Attention II

Selective Attention Again

Announcement
HW2 scores ready by today
Exam 1 scores available next

Mon
Quiz this Friday

Selection
We cannot attend to everything
Gorillas, peripheral vision, etc

We DO change what we attend to

Dual-tasking, visual search

How do we make these

decisions?
Early vs. late theories of selection

Overview
What is attention for?
Theories of limited processing capacity
Early and late selection theories

In what way is capacity limited?

Parallel processing in the visual system

Why select if capacity is large?

Competition and coordination in the brain

Overview
What is attention for?
Theories of limited processing capacity
Early and late selection theories

In what way is capacity limited?

Parallel processing in the visual system

Why select if capacity is large?

Competition and coordination in the brain

What is attention for?

Attention implies selection
Process some info at expense of others
Selection implies limitation
If we can process more, why dont we?
Where is the limitation?
When and where does selection happen?
What happens to unattended info?

The debate
Early/late debate makes
Early
assumptions:
selection:
bottleneck

Late
selection:
bottleneck

Higher
P
Semantic
processing
e
processing
r
Action
Identity
Memory
Meaning
c
Awareness
Associations
e
p
Assumptions
t about processing
u
Linear sequence
(bottom-up processing)
a
Limited capacity
l
p

Early or late selection

Early
selection

Late
selection

Input
(perception)

Output
(action/memory)

When is
selection?

Early: using
simple features

Late: based on
meaning

Process w/o
attention?

No, only simple

features

Yes, including
meaning

Where is the
limitation?

Broadbents ES theory
Sensory store: Analyze all
features

Broadbents ES theory
Attention Bottleneck: only most
important

Dichotic listening
Cherry (1953); Broadbent

(1958)

cognitive psychology is so interesting because

hello
and
erotsthen
hello
eht he
othello
tnew
went
hello
eh
to
the
neht
hello
store
dna
Liebe
leute
macht
etwas
draus

cognitive psychology is
so, uh, interesting

Visual selection
Effective selection by color
Rock & Gutman (1981)

Stage 1
How much do you like the
red picture

Stage 2
Surprise memory test
Red items: Good memory
Green items: No memory

No processing outside attention?

Visual selection
After-effects on unattended items
Tipper (1985)
On one trial

On the next
Response not
previously ignored

Response was
previously ignored

no effect of the
dog picture

negative

slow response

Dichotic listening
Treisman (1960)
Put socks on before meat barn level beer pizza

store eat you put on your shoes

Put socks on before you

put on your shoes

Dichotic listening
Corteen & Wood (1972)
E.g. computer island elephant Seattle
cognitive psychology is so interesting because

dog chair CHICAGO sleep

cognitive psychology is
so OUCH! interesting

Evidence from ERPs

Attention effects within 100 ms
Eason et al. (1969); van Voorhis & Hillyard (1977)

Attend
left

Evidence from fMRI

Attention effects in thalamus (LGN)
OConnor et al. (2002)

Attended
Unattended

Processing outside attention

Brain activity to unattended

events

Are both theories wrong?

Selection happens early
No full processing of all info
How can selection use meaning?
Selection isnt complete
More than just simple features processed
How is capacity saved?

Overview
What is attention for?
Theories of limited processing capacity
Early and late selection theories

In what way is capacity limited?

Parallel processing in the visual system

Why select if capacity is large?

Competition and coordination in the brain

Does the debate make sense?

Early/late debate makes

assumptions:
Perceptual

Semantic
processing

Higher
processing

processing

Identity
Meaning
Associations

Action
Memory
Awareness

Brightness
Color
Location

Assumptions about processing

Linear sequence (bottom-up processing)
Limited capacity

A view from the brain

Parallel processing
What vs. where
Top-down effects
Not just bottom-up

van Essen et al. (1992)

Revisit assumptions:
What is early? What
is late?
Where is capacity
limited?

Parallel processing: Why select?

The problem of coordination
Activity in multiple brain regions
Parallel, interactive organization
Selection for action
Which stimuli should be acted upon?
The binding problem
Which stimulus features go together?

The Binding Problem

Overview
What is attention for?
Theories of limited processing capacity
Early and late selection theories

In what way is capacity limited?

Parallel processing in the visual system

Why select if capacity is large?

Competition and coordination in the brain

Coordination in the brain

Where system
Left

Retinal

small object

Right

image
V1

small object

What system
Colors

Instruction
What is the
color of lefthand object?

red + green

Shapes
triangle + circle

RED!

Coordination in the brain

Where system
Left

Retinal
image

small object

V1

Right
small object

What system
Colors

Instruction
What is the
shape of the
red object?

red + green

Shapes
triangle + circle

Selection by biasing local

competition

Triangle!

Biased competition theory

Competition among features/objects
Competition within brain regions
Biases from other brain areas
Coordination across brain regions

Early selection: processing in V1

Late selection: processing outside
attention

Summary
What is attention for?
Classic view: limited processing capacity
In what way is capacity limited?
Parallel processing in the visual system
Large capacity, but need to coordinate

Why select if capacity is large?

Competition within brain regions
Coordination across brain regions

Next time
Attentional neglect