PSYB51H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Fusiform Face Area, Visual Search, Gestalt Psychology
Document Summary
Week 7 june 26 th , 2015. Selective attention: a cognitive brain mechanism that enables one to process relevant inputs, thoughts, or actions while ignoring others that are less important, irrelevant or distracting. Arousal: a global state of the brain reflecting an overall level of responsiveness: degree to which you"re active and awake, e. g. , studying all night for the midterm then falling asleep during a lecture (not because it"s boring). Nonlinear relationship between attention and arousal however, they do go in tandem: examples: You are tired, so you drink coffee, which increases arousal for the exam. You drink too much coffee leading to an arousal state too high for the exam in which everything is vivid and salient so focusing on one thing is difficult. Bottlenecks: it is impossible to process everything at once: several bottlenecks in human processing: E. g. , where"s waldo, for both sensory and cognitive bottlenecks. Can"t do various tasks all at the same time (need for prioritization)
