Cognitive Psychology PSYC231 Attention 1 Dr. Jan Lauwereyns, EA619, ext. 5042

Too much information – How do we select what’s relevant? Bottleneck metaphor

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Early selection: before pattern recognition Late selection: after pattern recognition

Example of Early Selection Model: Donald Broadbent’s Filter

Properties: 1. Selection (filtering) is based on physical properties of the stimulus (e.g., pitch, loudness, etc...). 2. Attention is directed to information that passes the filter or to physically salient information that leads to a shift in attention. 3. Only one input channel can be processed at a time. It takes time to shift attention. But: Dear 7 Jane vs. 9 Aunt 6

Figure 4.5 (p.105 ) In Gray and Weddebum’s (1960) “Dear Aunt Jane” experiment, the message “Dear Aunt Jane” starts in the left ear, jumps to the right ear and then goes back to the left. Participants were told to shadow the message presented to the left ear.

Example of Early Selection Model: Anne Treisman’s Attenuation

Examples of Late Selection Model: Norman, (MacKay,) Deutsch & Deutsch

Electrophysiological evidence for evidence of early effects of attention