PSY270H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Donald Broadbent, Sensory Memory, Cognitive Load
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Attention: process of concentrating mental effort on sensory or mental events. Attention acts like bottleneck, only lets some information through. People are good at paying attention to message in one ear only i. e. good at selective attention. But noticed sensory information in unattended ear. Did not notice meaning of message in unattended ear, unless message was brief. Input sensory memory filter detector ltm. Problems: people are aware of own name (cocktail party phenomenon) in unattended ear. Participants follow a meaningful message in unattended ear. Input temporary storage attenuator + volume control dictionary unit memory. Attended signal is stronger than other stimuli but. Fixed amount of attentional resources to use for mental work. Flanker compatibility task: demonstrates attention spill over with low load tasks. Controlled: requires attention, slow, serial, under conscious control. Automatic: no attention required, fast, parallel, cannot be modified once started. Cowan: can attend to 4+/- 1 items at a time.
