1. overt

2. covert

looking at in peripheral

ex: party: is this guy looking at me? donmt want them to see you staring at them, but you look at them in the corner of the eye

-focus on one message and ignore all others

-we do not attend to a large fraction of information in environment

-filter out some information

one message presented on the left, one on the right

-participant shadows one message to ensure that he is attenuating to that message

-can we completely filter out message to unattended area and attend only to shadowed message?

results: participant could not report content of the message in unattended ear; but could tell gender of the speaker and  knew that there was a message.

unattended ear is being processed at some level!

"cocktail party effect"

1. Sensory memory: holds all incoming info for a fraction of a second and transfers all info to next stage

2. Filter: identifies attended message based on physical characteristics

3. Detector: focuses on the meaning, processes all info to determine 

4. STM: receives output of detector; holds info for 10-15 seconds and may transfer to LTM

sensory messages

filter

detector

STM

-filters message before incomfing information is analyzed for memory

only filters attended message

message->sensory memory -> filter attending message -> detector -> memory

doesn't explain cocktail party phenomenon

model: if focusing on something specific, how can you hear sometone say your name? model says its filtered out

early-selection theory model adjustments

attended message can be separated from unattended message early in information processing system

selection can also occur later

message -> attenuator -> dictionary -> memory

attenuator and filter are opposites

why?

attenuator: analyzes incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, meaning

attended to message is let through the attentuator at full strength

unattended message let thru weaker strength

Filter/dictionary:contains words, each of which have thresholds for being activated

-higher thresholds have less change of getting activated in attention process

-words that are important have low thresholds (like your name!)

-uncommon = high thresholds

-in attending ear, participants hear ambiguous sentences

ex: "they were throwing stones at the bank" --institution or river bank? "river" in one ear; other group heard "money"

select stimuli based on phjysical analysis

Early selection: physical char first

Late: Meaning first

cognitive capacity for carrying out tasks

ex: CPU RAM decreases with more programs open

how much of a person's cognitive resources are used to accomplish a task?

high load vs low load

uses few resources

resources for other tasks

uses almost all resources

no resources for other tasks

-Can participant focus their attention on detecting the target so that the identity of the distration will not affect their performance?

attend to target in center (BAB, CAC, XAC)

reaction time longer for incompatible distrators

participant still had resources available to process additional information

Name color of the ink for these words

names = flankers of color; harder to read

after hours of practice, participants could read and categorize dictated words

---ask participant to remember target and present series of 20 test frames and ask if the target is present

-divide attention between remembering the targetr and monitoring rapidly presented stimuli

results: increased, but at trial 600 leveled off at 85% performance

THEREFORE, there is a learning curve, but there is a point where learning stops

-rules changed from 1 trial to another

ex: trial 1-> target = p

trial 2 -> target = T

results: performance words when rules are changed. never achieve automatic processing because participants paid close attention, their score was slower and controlled

100-car naturalistic driving study

video recorders placed in cars; 82 crashes and 771 near crashes in 2 million miles of driving

-80% crashes and 67% near crashes driver not paying attention 3 seconds beforehand

risk of accident is 4 times higher with a cell phone

1. saccades: rapid movements of eyes from one place to another

2. fixation: short pause on points of interest

3. studied using eye trackers

directing attention without moving the eyes

participant responds faster to a light at an expected location than at an unexpected location even when eyes are fixed

people with autism look to mouth and side of face for facial cues

other kids look at eyes

stores info for long periods

archive of info about past events and knowledge learned 

more recent memory is more detailed

anything longer than 30 seconds = ltm

1. personal experience (what you did last summer)

2. knowledge/facts (2nd president of US)

3. how to do things/procedural (how ot drive a car)

-read list, write after

-primacy effect: memory is better for beginning stimuli

why? longer time to rehearse

episodic: involves mental time travel; self-knowing

semantic: doesnt. general knowledge

1. implicit (not conscious)

2. explicit (conscious); episodic and semantic

1. priming

2. procedural memory

3. conditioning 

implicit/non-declarative/unconscious

3 types

priming: previous experience changes response without conscious awareness (ex: reading recently viewed words)

procedural: skill memory

Conditioning: neutral stimulus elicits a response

damaged hippocampus

no episodic memory

cannot relive any events of his past

semantic memory intact

can remember general info about the past

-impaired semantic memory

-episodic memory for past events was preserved

1. repetition priming

2. conceptual priming

-patients with amnesia who were under treatment from alcoholism

-presented list of words; ask to rate on scale 1-10

-explicit memory task: recall the word

can remember more words if asked to remember implicitly

-skill memory

-no memory where/when learned

-perform procedures without being consciously aware of how to do them

-people who cannot form new ltm can still learn new skills

-parents who cannot recognize obkects also experience loss of autobiographical memory

visual experience plays a role in forming and retrieving autobio mem

participants viewerd photos they took and photos taken by someone else of same place

both types of pictures activated brain structures associated with episodic memory

also activated hippocampus

1. significant events in a person's life

2. highly emotional events

3. transition points

participants over age of 40 asked to recall all events in their lives

most events around age 20

-memory is better for recent events and events that occured in adolescence and early adulthood

1. self-image: period of assuming persons self image

2. cognitive: ecoding is better during periods of rapid change

3. cultural life script: culturally shared expectations structure recall

-memory is enhanced for events that occur as a persons self-image or life identity is formed

-people assume identity during adolescence and yound adult

-many transitions occur between 10-30 years old

-encoding of memory is better during periods of rapid change followed by stability

-those who emigrated to US after young adulthood indicates reminiscence bump has shifted

each person has a personal life story and cultural life script

personal events are asier to recall when they fit the cultural life script

(fall in love, college at 22, married at 26, kids at 28)