Figure 8.

1 We simply cannot read the left-hand and right-hand sentences at the same time

Two sentences cannot be read and understood at the

same timeregardless of the size of the letters.

While focusing on the center Xs it is possible to read one

sentence but not both simultaneously..

Figure 8.2 Search for the raised hand in this piece of a Wheres Waldo? picture

Wheres Waldo?

Notice that it is impossible to process the entire scene at full capacity all at once.
The restriction of your processing of the scene to a particular location at a particular time, is attention.

What does it mean to pay attention?

Posner Cueing Paradigm:
fixate on central asterisk;
after a time, a test probe appears in one of the two boxes.
Task is to press correct response key.
Reaction time (RT): A measure of the time from the onset of a
stimulus to a response.

Variation of the Posner Cueing Paradigm:

During the waiting period, a peripheral cue appears (red outline)
that provides a hint about where the target might appear.
If the cue is valid (correctly shows where the target will be), RT
decreases. Response is faster because subject is paying attention
to the cued location.

A different kind of cue: symbolic cue

Arrow used to direct attention.
This time, however, the cue is misleading.
The invalid cue directs to the right, but the target appears on the left.
RT is slower than the control condition because subject is fooled
into paying attention to the wrong location.
Valid or invalid cues
can be symbolic or
peripheral.
Experimenter does
not tell subject
whether or not the
cue will be valid.
But if cue is valid
more often than not,
it pays to pay
attention to it so it is
possible to measure
RT of invalid cues.

Symbolic cues take longer to work.

Probably because we need to do some work to interpret the arrow (the change
in the outline color of the box is more obvious).
Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA): delay between the cue and the probe.
For example, the delay between the red box and the red dot.
If the delay between the red box and the red dot is zero msec, there is no
benefit (the RT does not decrease).
But if the delay is 60 msec, the peripheral cue leads to a 10 msec earlier
response.
Symbolic cues require more asynchrony (150 msec) to yield the same 10
msec benefit.

peripheral cue

Attentional cueing:
http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe4e/wa07.01.html

symbolic cue

Reaction time (RT): A measure of the time from the

onset of a stimulus to a response.
Cue: A stimulus that might indicate where (or what) a
subsequent stimulus will be.
Cues can be valid (correct information) or invalid
(incorrect).
RTs are shorter on valid cue trials
RTs are longer on invalid cue trials
Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA): The time between
the onset of one stimulus and the onset of another.

Cueing experiments are somewhat artificial: subject is

told where and when to attend.
More like real world:
Visual search: Looking for a target in a display
containing distracting elements.
Examples: Finding your car in a parking lot or a
friend in a crowd.
Target: The goal of a visual search.
Distractor: In visual search, any stimulus other than the
target.
Set size: The number of items in a visual search display.

Feature search. These searches are very efficient and typically have slopes of about 0 ms/item .

Target and distractors have only one feature in common.

Target: The red vertical.
Distractor: The blue verticals.
Set size: Five.
Target: The red vertical.
Distractor: The red horizontals.
Set size: Ten.
Target: The red vertical.
Distractor: The blue verticals.
Set size: Fifteen.
Increasing set size does not
change reaction time
whether or not correct
target is present.
Set size

http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe4e/wa07.02.html

Conjunction search. These searches are moderately efficient and have modest slopes.

A search for a target defined by the presence of two or more attributes. No

single feature defines the target (here: red and vertical).
Target: The red vertical.
Distractors: The blue verticals and red horizontals.
Set size: Five.
Target: The red vertical.
Distractors: The blue verticals and red horizontals.
Set size: Ten.
Target: The red vertical.
Distractors: The blue verticals and red horizontals.
Set size: Fifteen.
Increasing set size increases
reaction time. Slope of line is
greater when target item is not
present.
http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe4e/wa07.02.html

Finding the target requires detecting the correct spatial

configuration of a horizontal and vertical line (the letter T
among Ls in this case). These searches are very
inefficient and have high slopes.

One target, four distractors (Set size: Five).

One target, seven distractors (Set size: Eight).

One target, twelve distractors (Set size: Thirteen).

Increasing set size increases
reaction time. Slope of line is
greater when target item is not
present.

Serial search: must look at each, one at a time

Targets are red vertical bars
(there are two).
Difficult to find because all of the
items have the same features:
Red, blue, vertical, and
horizontal.
Finding the target requires
correctly binding the features
together (redness and
verticalness).

http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe4e/wa07.02.html

Many searches are inefficient

Serial self-terminating search: A search from item
to item, ending when a target is found.
Need to refer back to the target each time.

For non-Chinese reading people,

searching for the character grace
among distractors probably
requires a serial self-terminating
search.

Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP): An

experimental procedure in which stimuli appear in a
stream at one location (typically the point of fixation) at
a rapid rate (typically about eight per second).
RSVP is used to study the temporal dynamics of
visual attention.

Attentional blink: The difficulty in perceiving and

responding to the second of two target stimuli amid a
RSVP stream of distracting stimuli.
Task is to report two targets: the white
letter (L) and the X.
The second target (X) is often missed if
it appears between 200 to 500 ms of the
first target. But surprisingly, if the X
immediately follows the white letter
(position 1) it is more often seen.

Likelihood of seeing the X is higher if it is presented

immediately after the white letter (Position 1) than if it is
presented later (position 2). Video game players are good
at this task.

Metaphor to explain attentional blink:

Stuff floats by you in a river, you scoop out a fish (F1)
but miss the second fish (F2) because you cant get the net
empty fast enough to scoop it too.

If fish swim by fast enough you can get them both in the same scoop (explains
why the X can be seen if it immediately follows the white letter).

Attentional blink:
http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe4e/wa07.04.html

Repetition blindness: A failure to detect the second

occurrence of a letter, word, or picture in a RSVP
stream of stimuli.
The second occurrence is often missed when it
appears within 200 to 500 ms of the first
occurrence.
This phenomenon is similar to the attentional blink
but involves the inability to detect the same target
if it appears twice.
Repetition blindness:
http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe4e/wa07.04.html

The Physiological Basis of Attention

How do cells change their properties when paying
attention?
Three ways responses of a cell could be changed by
attention:
1. Response enhancement

Suppose a cell responds best to a vertical line and less well to lines of different orientation.
Attention could increase the responsiveness of the cell to all orientations.

2. Sharper tuning

Attention could narrow the range of stimuli that cause the cell to respond.
The level of response to the preferred stimulus doesnt change but it responds
less well to non-ideal stimuli.

3. Altered tuning

Attention could change the preference of the neuron.

Initially the response was highest for a vertical bar
but after attending, the cell prefers a different orientation.

Visual field defect: A portion of the visual field with no

vision or with abnormal vision, typically resulting from
damage to the visual nervous system.

Examples:
Damage to left
primary visual
cortex yields
blindness in the
right visual
field.

But damage to the parietal

lobe can yield a visual field
defect such that one side
of the world is not
attended to (attention
deficit, not blindness).

Disorders of Visual Attention

Neglect: In visual attention, the inability to attend to or
respond to stimuli in the contralesional visual field.
Typically, neglect of the left visual field after
damage to the right parietal lobe.
Contralesional field: The visual field on the side
opposite a brain lesion.
For example, points to the left of fixation are
contralesional to damage to the right hemisphere
of the brain.
Ipsilesional field: The visual field on the same side as a
brain lesion.

A neglect patient would produce this sort of result if asked to cross out all the lines
on the page.
Or copy a drawing of a house
A neglect patient might just eat the food on one side of his plate or just shave half
his face.

Attention can be object-based

Evidence from neglect patients indicates that they
sometimes neglect one side of an object rather
than one side of the visual field.

Neglect patients did not see the left side of this barbell.
But when the barbell was rotated while he was looking at
it, he neglected it on the right side.
Clearly he has vision on both sides but ignores one side.
The neglect was object based, not location based.

Change blindness: The failure to notice a change

between two scenes.
If the change does not alter the gist, or meaning, of
the scene, quite large changes can pass
unnoticed.

Demonstrates that we dont encode and remember

as much of the world as we might think we do.

http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe4e/wa07.05.html