corritore, 7341 ITM 734 Human Factors in Information Systems Ch. 4 & 5: Attention & Short Term Memory Fall 2005 Cindy Corritore, Ph.D. Creighton University

C.L. Corritore2 attention examples  driving a car -must attend to some stimuli, ignore others  listening to this lecture - attend to slides and words, ignore other students, physical plant noises

C.L. Corritore3 Broadbent filter theory of attention just comes in – filter out 1 msg, this attended one is processed, rest is lost  limited capacity to process simplistic contribution  first one to suggest there are a series of processes : theory of information processing system sensory register > selective filter > STM

C.L. Corritore4 focused auditory attention reality: do some processing of unattended messages we differentiate between auditory messages using physical characteristics (ie. gender of voice)

C.L. Corritore5 focused visual attention flexible can focus it endogenous vs exogenous  process without conscious notice – automatic shift of attention – more peripheral (exogenous)  process when person’s intentions control (central cues) (endogenous) unattended processed but less than attended

C.L. Corritore6 visual attention theories spotlight vs. zoom lens  both correct in part, likely zoom is more appropriate (zoom focus in on what’s imp) how attention works  overall gestalt (salient features), focus down on objects and components  affected by experience (bananas yellow)

C.L. Corritore7 visual search theories feature integration  get overall gestalt in parallel (objects all processed together)  serial process of object feature analysis  involves focus and experience guided search  overall gestalt guided by intentions (what looking for)  attention then directed towards objects that have high importance (activation level)

C.L. Corritore8 divided attention doing two things at once affected by  task similarity – similar how?  practice (experience) - automaticity  task difficulty – require more resources than are available? what happens: interference

C.L. Corritore9 divided attention theories central executive (Kahneman) - limited capacity/resource  can do two things at once if don’t exceed resource assumptions  high arousal increases capacity to a point  allocation policy decides on available capacity  enduring disposition (eg. novel, fleeting)  intentions  if can finish one task completely if use all resource  level of arousal - narrows attentional focus so increase effort increases capacity to a point perhaps no central executive? – instead many subsystems doesn’t explain why …

C.L. Corritore10 divided attention theories bottleneck – processing bottleneck  do two tasks serially with a short refractory period between them  some support for this although not globally true multiple resources – possess pools of resources for multiple stages of processing attention  different tasks can be using different resources (at different stages)  potential to multi-task - depends on task similarity, automaticity, difficulty (drain on resources)

C.L. Corritore11 automaticity dramatic improvement with practice characteristics  prolonged exposure  occurs without intention, conscious awareness/monitoring – always invoked  fast  does not interfere with other cognitive activities  can have processes acting in parallel not at conscious level  hard to remove or change  no processing - just how to react to a stimulus

C.L. Corritore12 automatic processing theories controlled processes – require attention, serial processing  slower  see with varied mapping (ie. not consistent) automatic processes – fast  parallel  see with consistent mapping

C.L. Corritore13 automatic processing theories instance – automaticity is memory retrieval - each time do something, richness of associated memory increases  better recall, faster recall until automatic  like a past solution is stored that can be activated schema’s – organised plans of action  have contention scheduler (selects best automatic response based on context)  have supervisor (makes decisions and troubleshoots, develops new schemas)

C.L. Corritore14 automaticity examples Stroop effect (automaticity, divided attention, interference)  a/ready.html a/ready.html OK window for file delete - confirms Delete not the file

C.L. Corritore15 action slips activate wrong schema Norman discusses 6 types of slips - a result of different kinds of automaticity errors  we will talk about these (he has 6 of these) in Ch. 5

C.L. Corritore16 memory types sensory memory short-term memory long-term memory

C.L. Corritore17 sensory memory/store (multi-store theory) buffers for incoming data via senses different one for each sense types  iconic store – visual store; fades rapidly – can operate on this store  echonic store – auditory store - short-lived and space-constrained persistence (fireworks in vision after the fact) some processing even if not attended

C.L. Corritore18 short term memory (multi-store theory) selective attention (or else overwhelmed) cocktail party phenomenae? input from sensory to here via attention

C.L. Corritore19 STM characteristics quick access and quick decay (volatile) limited in size  chunking (experts vs. novices) - phone number   closure - finish something (less errors) - clear out STM forgetting  time decay?  interference with new items? (eg. similarity)  attention moves off item?

C.L. Corritore20 STM characteristics recency - last few items in list recalled better than middle - holding most recent items in STM  negate with interference?  visual and auditory channel - no interference if different channel primacy - first few items in list recalled better than middle (more rehearsal)

C.L. Corritore21 STM multistore theory STM gateway to sensory and LTM  no – eg. conversation direct to LTM oversimplified  STM is not unitary – nor is LTM role of rehearsal exaggerated  lots in LTM that is not rehearsed (eg. snapshot of a birthday celebration)

C.L. Corritore22 STM working memory theory all components have limited capacity, temporary storage central executive (attentional)  controls time-sharing of resources  retrieves relevant plans  directs selective attention  temporary activates LTM as needed  likely not unitary

C.L. Corritore23 STM working memory theory loops (scratchpads)  phonological & articulatory – storage of spoken enters here, passive store for perception, articulatory process for production  indirect access thru subvocalization (articulatory)  for learning new words  visiospatial – storage of spatial and visual info (form, color, movement, spatial data)  visual cache (form and color)  scribe (spatial and movement; rehearses info from cache)

C.L. Corritore24 levels of processing and retrieval retrieval from LTM dependant on processing that occurs at time of learning  important:  level or depth of processing – shallow vs. depth perceptual analysis  distinctiveness of the processing  amount (elaboration) of processing  deeper levels of processing produce more elaborate, stronger memory traces  differentiate elaborate vs. maintenance rehearsal – elaborate far greater recall success

C.L. Corritore25 a bit about learning implicit learning - done without thought  language  ride a horse can’t articulate what you are doing  expertise characteristics  robust (ie fault-tolerant)  age & IQ independent  low variability between people  common to a species  different than explicit - may start with explicit, then implicit strengthens, explicit recedes and get automaticity