asked subjects to press the right key when a square was presented and a left key when a circle was presented. The objects appeared in one of six boxes on the screen, three to the left of the center fixation and three to the right of the center fixation (see Figure 4.11). Subjects were faster when the object appeared on the side of the screen that was consistent with the key press, with larger distances from center showing slower reaction times. These results are shown in Figure 4.12. The objects appearing on the right of the screen were overall more quickly responded to with the right key, and the objects appearing on the left side of the screen were more quickly responded to with the left key. This effect weakened as objects appeared farther from the center of the screen. These results illustrate the Simon effect.

Figure 4.11 Procedure Used in Experiment 1 of Nicoletti and Umiltá’s (1989) Study Showing the Simon Effect

The Simon effect is proposed to occur due to one of two mechanisms (Hommel, 1993). The first mechanism, known as the attentional-movement hypothesis, suggests that the shift in attention to a target on the left or the right of one’s attentional focus biases one to want to respond on the side of the attention shift (left or right). Thus, a response on the other side from the target must overcome this bias, requiring extra time. The other mechanism regarding how the Simon effect occurs is similar but suggests that the bias in response side is due to a correspondence to an object of reference in the scene (e.g., the square in which the stimuli appeared in the past), rather than the current focus of attention (which is where the stimulus currently appears). In other words, the bias to respond on one side or the other is coded in reference to an object in the scene that one has attended to previously. This is known as the referential-coding hypothesis. Hommel (1993) conducted experiments that provided support for the referential-coding hypothesis but acknowledged that this hypothesis needed further development to more precisely define how the coding occurs.

Simon effect: interference in response due to inconsistency between the response and the stimulus

Figure 4.12 Results From Experiment 1 of Nicoletti and Umiltá’s (1989) Study

Effects of Automatic Processes on Attention: The Stroop Task

A well-known task that measures one’s ability to inhibit automatic processes and focus attention on a conflicting task is the Stroop task. In Stroop’s (1935) original study, subjects were asked to name the color of blocks or words on a page under different conditions. Try this for yourself: Time how long it takes you to name the color of print of the words in Column A of Figure 4.13. Then compare this time with how long it takes you to name the color of the print of the words in Column B. Which took longer? For most people Column B takes much longer. What do you notice about the difference between the words in the columns? In Column A, it is generally easier to name the color because the color is consistent with the word itself, facilitating the naming of the color. In Column B, the print color and the words are inconsistent, interfering with your ability to name the color. This interference occurs even though you are not asked to read the words because reading is an automatic process once you know how to read. It is a task you have had a lot of practice with. You cannot help but read the words as you are attempting to name the print color and the processing of what that word is can either aid in your color naming task (as in Column A) or interfere with your color naming task (as in Column B).

Stroop task: a research procedure where subjects are asked to name the color of printed words where some words are color words that conflict with the print color showing interference in the naming task

Stroop (1935) also included a control condition that did not involve reading as a comparison to the condition where reading interferes with the color naming task. In this condition, subjects simply named the color of blocks presented to them. This is an easy task, requiring little attention. However, compared with this task, naming the color of the words in Column B of Figure 4.13 is quite difficult and requires more attention. Stroop also found that with practice, subjects got better at the task: They could name the color of ink faster in the interference condition after completing the task several times. The Stroop task shows that some cognitive processes require very little attention and are considered automatic processes. Reading in a native language is one of those processes. Tasks that we have less practice with (such as color naming of words) require more effort and attention because they are controlled processes that are not performed automatically. If I presented color words to you in Spanish (e.g., rojo, azul, verde) and you do not know the Spanish language (or are not very good at reading it), you would be able to perform the color naming task almost as easily as the subjects who simply named the color of the blocks, because reading Spanish is not an automatic process for you. We consider automatic processes and their effect on attention further in the next section of the chapter.

Figure 4.13 Example of the Stroop Task

Stop and Think

· 4.10. Can you think of any instances from your own life where the Simon effect impairs your performance on a task?

· 4.11. The Stroop task shows that once we have learned this skill well, reading is an automatic process. Can you think of any other cognitive processes you use that are likely automatic for you?

· 4.12. The party scenario at the beginning of the chapter illustrated a simple example of change blindness (i.e., not noticing a change in the scene). Have you ever experienced change blindness in your environment? What factors contributed to your failure to notice the change?

Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

The Stroop task in the previous section illustrates an example of an automatic cognitive process. Automatic processing and controlled processing are important parts of cognitive abilities, and the distinction seems to be important for completing cognitive tasks in an efficient manner. We have already seen an example of this dichotomy in this chapter: the automatic preattentive stage versus the attention binding stage of Treisman’s attenuation and feature-integration models. Because tasks that are automatic require little attention, they do not tax our cognitive resources in the way that controlled tasks do. They operate at a level below consciousness. Thus, how a process becomes automatic has been a topic of interest to cognitive psychologists.

Automatic processing: processing that is not controlled and does not tax cognitive resources

Controlled processing: processing due to an intention that consumes cognitive resources

Figure 4.14 Procedure and Conditions From Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) Experiments

Practice seems to be a factor in turning a controlled task into an automatic one. This is seen in the Stroop task. Children begin to show Stroop task interference effects from reading the words when they have had sufficient practice reading their native language (Schiller, 1966), and reading ability has been shown to be related to Stroop interference effects (Cox et al., 1997). Another common task that shows automaticity with practice is driving ability. Although driving can require attention in cases where it is more difficult (e.g., in heavy traffic or in unfamiliar cities), many people report that driving typically requires little attention once enough practice with this task has been achieved. However, that does not mean that performance is always good. Have you ever driven somewhere you did not intend to go (e.g., to work or school when you were on your way somewhere else)? Many people report this experience when they are focusing their attention on something else (e.g., their thoughts or a phone conversation). Because your driving route to places you typically go, like work or school, is well practiced, you can drive it without much attention, even if that is not where you wanted to go! The Strayer and Johnston (2001) study described earlier in this chapter also illustrates this point: Driving can be done while doing another task that requires attention, such as talking on the phone, but performance can be impaired when attention is needed in the driving task (e.g., noticing a red light or a person in the road).

Figure 4.15 Results From Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) Experiment 1

Schneider and Shiffrin (1977) provided an important examination of differences in automatic and controlled processing in attention tasks. They defined an automatic process as one that is initiated from specific input (internal or external) and activated without control or attention. Controlled processes, on the other hand, are activated based on one’s intentions and require attentional resources. They argued that visual search tasks (e.g., looking for your friend Brandon at the party) rely on both controlled and automatic processes. They developed a task that allowed the use of controlled and automatic processes to be shown in different conditions. In this task, subjects were first asked to memorize one or more items as the targets they were looking for. Different items were targets on different trials. Then a series of displays was presented very quickly in which the subjects had to look for the target(s) among distractors. This is similar to retrieving an image of your friend Brandon from memory and then searching among the people at the party for him (where other party guests are distractors). The subject was asked to respond with one key if he or she saw a target and a different key if he or she did not see a target. Figure 4.14 illustrates the task procedure.

Two conditions were included in the experiments to compare processing types (see Figure 4.14). The first condition, called the consistent mapping condition, always involved distractors of a different type from the targets (i.e., letter targets and number distractors or number targets and letter distractors). This was predicted (1) to be an easy condition for target detection because the distractors were always of a different type and (2) to show performance improvement with practice. The other condition was called the varied mapping condition and involved targets and distractors of the same type (i.e., letter targets and distractors or number targets and distractors). This condition was predicted to be more difficult. The researchers also manipulated the number of targets subjects had to remember, the number of distractors shown in each display, and the amount of time each display was shown to examine how these factors affected performance in each of the conditions.

Just considering the data for correct responses in detecting targets (known as hits in target detection tasks), results from Schneider and Shiffrin’s first experiment indicated that the consistent mapping condition was generally easier than the varied mapping condition (see Figure 4.15). Hit rates were higher in the consistent mapping condition overall, and subjects required less time looking at the displays to reach this high performance in detecting targets (see the difference in timing across the two vertical panels for the consistent mapping conditions). This suggests that the consistent mapping conditions were easier and may have relied more on automatic processing than the varied mapping conditions. Another interesting result was that the target set size and distractor set size factors reduced performance much more as set size increased in the varied mapping conditions than in the consistent mapping conditions (see the spread of the lines in the second vertical panel compared to the first panel). This also suggests that more controlled processing is needed in the varied mapping condition because these factors should not affect performance on an automatic task. Schneider and Shiffrin concluded that subjects were doing controlled searches for the targets in the varied mapping conditions, which were required because the distractors were similar. They based this conclusion on the results showing that as distractor and target set sizes increase, subjects need longer display times and generally show lower performance in the varied conditions. These results were not seen in the consistent mapping conditions (the plotted lines are all similar for different distractor and target set sizes), indicating that subjects did not need to conduct a controlled search in these conditions. Instead, it is more likely that the target popped out of the display that contained it, especially at longer display times. This suggests that the type of pop out described earlier in the chapter for attention capture in Treisman and Gelade’s (1980) experiments is an automatic process, consistent with the preattentive first stage of the feature-integration model.

In additional experiments, Shiffrin and Schneider (1977) explored how performance for the consistent mapping conditions changed with practice. Consonant letters were used for both targets and distractors with items for each chosen from either the first half of the alphabet (B to L) or the second half of the alphabet (Q to Z). Performance with one mapping (e.g., B to L for targets and Q to Z for distractors) was examined over a large number of trials. It was found that subjects’ performance improved as they completed more trials of the task, hitting a point around 600 trials where subjects reported that they no longer needed to use attention to remember the target set to complete the target detection task. Shiffrin and Schneider concluded that this was the point at which the task became automatic. After 2,100 trials, the researchers switched the target and distractor sets to change the task back to a controlled, effortful one. As predicted, it was difficult for subjects to stop the automatic processing that occurred for the original target set and switch to the new target set. Performance on the task decreased significantly after the switch occurred, supporting the researchers’ suggestion that automatic processing is difficult to inhibit.

Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) model was important in defining and supporting the use of both controlled and automatic processing in attention tasks. Other researchers have employed these concepts in more recent theories of how controlled attentional processes become automatic. For example, Logan (1988, 1990, 1992) has suggested what he calls an instance theory of automaticity. According to Logan’s theory, automaticity occurs through the encoding and retrieval of multiple experiences (i.e., instances) with a task. Controlled attention is required initially for the encoding and retrieval of information about the task in memory, but over time, with many separate experiences of a task stored in memory, retrieval of the information about that task occurs automatically in that task context. The more instances that are stored, the more information that is retrieved about the task. Logan has further shown the mathematical function that describes the automaticity process that is consistent with his theory. His theory also highlights the ways that attention, automaticity, and memory are integrated in cognitive processes.

Stop and Think

· 4.13. In Stop and Think 4.11, you considered some tasks that were automatic for you. How long (i.e., how much practice) did it take for you to go from controlled processing to automatic processing in these tasks? Is that length of time comparable to the time it took Shiffrin and Schneider’s (1977) subjects to move to automatic processing in the target detection task? Why or why not?

· 4.14. In what way is a cognitive system designed to transfer tasks from controlled to automatic processing adaptive?

· 4.15. In what way is automaticity involved in Logan’s instance theory?

Thinking About Research

As you read the following summary of a research study in psychology, think about the following questions:

1. Which of the metaphors for the study of attention do you think this study most adheres to?

2. What were the primary manipulated variables in this experiment? (Hint: Review the Research Methodologies section in Chapter 1 for help in answering this question.)

3. Can you think of an example from your own life where direct eye gaze captured your attention? How does that situation relate to the procedure used in the following study?

4. Given the discussion of attention in this chapter, why do you think eye gaze and motion in particular capture our attention?

Study Reference

Böckler, A., van der Wel, P. R. D., & Welsh, T. N. (2014). Catching eyes: Effects of social and nonsocial cues on attention capture. Psychological Science, 25, 720—727.

Purpose of the study: This study focused on the attention capture effects of eye contact and motion in our environment. Both eye contact and motion have been shown to capture attention in humans, but it is unclear if these aspects of the environment capture attention by the same process or different processes. The researchers of this study investigated this question by asking subjects to perform a target identification task within an array of four faces where eye contact and motion were manipulated. This study tested the hypothesis that eye contact and motion attract attention through the same process. Two experiments with slightly different procedures were used to test the hypothesis. The researchers predicted that if the same process is responsible for attention capture from both eye contact and motion, then the two experiments should yield the same results. However, if each of these factors captures attention in different ways, then different results will be found in the two experiments.

Method of the study: Subjects were asked to perform a task where they identified which target letter (H or S) appeared on the forehead of faces with either a direct gaze (eye contact) or an averted gaze (no eye contact). Four faces were shown in each display, two with direct gaze and two with averted gaze. Motion was included in the displays such that two of the faces changed gaze condition between the eye fixation screen (where 8’s appeared on all foreheads to orient attention to this part of the display) and the target screen (where letters appeared on the foreheads, one of which was the target letter). In Experiment 1, the gaze change occurred at the same time the letters appeared on the screen. However, in Experiment 2, the letters appeared 900 ms after the gaze change occurred. This timing difference allowed the researchers to test the primary hypothesis, because previous studies have shown that a delay between the cues affects eye gaze and motion attention capture in different ways. Thus, if one process is responsible for both types of attention capture, no difference in results should be seen in Experiments 1 and 2.

Results of the study: Accuracy (in the form of errors) and speed of target detection were analyzed in this study. In Experiment 1, performance was best (fastest and fewest errors) when the target appeared on the forehead of the face with a change to a direct gaze (i.e., eye contact). Thus, both eye contact and motion captured attention in Experiment 1. However, in Experiment 2, direct gaze showed better performance than averted gaze, but motion (i.e., change in gaze) reduced performance. See Figures 4.16 and 4.17 for the results of Experiments 1 and 2, respectively.

Conclusions of the study: The researchers had predicted that if the same process is responsible for attention capture by eye contact and motion, the results in Experiments 1 and 2 should be similar. However, although target detection performance was best in Experiment 1 with the direct gaze and motion condition, this result was not seen in Experiment 2 when the target appeared 900 ms after the motion occurred. Thus, the researchers’ prediction was not supported. From these results, they concluded that direct eye contact and motion attract attention in different ways.

Figure 4.16 Results From Böckler et al.’s (2014) Experiment 1

Source: Böckler et al. (2014, figure 2).

Figure 4.17 Results From Böckler et al.’s (2014) Experiment 2

Source: Böckler et al. (2014, figure 3).

Chapter Review

Summary

· How do we define attention?

Attention can be difficult to define because it overlaps with many other cognitive processes. One proposed definition is the focus of our consciousness to the exclusion of other things.

· What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Attention has been described as a filter, a spotlight, a limited mental capacity, and as feature glue.

· How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

There are multiple methods described in this chapter. One task involves a target search to determine the ease of this task and the amount of attention it requires. Another method involves two tasks with interference on these tasks measured as someone performs them together versus separately.

· What environmental factors have been found to influence our attention abilities?

The current limits on mental resources influence our attention abilities. Arousal states can affect the capacity of our mental resources. The difficulty of a task and our interest in a task can also affect our attention abilities.

· How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Automatic processing can interfere with an attentional task, as it does in the Stroop task. However, according to Treisman’s model and Schneider and Shiffrin’s model, automatic processing can also aid in cognitive tasks by either preparing our attention or requiring less attention as tasks become more automatic.

Chapter Quiz

1. Enter the letter for the description of attention next to its corresponding definition below.

1. Spotlight model

2. Feature-integration model

3. Filter model

4. Attenuation model

§ ___ attention excludes irrelevant stimuli to allow one to focus on the relevant aspects of the environment

§ ___ attention binds aspects of a scene together to identify objects

§ ___ attention is the focus of consciousness and can be moved around in the environment

§ ___ attention reduces the strength of irrelevant stimuli in the environment

2. Not noticing a change in the environment from moment to moment is called

1. selective attention.

2. inattentional blindness.

3. attention capture.

4. visual search.

3. In Treisman and Gelade’s (1980) experiments on visual search for a target, the targets in the _____________ condition seemed to pop out of the displays.

1. single-feature

2. conjunction-feature

3. change blindness

4. color

4. In a study, subjects are asked to perform an arithmetic task while also attempting to remember lists of words for later recall. The researchers in this study compared the performance on the memory task with and without the accompanying arithmetic task to determine if the arithmetic task interferes with one’s performance on the memory task. This study used the ____________ methodology to study attention abilities.

1. visual search

2. conjunction search

3. inattentional blindness

4. dual-task

5. Describe the similar aspects in Tresiman’s feature-integration model and Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) description of attention.

6. Suppose you were a researcher who wanted to study attention capture of warning signals in aircraft that occur when pilots are focused on another task (e.g., landing a plane). Describe how you might design such a study using methodologies described in this chapter.

7. Based on the work of Daniel Simons, explain how it is possible that you did not notice that a different person was now part of your conversation in the party scene described at the beginning of the chapter.

8. Explain how tasks that initially require controlled attention can become automatic.

9. Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) experiments showed that when the targets and distractors were ___________, the task became automatic for the subjects.

1. of different types

2. of the same types

3. were all numbers

4. were all letters

Key Terms

· Automatic processing 93

· Cocktail party effect 80

· Controlled processing 93

· Dual-task method 85

· Inattentional blindness (also change blindness) 90

· Shadowing task 79

· Simon effect 91

· Stroop task 92

Stop and Think Answers

· 4.1. Attention is an important process for many cognitive tasks. Describe some ways that attention is important in the tasks you perform as a student.

Answers will vary, but some key aspects of attention involve focusing on a task, searching for an object in a scene, and having your attention captured by important things in the environment.

The attenuation model suggests that the strength of less relevant stimuli (such as background music) is reduced as it passes through the filter such that less attention is paid to it. However, information does make it through, and stimuli that have a low threshold in the dictionary unit (like the important sound of your text alert) can capture attention.

· 4.3. Can you think of other ways to describe attention processes besides the filter metaphor?

Answers will vary, but some other ideas proposed are as a spotlight of consciousness and as glue to bind features.

· 4.4. What does it mean that attention is a “limited mental resource”?

This means that our available cognitive resources for paying attention have a particular level at any given moment such that if we divide them across tasks requiring attention, performance on the tasks can suffer.

· 4.5. Can you think of situations in your own life where attempting to complete multiple tasks at once showed the limits of your attention abilities?

Answers will vary.

Because the “hands free” and handheld cell phone groups both showed equally lowered performance in the study, these results suggest that requiring hands-free phone devices will not be sufficient to keep people from having lowered driving performance while talking on a cell phone.

· 4.7. Identify some features that are likely relevant for focusing attention on a particular object (e.g., a picture, a clock) in your current environment.

Answers will vary but could be features like size, shape, or color.

· 4.8. How do the two stages of the feature-integration model of attention differ?

The first stage is an automatic processing stage that does not require attention in identifying features in a scene. The second stage is a controlled processing stage requiring attention that binds features together to allow for object identification and scene understanding.

The filter model suggests you filter out all the other people to focus on the relevant person. The spotlight model suggests you move your “spotlight” of attention around the crowd and then focus it on the relevant person once he or she is identified. The feature-integration model suggests that the features of the people in the crowd are automatically processed and you bind those features together with your attention to identify the individuals in the crowd to find the relevant person.

· 4.10. Can you think of any instances from your own life where the Simon effect impairs your performance on a task?

Answers will vary.

· 4.11. The Stroop task shows that once we have learned this skill well, reading is an automatic process. Can you think of any other cognitive processes you use that are likely automatic for you?

Answers will vary, but they will be well-practiced tasks like addition and multiplication or puzzle solving or game playing if one has a lot of experience with a particular puzzle or game (e.g., a video game).

Answers will vary.

· 4.14. In what way is a cognitive system designed to transfer tasks from controlled to automatic processing adaptive?

This is a more efficient system because more mental resources are available for controlled tasks when automatic processes take over for other tasks.

· 4.15. In what way is automaticity involved in Logan’s instance theory?

Logan suggested that after many experiences/instances with a task, the information about that task is retrieved automatically when one is placed in the task context.

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