PSY280H1 Lecture 6: Attention and Scene Perception

• School: UTSG
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY280H1
• Professor: Michael Mack

Document Summary

Attention - a large set of selective processes in the brain that can: Make us more (or less) sensitive to stimulation. Impossible to handle all sensory inputs at once. Nervous system has evolved mechanisms to restrict processing to a subset of things, places, ideas, or moments. Selective: processing restricted to a subset of possible stimuli. Divided: splitting attention between two different stimuli. External: attending to stimuli in the world. Internal: attention to one line of thought over another or selecting one response over another. Overt: directing a sense organ toward a stimulus, like pointing your eyes or turning your head (also called exogenous) Covert: attending without giving an outward sign you are doing so (also called endogenous) Things you know (your own decisions, biases, knowledge, etc) Things you see (which items are most salient, unique, etc) Reaction time: measure of the time from the onset of a stimulus to a response.