PSYCH 1X03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Donald Broadbent, Dazed, Empirical Measure
23 Feb 2016
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Document Summary
Attention allows you to navigate through a crowded world. Definition: it [attention] 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. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state. Selection attending to something causes the object of attention to be selected apart from the rest of the unattended objects. Stimuli in the environment can trigger your attention in an automatic fashion. Attention also refers to our conscious ability to attend to the information that is relevant to our goals. The irrelevant information in an environment act as noise can make it difficult to identify and attend to important information. Automatic processes: involuntary captures attention , fast, efficient. Controlled processes: conscious attention, slow, effortful, require more cognitive effort.
