Essay about Theories of Visual and Auditory Attention

Attention is thought to be selective-focused on one subject at a time. Traditionally, it has been assumed that automatic processing is involuntary, it does not require attention, and is relatively fast; whereas, controlled processing is voluntary, does require attention, and is relatively slow. We can conclude from this that the more we repeat a certain material or tasks the more it becomes automatic and effortless to us.

1.) In your opinion, is wundt’s finding that we cannot attend to more than one stimulus at a time still valid in today’s world of constant exposure to multimedia experiences? Why? Why not?

Visual attention is the collective title given to the cognitive mechanisms that allow us to attend some visual stimuli over others, improving processing efficiency (McMains & Kastner, 2009). Here only covert visual attention, i.e. attention without head or eye-movement, will be considered. This is appropriate, since it seems that the primary purpose of eye-movements is to enhance visual acuity (Posner, 1980, p.9), which is not necessary for simple target detection required by the present study. There is a debate concerning the type of information that covert visual attention operates on, specifically if attention is deployed to specific areas in space or to perceptual objects.

To begin, the first experiment explained involves Princeton University’s neuroscientist Uri Hasson and his team audio-recording a personal prom experience of a woman, scanning her brain activity, then playing the recording for multiple people, and lastly recording their brain activity. The point of this experiment is to prove the connection of brains through conversation, or the synchrony of brains and the mirrored brain activity that is termed “neural coupling.” As expected, Hasson observed that the “brains lit up in synchrony with each other, [and] matched in both space and time” when the subject was told to recount the story (Fredrickson 111). Fredrickson later concludes that the “brain coupling that would emerge in real time if one were to have a conversation with this particular woman would be far more extensive” (Fredrickson 111). This conclusion is flaws as assumptions are made that this “would” happen.

While reading chapter 6, Visual Attention, continued my journey of perception into the “real world” by focusing on the idea that we don’t just passively sit there as stimuli create images of objects or scenes in our eyes. Instead, we direct our attention toward specific objects or locations within a scene and ignore other objects or locations. This process of focusing on specific objects while ignoring others is the process of attention. When we direct our attention to a picture or object, it automatically goes to what stands out. For example, Figure 6.3, my attention is automatically drawn to the guy in the red shirt because he stands out against the background of the crowd.

In the paper, The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information, George A. Miller points out the correlations between neural processing to recognize previously shown information and the amount of information that can actually be remembered. He presents several experiments done with unidimensional stimuli, where there is only one stimuli, and multidimensional stimuli, where there are more than one. In the first experiments talked about, only one sensory process was tested. For example, Pollack’s experiment tested the auditory sense and the ability to differentiate between pitches. Other experiments were recognized that included the other senses, taste and sight, and all the responses varied around the number six. After around six correct responses,

Early studies have widely researched attention with selective processing (Driver, 2001). Broadbent (1958) filter theory of attention states that certain information does not require focal attention. It is based on certain stimulus attributes such as colour and shape (Friedenberg, 2012). A previous study carried out by Treisman and Schmidt (1982) proposes that when attention is diverted from a display of several figures, the participants incorrectly combine the features of colour and shape therefore increases the illusory conjunctions portrayed by the participants (Tsal, 1989). Another study by Shaw (1978) found that reaction time of participant to identify targets varied with the probability that a target would appear in a particular display location. These results indicate that different amounts of attention towards the targets are distributed to different positions in the visual field. However, Houck and Hoffman (1986) found that the feature integration of colour and orientation can sometimes be accomplished without attention (James et al.,

During development, the temporal lobe is most responsible for responding to auditory (hearing) information, however for those who cannot hear, this section was used for a different sense (Mareschal et al, 2004). This shows that the temporal lobe in the brain, although genetically made to hear, had used the child’s sensory experience to become prominently involved with visual processing, or in other words, adapted to the environment that the child was in. If the brain was already made for development and not influenced by the outside world and environment, it would seem to be nearly impossible for a hearing part of the brain to adapt to only visual processing.

Auditory selective attention modulates the cortical responses. Because of the corticofugal feedback from the auditory cortex to the brainstem level, the brainstem responses are affected by higher order mechanisms. Auditory selective attention increases selectivity and shifts the responses to the target sound. In this study in order to evaluate selectivity at the brainstem level during auditory selective attention, the cross-phasogram method was used. The responses were obtained in 15 normal hearing subjects. In this study, the cross-phasogram method was applied to the brainstem responses to the diotically-presented /ba/ and /da/ stimuli. Then it was applied to the brainstem responses to the dichotically-presented /ba/ and /da/ stimuli while

The article by Avital-Cohen and Tsal (2016) discussed the flanker task experiment, which asserted that distractor interference happens unconsciously as a result of focused attention toward the target. The results from the original flanker task indicated that participants had slower responses for incongruent trials, since the distractors are inconsistent with the target and would require a different response (Avital-Cohen & Tsal, 2016). However, Avital-Cohen and Tsal (2016) questioned the findings from the flanker task experiment. They decided to challenge the idea that only the target stimuli receives top-down processing, and not the distractors (Avital-Cohen & Tsal, 2016). The first experiment aimed to test whether the distractor interference is purely bottom-up processing as claimed in the flanker task. The experiment manipulated participants’ expectations of the target using the context effect - a type of top-down processing - by changing the distractors to be either letters or digits (Psych 240 lecture, 9/21/16). Then, the researchers conducted a second experiment and eliminated the ambiguity of distractors. They wanted to test whether the result from experiment 1 was caused by an overall bias or the ambiguous distractors. In experiment 2, the researchers predicted that they would obtain similar results to the first experiment only if the results were due to an overall bias effect (Avital-Cohen & Tsal, 2016). This study allows us to deepen our understanding of available

This definition emphasises how attention is thought of as a selective process. It seems clear from common sense that we cannot attend to all stimuli at once, so some kind of selection must take place as to what information we attend to and process further, and what is disregarded.

A study conducted by MIT neuroscientists, reveals how the brain achieves separate types of focused attention on faces, objects, or locations. The attention that focuses on the occurrence of a particular location, can be known as spatial attention. However, the attention that focuses on a particular object (rather than a location) within a scene, is known as object based attention. Spatial attention is based on the particular location in the visual world, unlike object based attention, which serves as the sought out observation of a particular object. In other words, if l was to lose my toothbrush, I would focus my spatial attention towards the bathroom, in contrast to my object based attention, which is seeking out the actual toothbrush. In

Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) offer a model in which all stimuli are fully analysed, with the most significant message determining the response (Eyesnck, 2010). This theory proposes a bottleneck, as the filter is placed closer to the response end of the processing system. This model is recognized as a late-selection model (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963). The Deutsch and Deutsch model was later modified by Norman (1968) who alleges that sensory inputs are processed routinely and instinctively before we consciously know about them. Norman suggests that no signal is filtered out but all are processed to the point of activating the stored

There are several theories that can help explain attention, as well as the potential difficulties that existed, which relate more specifically to the issues that the pupil demonstrated. For example, Broadbent’s Filter Model (1958) has been recognized as an important contribution to understanding information processing, and its role in

Wilson describes the first claim; “While a cognitive process is being carried out, perceptual information continues to come in that affects processing, and motor activity is executed