PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cognitive Load, Spaced, Active Listening

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Paul Wehr

Document Summary

Focusing awareness on a narrow range of stimuli. Filters out irrelevant stimuli (e. g, players in black shirts). High cognitive load moves the filter forward: only information that is attended to can be remembered. Dividing attention during a task leads to impaired memory (e. g. , word frequency in a conversation). We guide our attention to the important things. The filter is in the recognition it may be in the beginning. Filter is dynamic and may go back and forth. Lots of people taking, the other conversation becomes a hum, you can identify your name through the hum. Cognitive load determines how busy you are at the time (filter is closer to the end when low cl and at the beginning when high - you may not notice) Only info that is filtered can be remembered. Competing task, so you won"t remember, you would do better if you don"t multitask. It"s selective, and details are excluded, altered, and added.