PSY493H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Cocktail Party, Stroop Effect, N170
Document Summary
It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. When does the mental spotlight shine to identify what is important and what is not: a common sense approach to thinking about the bottleneck of attention, lots of senses -> sight, sound, touch, etc. Argues that we get rid of stuff without even processing it first. Where/when is the information processing limit implemented: we"re being constantly bombarded by all pieces of information. Complex from a cognitive standpoint: filter needs to know what your focus is. Looking to erps (eeg) for help to study attentional processing. P1: earliest positive (p) erp component (1); occurs ~100ms post-stimulus; appears to be evoked by visual processing and to originate from extrastriate cortex. About 1/10th of a second to go from your eye to occipital cortex.
