PSY 243.3 Lecture 3: Chapter 3-Mechanisms of Attention
Document Summary
: process we use to monitor incoming event (selective, flexible, strategic) limited capacity (most subjectively salient aspect) cannot practice it. Limit in attentional capacity has adaptive characteristics: flexibility: it is pliable & dynamic, constantly shifting, voluntary control of dealing w/incoming information: direct attention willfully. Focusing on professor not gossip, trying to find your friend in a hawaiian shirt. Pre-attentive processing: occurs before focus of attention is brought to stimulus (arrive at decision before thinking in the conscious sense) Subitizing: quick effortless (pre-attentive) enumeration of a small # of objects (3 dogs) 1-4: rt from 1-4 no diff, showing no attention-free processing. Pattern recognition: match observed configuration w/stored info in memory. 1-4 sort themselves in lines, squares, etc (recognizable) Canonical pattern: allows for higher numbers to be recognised. Post-attentive processes: occurs once attention has been focussed on stimulus. Ie) counting 5 cats, exerting mental effort: counting four and up shows longer rt for higher the #(attentional processing)
