Overt Attention Research Paper

Since it is not possible to process all of the visual information that exists in front of us, we are faced with the question: what should be processed at each given moment? We think that we see all of the events that happen in front of us but this is not possible. We need attention to see each event, each object, and even to see change. Selection, or the ability to choose one or a few stimuli, is the key point to attention in order to select actions to perform. When you have a clear visual goal in mind, such as to find a blue push pin that has fallen on the ground, a restrictive processing will begin to occur in order to attend to this object. Since you know that the push pin is blue, you will execute a series of saccades, quickly moving past

Overt attention is employed as you direct or fixate your eyes on a stimulus by choosing that point as the target for a saccade eye movement. While we are mostly discussing external attention, internal attention and the way in which you attend to each thought plays a role in general attention. While overt attention involves direct visual and attentional fixation, covert attention involves attending to an object while mentally attending to a person, or any other type of stimulus off in the

A compelling example of change blindness can be found in the video where we are given the task to count how many times the basketball players wearing white pass the basketball. While visually attending to the basketball players, a gorilla walks through the frame but most frequently goes unnoticed by the viewer. This reflects our poor ability to detect quick changes or stimulus outside of what we are attending. So while we think we are perceiving everything in a scene, we are really only focusing on a very limited set of stimulus since it is impossible to receive all