Consciousness And Attention Fixation refers to the brief moment when your eyes

stop moving and focus on a specific point, such as a

Consciousness is our awareness of everything
face.
happening around us and inside our minds (our
thoughts, emotions, and perceptions). Saccadic Eye Movement- a rapid, jerky movement
from one fixation to the next.
Attention as information processing
Overt Attention- shifting attention from one place
Models of Attention:
to another by moving the eyes.
Broadbent’s Filter Model
Treisman’s Attenuation Model Scanning based on stimulus Salience
Late Selection Model
Stimulus Salience- the physical properties of the
stimulus, such as color, contrast, or movement. ( Ex.
Picture of a crowd with one person wearing red
shirt)
Broadbent’s Filter Model (1958)
- Broadbent proposed that attention works like a filter Saliency map
that allows only one important message to go through
Scanning based on cognitive factors
while blocking out everything else.
Scene Schemas- an observer’s knowledge about
what is contained in typical scenes.

Treisman’s Attenuation Model (1964)

- Treisman (1964) agreed that attention filters
information but argued that unimportant details aren’t
completely blocked—they are just weakened. Scanning based on task demands
“Just in time”
strategy- eye
movements occur
just before we need
the information they
Late Selection Model (1963)
will provide.
- It suggest that all incoming information is processed
for meaning, but only the most relevant details enter
our conscious awareness.
Outcomes of attention
If attention allows us to filter out distractions, does that
mean we can focus on everything if we try hard enough? Covert Attention- shifting attention while keeping
the eyes still.
Processing capacity
- suggests that we have a limited amount of brain power Attention improves our ability to respond to a
to handle information at any given time. location
- refers to how hard or easy a task is. Tasks that are easy
or well- practiced require less brain power, while tasks Posner used a procedure
that are difficult require more. called precueing.

Directing attention by scanning a scene

• Attention, according to William James, involves
“withdrawing from some things in order to
effectively deal with others.” Attention improves our ability to respond to
objects
Scanning a scene with eye movements
Same-object Advantage- The faster responding
Central vision is the area you are looking at.
that occurs when enhancement object .spreads
Peripheral vision is everything off to the side. within an
 Attention affects Perception Distractions by the internet
In clear and vivid form suggests that attending to • Have many effect on many other aspects of
an object makes it more clear and vivid; that is, behavior.
attention affects perception. • ex: The study shows 92% of college students
use their phone during class and students
Attention affects Physiological Responding
average less than 6min of focused study
Attention to Locations Increases Activity in before getting distracted.
Specific Areas of the Brain • constant phone checking can become an
addiction.
Attention Changes the Representation of Objects
Across the Cortex If we fail to attend a stimulus, several things canhappen,
depending on the nature of the stimulus and
Attentional Warping- the map of categories on the the context.
brain changes so more space is allotted to
categories that are being searched for. Inattentional blindness- a well documented
phenomenon, demonstrate that we can completely
Divided Attention: Can We Attend to More miss or events if our attention is focused elsewhere.
Than One Thing at a Time?
Example: the "Gorilla Experiment"
Divided attention is when we try to focus on more
Attention plays a vital role in binding together
than one task at the same time.
different features of our environment into a
Walter schneider & Richard Shiffrin (1977) coherent whole. Without attention, we might
experience a fragmented and disjointed world, a
Divided Attention between remembering target
cacophony of unrelated sensory inputs.
and monitoring stimuli.
Several theories attempt to address this problem,
including feature integration theory (FIT), in which
proposes that attention is necessary to bind
feature.
Broadbent’s Filter Theory (1958)
55% of accuracy, but after hundreds of trials it
becomes 90% of accuracy. • Attention acts as a filter, allowing only selected
information through.
Distractions - Things that direct our attention away
• Unattended stimuli are blocked before meaning
from something we are doing
is assigned.
Ex: Hard Driving & Easy Driving • Explains why we can focus on one conversation
in a noisy room.
The 100- Naturalistic Driving Study
Treisman’s Attenuation Model (1964)
• They recorded drivers for over 2M miles.
They found that 80% of Crashes and 67% of • Unattended information is weakened, not
near crashes. blocked.
• The driver was distracted just 3sec. before. • Some important stimuli (like our name) can still
• Common Distractions: Eating, Sorting papers be noticed.
and using of cellphones • Explains how background stimuli sometimes
capture attention
Texting while driving
Deutsch & Deutsch’s Late Selection Theory (1963)
• A study found that truck drivers who texted
were 23 time more likely to crash or nearly • All stimuli are processed for meaning before
crash attention selects what enters consciousness.
• 27% adults admit to texting while driving • Explains how background information
influences behavior.
In-car Distractions
• Supports evidence of subconscious processing.
• A study found that system in cars like apps,
voice activated system and more can be even
more disctracting than cellphones.
 Kahneman’s Capacity Model (1973) The Prototype Approach: Finding the Average
Case
• Attention is a cognitive resource with limited
capacity. Prototype approach to categorization,
• More demanding tasks require more attention. membership in a category is determined by
• Multitasking is limited by available attention comparing the object to a prototype that
resources. represents the category. A prototype is a “typical”
member of the category.

Feature Integration Theory (Treisman & Gelade, 1980) Rosch describes these variations within categories
Perception occurs in two stages: as representing differences in typicality.
1. Preattentive stage: Features are processed
separately. High typicality means that a category member
2. Focused attention stage: Features combine into a closely resembles the category prototype (it is like
whole object. a “typical” member of the category).
Explains why attention is needed for complex object
recognition. Low typicality means that the category member
does not closely resemble a typical member of the
Studies related to cognition category.
Selective Attention (Broadbent, 1958) - This theory
suggests that our brain filters out unnecessary Rosch and Mervis found a strong relationship
information and focuses only on what is important. between family resemblance and prototypicality.
Connection between prototypicality and family
Change Blindness (Simons & Levin, 1997) – This resemblance also influences behavior in
categorization.
theory suggests that our brain filters out
unnecessary information and focuses only on what Statements About Prototypical Objects Are
is important. Verified Rapidly

2nd TOPIC Edward Smith and coworkers (1974) used a

procedure called the sentence verification
What is conceptual knowledge? technique to determine how rapidly people could
answer questions about an object’s category. •
Knowledge that enables us to recognize objects Typicality Effect is the ability to judge highly
and events and to make inferences about their prototypical objects more rapidly .
properties This knowledge exists in the form of
concepts.

CATEGORY - Includes all possible examples of a

particular concept.

Categorization - The process by which things are

placed in categories. called as “POINTERS OF
KNOWLEDGE”

Definitional approach to categorization we can When participants are asked to list as many objects
decide whether something is a member of a in a category as possible, they tend to list the most
category by determining whether a particular prototypical members of the category first
objects meets the definition of the category.
Prototypical Objects Are Affected More by
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN (1953) Noted the problem Priming
with definitions and offered a solution. He
proposed the idea of Family Resemblance. • Priming occurs when presentation of one
stimulus facilitates the response to another
Family resemblance - refers to the idea that things stimulus that usually follows closely in time .
in a particular category resemble one another in a
number of ways. • The results of the priming experiments support
the idea that participants create images of
prototypes in response to color names.
• Prototype Approach is categorization based on Network Models of Categorization are theoretical
an ideal or average representation,while Exemplar frameworks that describe how concepts are organized in
Approach is categorization based on specific the brain as interconnected networks of nodes, where
examples rather than an abstract prototype. each node represents a category or concept and
relationships between them reflect their similarities and
differences.
The Connectionist approach
Criticism of semantic networks and advances in brain
research led to the development of connectionism,
proposed by McClelland and Rumelhart in Parallel
Distributed Processing (1986).
This approach has gained favor among many
researchers because (1) it is inspired by how information
is represented in the brain; and (2) it can explain a
The Exemplar Approach: Thinking About Examples number of findings, including how concepts are learned
and how damage to the brain affects people’s
• The exemplar approach to categorization, like
knowledge about concepts.
the prototype approach, involves determining
What is a connectionist model?
whether an object is similar to other objects.
Connectionism is an approach to creating computer
• Exemplars are actual members of the category models for representing cognitive processes. These
that a person has encountered in the past. models are also called parallel distributed processing
(PDP) models because they propose that concepts are
• The exemplar approach can explain many of represented by activity that is distributed across a
Rosch’s results, which were used to support the network.
prototype approach. This is basically the same as A connectionist network is like a model of the brain.
the idea of family resemblance, described for Circles in the network represent units, similar to
prototypes, which states that “better” objects will neurons in the brain. Lines between the units represent
have higher family resemblance. connections, like the axons in the brain. Units can be
activated by external stimuli (input units) or by signals
Which Approach Works Better: Prototypes or from other units (hidden and output units). Connection
Exemplars? weights determine how strongly signals affect the next
unit, similar to how synapses work in the brain.
The exemplar approach retains specific cases,
allowing it to account for atypical examples like
According to Connectionism, a network has to be
flightless birds and diverse categories like games.
trained first for it to be able to provide answers.
Research suggests we use both prototypes and
exemplars, first averaging examples into a When the network makes a mistake, it sends an error
prototype and later refining categories with specific signal backward through the network. This process is
cases, creating a balanced understanding (Murphy, called back propagation. The error signal tells the
2016). network that it needs to change some of its connections
to get the right answer next time. It's like the network
HEIRARCHICAL ORGANIZATION - categories are learning from its mistakes, adjusting itself so that only
organized in levels from general to specific. the correct properties light up for the concept, like a
canary.
ROSCH'S APPROACH: What's Special About Basic
Level Categories? FOUR Proposals About How Concepts Are Represented
in the Brain
Levels of different Categories [Link] Sensory-Functional Hypothesis
[Link] Multiple-Factor Approach
Global Level (Superordinate): Very broad category (e.g.,
[Link] Semantic category Approach [Link] Embodied
Furniture)
Approach
Basic Level: More specific, but still general (e.g., Chair)
Specific Level (Subordinate): Very detailed category
Sensory-Functional Hypothesis
(e.g., Kitchen Chair)
- is a theory that tries to explain how our brains develop
and specialize. It suggests that the way we use our
DEMONSTRATION: LISTING COMMON FEATURES
senses and how we interact with the world plays a
DEMONSTRATION: NAMING THIGS
crucial role in shaping the structure and function of our
brains. Sensory-Based Processing (Living Things) (Non- Control process
Living Things)
The Multiple-Factor Approach - proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin
- is a way of thinking about intelligence that suggests - are dynamic processes associated with the structural
there isn't just one single intelligence, but rather a features that can be controlled by the person and may
combination of different abilities and skills that differ from one task to another
contribute to overall intelligence.
The Semantic Category Approach REHEARSAL repeating stimulus over and over, as you
The semantic category approach proposes that there might repeat a telephone number in order to hold it in
are specific neural circuits in the brain for some specific your mind after looking it up.
categories. According to Bradford Mahon and Alfonso
Caramazza (2011), there are a limited number of EXAMPLES OF CONTROL PROCESS
categories that are innately determined because of their 1. Strategies you might use to help make a stimulus
importance for survival. more memorable, such as relating the digits in a phone
The Embodied Approach number to a familiar date in history
The embodied approach suggests that our 2. Strategies of attention that help you focus on
understanding of concepts is based on the reactivation information that is particularly important or interesting.
of sensory and motor experiences related to those
concepts (Barsalou, 2008). When we interact with an Sensory Memory
object, sensory areas process its size, shape, and color, - is the retention for brief periods of time of the effects
while motor areas process the actions associated with of sensory stimulation.
it. Later, when we see or think about the object, these Ex. The trail left by a moving sparkler The experience of
same areas are re-activated, forming the mental seeing a film
representation of the concept. The Sparkler's trail and the projectors shutter
- Persistence of Vision is the continued perception of a
visual stimulus even after it is no longer present. - This
persistence lasts for only a fraction of a second.
3RD TOPIC
HUMAN MEMORY This brief sensory memory for visual stimuli, called
Memory is the process involved in retaining, retrieving, iconic memory or the visual icon (icon means “image”),
and using information about stimuli, images, events, corresponds to the sensory memory stage of Atkinson
ideas, and skills after the original information is no and Shiffrin’s modal model. Other research using
longer present. auditory stimuli has shown that sounds also persist in
Memory is active any time some past experience has an the mind. This persistence of sound, called echoic
effect on the way you think or behave now or in the memory, lasts for a few seconds after presentation of
future (Joordens, 2011). the original stimulus (Darwin et al., 1972)

The modal model of memory

What Is the Duration of Short-Term Memory?

- short-term memory, as conceived by cognitive

psychologists, lasts 15 to 20 seconds or less. This was
demonstrated by John Brown (1958) in England and
Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson (1959) in the
United States, who used the method of recall to
determine the duration of STM.

How Many Items Can Be Held in Short-Term Memory?

Proposes three (3) Types
1. Sensory Memory - is an initial stage that holds all
- Not only is information lost rapidly from STM, but
incoming information for seconds or fractions of a there is a limit to how much information can be held
second. there
2. Short-term Memory (STM) - holds five to seven items
for about 15 to 20 seconds. DIGIT SPAN the number of digits a person can
3. Long-term Memory (LTM) - can hold a large amount remember
of information for years or even decades.
CHANGE DETECTION - described experiments in which and the required response, requiring the participant to
two pictures of a scene were flashed one after the other hold information in mind during the delay period.
and the participants’ task was to determine what had
changed between the first and second pictures. The A serial position
conclusion from these experiments was that people curve is created
often miss changes in a scene. by presenting a
list of words to a
CHUNKING - describe the fact that small units (like participant, one
words) can be combined into larger meaningful units, after another.
like phrases, or even larger units, like sentences, After the last
paragraphs, or stories. word, the
participant write
The idea that the capacity of short-term memory can be down all the words he or she remembers in any order.
specified as a number of items. But some researchers The serial position curve in Figure 6.3, which plots
have suggested that rather than describing memory percentage of a group of participants that recalled each
capacity in terms of “number of items,” it should be word versus its position in the list, indicates that
described in terms of “amount of information.” When memory is better for words at the beginning of the list
referring to visual objects, information has been defined and at the end of the list than for words in the middle (
as visual features or details of the object that are stored Murdoch, 1962).
in memory (Alvarez & Cavanagh, 2004).
Coding in short-term and long-term memory
Working memory, which was introduced in a paper by
Baddeley and Hitch (1974), is defined as “a limited- Coding refers to the way information is transformed
capacity system for temporary storage and into a format that can be stored and retrieved from
manipulation of information for complex tasks such as memory.
comprehension, learning, and reasoning.”
We will be taking a mental approach to coding by asking
Working memory is concerned with the manipulation of how a stimulus or an experience is represented in the
information that occurs during complex cognition (for mind. To compare the way information is represented
example, remembering numbers while reading a in the mind in STM and LTM systems, we describe:
paragraph).
visual coding (coding in the mind in the form of visual
Short-term memory is concerned mainly with storing image)
information for a brief period of time (for example,
remembering a phone number) auditory coding (coding in the mind in the form of a
sound)
Working Memory: Manipulating Information
semantic coding (coding in the mind in terms of
1. Phonological loop phonological similarity effect is the meaning) in both STM and LTM.
confusion of letters or words that sound similar word
length effect occurs when memory for lists of words is Visual coding in memory refers to the process of storing
better for short words than for long words. articulatory information in the brain primarily based on its visual
suppression, which reduces memory because speaking characteristics.
interferes with rehearsal
Recognition memory - Recognition memory is a type of
1. Visuospatial Sketch Pad visuospatial sketch pad explicit memory that involves the ability to identify
handles visual and spatial information and is therefore previously encountered events, objects, or people. It's
involved in the process of visual imagery—the creation like recognizing a familiar face or song, even if you can't
of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical recall all the details about it.
visual stimulus.
Episodic and semantic memory
The Central Executive is the component that makes
working memory “work,” because it is the control Episodic memory is memory for experiences and that
center of the working memory system. Its mission is not semantic memory is memory for facts.
to store information but to coordinate how information
is used by the phonological loop and visuospatial sketch Endel Tulving (1985), who first proposed that episodic
pad (Baddeley, 1996). and semantic memories handled different types of
information
Working Memory and the brain
Differences in Experience : According to Tulving,
A delayed-response task is a classic test used in episodic memory is defined by mental time travel- the
neuroscience to assess working memory function. It experience of traveling back in time to reconnect with
involves a delay between the presentation of a stimulus events that happened in the past.
Tulving describes this experience of mental time Procedural Memory - also called skill memory because
travel/episodic memory as self-knowing or it is memory for doing things that usually involve
remembering. learned skills.

Neuropsychological Evidence was used to distinguish The Implicit Nature of Procedural Memory has been
between STM and LTM. demonstrated in patients like LSJ, a skilled violinist who
suffered a loss of episodic memory due to damage to
It has also been used to distinguish between episodic her hippocampus caused by encephalitis, but who could
and semantic memory. still play the violin (Valtonen et al., 2014).

Brain imaging Procedural Memory and Attention is that they enable us

to carry out skilled acts without thinking about what we
Brian Levine and coworkers. (2004) used brain imaging are doing.
to study memory. Participants recorded diaries of
personal events and facts. PRIMING - occurs when the presentation of one
stimulus (the priming stimulus) changes the way a
autobiographical memory-memory for specific person responds to another stimulus (the test stimulus).
experiences from our life, which can include both
episodic and semantic components. One type of priming, repetition priming, occurs when
the test stimulus is the same as or resembles the
priming stimulus.

Repetition priming is called implicit memory because

the priming effect can occur even though participants
may not remember the original presentation of the
priming stimuli.

Classical Conditioning - occurs when the following two

stimuli are paired: (1) a neutral stimulus that initially
does not result in a response and (2) a conditioning
stimulus that does result in a response.
What Happens to Episodic and Semantic Memories as
3 specific situations in which retrieval increased by
Time Passes?
matching conditions at encoding
One procedure for determining what happens to
encoding specificity—matching the context in which
memory as time passes is to present stimuli and then,
encoding and retrieval occur
after some time passes, ask a participant to recall
stimuli, as in the serial position curve experiments or
recognition experiments in which participants are state-dependent learning—matching the internal mood
asked to recognize a sentence from a passage they had present during encoding and retrieval
read.
transfer-appropriate processing—matching the task
Familiarity is associated with semantic memory because involved in encoding and retrieval.
it is not associated with the circumstances under which
knowledge was acquired. Consolidation: establishing memories

Recollection is associated with episodic memory CONSOLIDATION- It is the process that transforms new
because it includes details about what was happening memories from a fragile state, in which they can be
when knowledge was acquired plus an awareness of the disrupted to a more permanent state in which they are
event as it was experienced in the past. These two ways resistant to disruption
of remembering have been measured using the
remember/know procedure. 2 types of consolidation

This result illustrates the semanticization of remote synaptic consolidation - takes place over minutes or
memories—loss of episodic detail for memories of long- hours, involves structural changes at synapses.
ago events.
systems consolidation - takes place over months or
Procedural Memory, Priming, and Conditioning even year, involves the gradual reorganizations of
neural circuits wihin the brain.
Explicit memories are memories we are aware of.
systems consolidation: the hippocampus and the
Implicit memory occurs when learning from experience cortex
is not accompanied by conscious remembering.
The Multiple Trace Model of Consolidation - proposes
that the hippocampus continuously stores and retrieves
episodic memories, creating multiple traces over time,
rather than transferring them fully to the neocortex.

Multivoxel Pattern Analysis (MVPA) - goes beyond just

determining which areas are activated. It determines
the pattern of voxel activation within various structures.

reconsolidation: The dynamics of memory

Reconsolidation - is the idea that when a memory is

retrieved (remembered), it becomes fragile, like it was
when it was originally formed, and that when it is in this
fragile state, it needs to be consolidated again.

Reconsolidation in Humans -In humans, reconsolidation

research shows that recalling a memory can make it
temporarily malleable, allowing modifications through
interventions like behavioral therapy or drugs. This has
implications for treating conditions like PTSD, where
traumatic memories can be weakened or altered during
the reconsolidation window.