PSYB51H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Visual Search, Search Theory, Mental Chronometry
Document Summary
Attention is needed to be able to perceive certain things. It is unclear but we have theories for this answer. Selective attention is 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 or responsiveness. Why we need attention: bottlenecks: we must bottleneck because it is impossible to process everything at once. There are sensory, cognitive and motor bottle becks. Sensory: we can only take in so many details. Cognitive: our working memory is very limited. Motor: we do not have more than two arms because we bottlenecked in motor functions in order to keep brain within healthy/adapted/optimal functioning. / how is it useful: there is information in the world that tells us if something is important. If something is salient, it is probably more important and therefore helps us put things into order.
