Sensation,
Perception,
and
Beyond
Session Overview
• Discuss the conceptualisation of consciousness within
cognitive psychology
• Introduce capacity and resource theories of attention
• Consider attentional control
• Explore failures in attention
• Guided Independent Study: Recap on early and late
selection filter theories of attention
Sensation and Perception
• Sensation
• The reception of stimulation from the
environment & the initial encoding of that
stimulation into the nervous system
• Perception
• The process of interpreting & understanding
sensory information
Sensation and Perception
• Artificial distinction???
• Physiology and Psychology…
• Transduction of physical energy into an initial mental
representation
▫ Array of light, air vibrations, pressure
• Processes that construct mental representations
• Dynamic, complex and outside of awareness
• Environmental cues percept
• A percept is an internal representation of the external world
Perceiving and Attending
• External & Internal world overwhelming
• Unable to function
• Senses will be bombarded
• Mind wandering
• External stimuli
• Involves multiple stages & transformations of mental
representations
• Five senses all perceive
• Our sensory systems are bounded
• Can you see a flower growing? Can you look into a bright light?
Thresholds of Consciousness
• Thresholds of sensations differ depending on the modality
• Absolute threshold – the minimum strength of a stimulation to enable it to be detected
• Relative threshold – minimal change required between two stimuli to enable the
change to be detected
• Change Blindness
• Failure to notice changes in visual stimuli when those changes occur during a saccade
• Inattentional Blindness
• Failure to see an object being directly observed because attention is directed
elsewhere
• Attentional Blink
• Period of time after the detection of a visual stimulus during which another stimulus
cannot be detected
Perception
Without
Attention
Taken from Wood and Simons (2019)
Theories of Attention
• Selected vs. Divided Attention
• Pre-attentive vs. Attentive processes
• Early selection filter vs. Late selection filter theories
• Multimode theories
• Central capacity vs. Multiple resource theories
Multimode Theory of Attention
• Johnstone and Heinz (1978)
• Attention is flexible
• Selection at different stages
• Includes sensory and semantic processing
• Processing adapted for task
• Attention can be pre-attentive or attentive
• Early selection tends to be automatic
• Late selection tends to be effortful
Central Resource Capacity Theory
Available
Capacity
Primary Task
Shadow Attended Channel Secondary Task
Process Unattended
Channel
Kahneman (1973)
Central Resource Capacity Theory
• Kahneman (1973)
• Limited availability of resource – capacity is finite
• Miscellaneous determinants
• Factors not directly related to task demand
• Miscellaneous manifestations of arousal
• Includes overt behaviours
• Arousal levels affect capacity
• Allocation policy
• Decides how much attention is given to each task
• Enduring dispositions are automatic influences on attention
• Momentary intentions reflect conscious decisions to attend
• Evaluation of demands on capacity
• Feedback on arousal and allocation
Multiple Resource Theory
• Wickens (1980)
• 3D representation of attention
• Perceptual modality
• Can be ambient or focal
• Stages of information processing
• Encoding, central processing, responding
• Responses can be manual or vocal
• Mental codes used to perform task
• Spatial, verbal, numeric, music
Wicken’s Multiple Resource Model
Supervisory Attentional System
• Examines attentive and pre-attentive processes
• Environmental cues activate schema database
• Range of parent and child schemas
• Contention scheduling for routine tasks
• Supervisory attentional system for novel tasks
• Monitoring and directing cognitive resources
• Executive decision making
• Coordinating intentional behaviours
• Possible action errors/slips
Summary
Article Selection Guidance
• For next week’s class on find an article, read, and summarise
• Some key words to consider when searching for an article:
• Working memory
• Phonological articulatory loop
• Visual spatial sketchpad
• Embedded theories of memory
• Semantic memory
• Knowledge representation / organisation
• Cognitive schema
• Encoding, storage, recall, recognition
References
• Coren, S. & Ward, L.M. (1989). Sensation & Perception (3rd ed.). Texas: Harcourt
• Johnston, W. A., & Heinz, S. P. (1978). Flexibility and capacity demands of attention. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General, 107(4), 420-435.
• Kahneman, D. (1973). Attention and effort. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall
• Norman, D. A. (1968). Towards a theory of memory and attention. Psychological Review, 75, 522-
536
• Norman, D. A. (1981). Categorization of action slips. Psychological review, 88, 1-5
• Norman W, Shallice T. 1986. Attention to action. In: Davidson RJ, Schwartz GE, Shapiro D, editors.
Consciousness and self regulation: Advances in research and theory, vol. 4. (pp 1-18). New York:
Plenum.
• Pashler, H. (1998). The psychology of attention. Cambridge, MA, MIT press
• Wood, K., & Simons, D. J. (2019). Processing without noticing in inattentional blindness: A
replication of Moore and Egeth (1997) and Mack and Rock (1998). Attention, Perception, &
Psychophysics, 81, 1-11.
