Theories of Visual and Auditory Attention

2408 Words5 Pages

A popular subject within psychology is that of selective attention, particularly visual, auditory or visual and auditory attention (Driver, 2001). There are many theories of visual and auditory attention that provide us with a greater understanding of the ways in which humans attend to different stimuli (Driver, 2001), such as Broadbent’s (1958) filter theory of attention for example. This essay will compare and contrast theories of visual and auditory attention as well as discussing how well these theories explain how we attend to objects. The essay will consist of three auditory attention theories of Broadbent’s filter theory, Treisman’s (1964) attenuation theory, and Deutsch and Deutsch’s (1963) late selection model of attention; and two models of visual attention known as the spotlight model, such as Treisman and Gelade’s (1980) feature integration model, and the zoom-lens model of visual attention (see Styles, 2006).

Broadbent’s (1958) filter theory of attention proposes that there is a filter device between sensory identification and short-term memory. This filter is used as a buffer that allows an individual to manage several different forms of simultaneous stimuli where one stimulus is processed in the filter whilst the second stimulus is kept in the buffer to be processed at a later time (Broadbent, 1958). The extent to which this theory of attention can provide an effective explanation of how we attend to objects is questionable due to the fact that Broadbent’s filter theory is designed to explain auditory attention as opposed to visual attention. In this sense, Broadbent’s filter theory cannot explain how we attend to objects and thus provides no useful information for such attention. An object was making a sound co...

... middle of paper ...

...isual attention within and around the field of focal attention: A zoom lens model. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 40(4): 225-240.

Massaro, D. W. & Warner, D. S. (1977). Dividing attention between auditory and visual perception. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 21(6): 569-574.

Muller, N. G., Bartelt, O. A., Donner, T. H., Villringer, A. & Brandt, S. A. (2003). A physiological correlate of the “zoom lens” of visual attention. The Journal of Neuroscience, 23(9): 3561-3565.

Shinn-Cunningham, B. G. (2008). Object-based auditory and visual attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(5): 182-186.

Styles, E. A. (2006). The Psychology of Attention. (2nd Edition). East Sussex: Psychology Press.

Treisman, A. (1964). Monitoring and storage of irrelevant messages in selective attention. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 3(6): 449-459.

Show More
Related

  • Why is Hubel and Wiesel's Description of the Classical Receptive Field Inadequate for an Understanding of Visual Perception?

    2170 Words  | 5 Pages

    The ultimate goal for a system of visual perception is representing visual scenes. It is generally assumed that this requires an initial ‘break-down’ of complex visual stimuli into some kind of “discrete subunits” (De Valois & De Valois, 1980, p.316) which can then be passed on and further processed by the brain. The task thus arises of identifying these subunits as well as the means by which the visual system interprets and processes sensory input. An approach to visual scene analysis that prevailed for many years was that of individual cortical cells being ‘feature detectors’ with particular response-criteria. Though not self-proclaimed, Hubel and Wiesel’s theory of a hierarchical visual system employs a form of such feature detectors. I will here discuss: the origins of the feature detection theory; Hubel and Wiesel’s hierarchical theory of visual perception; criticism of the hierarchical nature of the theory; an alternative theory of receptive-field cells as spatial frequency detectors; and the possibility of reconciling these two theories with reference to parallel processing.

    Read More

  • Now You See It by Cathy Davidson

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    A video is put on, and in the beginning of this video your told to count how many times the people in the white shirts pass the ball. By the time the scene is over, most of the people watching the video have a number in their head. What these people missed was the gorilla walking through as they were so focused on counting the number of passes between the white team. Would you have noticed the gorilla? According to Cathy Davidson this is called attention blindness. As said by Davidson, "Attention blindness is the key to everything we do as individuals, from how we work in groups to what we value in our classrooms, at work, and in ourselves (Davidson, 2011, pg.4)." Davidson served as the vice provost for interdisciplinary studies at Duke University helping to create the Program in Science and Information Studies and the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience. She also holds highly distinguished chairs in English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke and has written a dozen different books. By the end of the introduction Davidson poses five different questions to the general population. Davidson's questions include, "Where do our patterns of attention come from? How can what we know about attention help us change how we teach and learn? How can the science of attention alter our ideas about how we test and what we measure? How can we work better with others with different skills and expertise in order to see what we're missing in a complicated and interdependent world? How does attention change as we age, and how can understanding the science of attention actually help us along the way? (Davidson, 2011, p.19-20)." Although Davidson hits many good points in Now You See It, overall the book isn't valid. She doesn't exactly provide answers ...

    Read More

  • Verbal Reaction Times Experiment

    2635 Words  | 6 Pages

    Introduction In 1935 John Ridley Stroop published his Ph.D. thesis entitled 'Studies of Interference in Serial Verbal Reactions' - the findings of which became known as 'the Stroop Effect'. Stroop mentioned many studies in his work but the two that are most relevant for this report are Brown (1915) and Telford (1930), they conducted very similar investigations into colour associations and colour recognition patterns respectively. This area of research is known as controlled and automatic processing, it involves studies into how humans cope with divided attention such as multi-tasking.

    Read More

  • Critical Evaluation of a Theoretical Approach Used to Describe Pattern/Object Recognition

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    middle of paper ... ... w features are combined and recognised thereafter as actual objects in the environment. Although supported by both behavioural and neurological evidence, feature models are limited as they do not account for top-down processes, and at best address only part of the process of pattern/object recognition. References Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2000). Cognitive Psychology: A student’s handbook (4th ed).

    Read More

  • An Examination of Visual Agnosia

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sajda P. & Finkle, L.H. (1995) Intermediate Visual Representations and the Construction of Surface Perception. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 7, 267-291.

    Read More

  • Different Visual Illustrations in Perception

    1484 Words  | 3 Pages

    S Coren, L M Ward & J T Enns 2004 Sensation and Perception 6th edn

    Read More

  • Dreams and Memory Consolidation

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ratey, John J., and Albert M. Galaburda. A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and

    Read More

  • Auditory Localization

    1552 Words  | 4 Pages

    McDonald, J., Teder-Salejarvi, W, & Hillyard, S. (2000). Involuntary orienting to sound improves visual perception. Nature, 407, 906-907.

    Read More

  • Barn Burning: Family vs. Morality

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

    The.

    Read More

  • Attentional Bias Causes Anxiety

    926 Words  | 2 Pages

    Macleod and Mathews (1991) induced attentional biases within a laboratory setting to determine that a ca...

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Change Blindness

    950 Words  | 2 Pages

    Though the experiment shows that attention is vital for change detection, we should consider the size/ impact of the change in the environment. If the change to an environment is small, would it result in the change being detected? Do providing little clues draw attention effectively to where the change is being made? In support of this argument, Rensink (1997) showed that even with small clues, if the clue is not directed properly then detecting change will not have an effect. A proposal of Rensink is that the absence of attention will cause visual contents to be missed. On the other hand, Simon and Levin (1998) suggest that a person could miss things happening in their environment if his or her attention is occupied by something

    Read More

  • The Reliability of Memory

    1483 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sternberg, R. J. (1999). Cognitive psychology (2nd ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers

    Read More

  • Mcgurk Effect Essay

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the present study, the behavioral and cortical properties of the McGurk effect and its sensitivity to different SOAs were investigated. A strong McGurk effect was found on behavioral data. The McGurk effect in our research sample was skewed to the right visual lead, auditory lag side in both he ID- and SJ-task. This is in line with the typical visual lead McGurk bias which was found by Wassenhove et al. (2007) and Munhall et al. (1996). It suggests that our brains are used to reduce differences in time onset between auditory and visual stimuli. As mentioned before, light travels faster than sound, but both arise mainly from the same source as the auditory stimulus. Our brains adapt to this and form a perception which unites these stimuli. (Fuijisaki, Shimojo, Kashino & Nishida, 2004).

    Read More

  • The Processes of Visual Perception and Visual Sensation

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are many different Visual Perception principles in perception. The main principles are Gestalt. Gestalt is a German word meaning 'form' or 'shape'. Gestalt psychologists formulated a series of principles that describe how t...

    Read More

  • Kahneman's Model of Divided Attention

    1774 Words  | 4 Pages

    The phenomenon of ‘Divided attention’ is the idea that an individual has the ability to divide their attention between two or more tasks (multi- tasking). Focused attention models such as Broadbent’s theory, Treisman’s theory and Deutsch and Deutsch model explains how all our inputs are focused on one task at a time, however it is clear from looking at everyday life that we are able to divide our attention, successfully being able to complete more than one task at the same time.

    Read More

More about Theories of Visual and Auditory Attention

Open Document