Attention, Effort, and

Resource Allocation
September 18, 2008

What Is Attention?
Every one knows what attention is. It is
the taking possession by the mind, in a
clear and vivid form of one out of what
seem several simultaneously possible
objects or trains of thought. Focalization,
concentration of consciousness are of its
essence. It implies withdrawal from
some things in order to deal with
others (James, 1890, p. 403)

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html

Attention is...
An attitude of mind
Relative proportion of activated traces to
all memory traces active workspace
Some form of energy or desire involving
will or effort
A filter
An allocation of resources
A spotlight, a selective attenuator

Characteristics
General agreement regarding two
characteristics outlined by James:
Bottom up (sensory) attention driven
by environmental events (stimulusdriven; exogenous)
Top down (volitional) attention to
both external and internal stimuli (goaldriven; endogenous)

May be thought of as automatic vs.

controlled, respectively.

Automatic Vs. Controlled

Processing Distinction
Automatic processes
no capacity limitation; fast
do not require attention, effort
difficult to modify once learned
Controlled processes
limited in capacity; slow
require attentional resources, effort
can be used flexibly in changing
circumstances

Ventral right frontoparietal network and target detection

(detection of low-frequency targets; these regions not
active in the antipation period)
Stimulus-driven or
bottom-up attention

Corbetta & Shulman, Nat Rev NSci, 2002

Dorsal frontoparietal network for top-down control

f visual attention (these regions active in the anticipation period

Corbetta & Shulman, Nat Rev NSci, 2002

Functional
Components of
Attention

What gains access to

WM?

Regulation of channel
signal strength

Automatic filtering for

behavioral importance

Knudsen, Ann Rev NSci, 2007

Purposes of Attention
Cope with inherent capacity limitation of
brain
Facilitate stimulus detection
Facilitate stimulus perception
Facilitate thinking
James
Facilitate memory
Recruit relevant processors
Prepare for action

Varieties of Attention
Focused attention (processing only
one input at a time)
Orienting to sensory events
Detecting signals for focal (conscious)
processing

Divided attention (processing

multiple inputs according to nature of
inputs and goals)
Maintaining a vigilant state

Varieties of Attention

Dimensions of Attention
Focality (detection vs. selective attention)
Duration (brief vs. sustained attention)
Input channel
Visual attention
Spatial
Object-based
Auditory attention
What, where

Cognitive effect (facilitation vs. inhibition)

Why have an attentional system? Processing

economy

-brain as a limited-capacity processor; that which is selected

should be consistent with goals and expectations

Early Visual Attention

Interface between Attention and
STM: Attentional blink

http://www.rit.edu/~gssp400/Blink/blinkinstr.html

Early Visual Attention

(Contd)

Interface between Attention and

STM: Repetition blindness

Early Visual Attention

AB and RB can be doubly dissociated
(Chun)
Making targets different from distractors
alleviates AB but not RB
Enhancing episodic distinctiveness of the two
targets eliminates RB but not AB

May represent different things

AB represents bottleneck in attentional
processing
RB reflects failure of token individuation

http://psych.hanover.edu/JavaTest/Cognition/Cognition/attentionalblink_instructions.html

Selective Attention
Selective processing of some
information but not others
Filter vs. capacity models
Important research paradigms
Dichotic listening
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguisti
cs/people/schuh/lx001/Dichotic/dichotic.htm
l
Shadowing

Dear Linguist:
I am hoping you might be able to provide some information for me regarding dichotic listening.
I work in a call center in Vancouver, Canada. The position I work in requires that we monitor 2 separate
phone lines at the same time with 2 headsets (one on each ear) for 8 hour shifts. We monitor the content of
messages being left by callers, and subsequently accept or refuse their recorded greeting/message.
There is a fairly large staff (approx. 60 employees) here that monitors the phone lines 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. The content of the messages is often rude and unsavory - we monitor a singles meeting place chat
connector and callers can get fairly explicit - but this is not the issue that concerns me. The position did
involve listening to single lines before a company expansion over a year ago when it changed to double-line
monitoring. It seems that this double listening is affecting people negatively. Having done this for 8 months
now, I know that I have been experiencing psychological trauma (depression, confusion, irritability, chronic
headaches etc.), as have a number of my co-workers.
My question is this: Is this type of dual listening harmful in any way,or furthermore, have any studies been
done in regards to the effects this type of extended exposure to dual listening may have on the human brain or
psyche?
I have just started looking into this - your name came up in a web search for dichotic listening - and I would
greatly appreciate any information or reference that you could pass on.
Thanks.
-Name, Occupation

Cherry (1953)
Interested in attentional popout of relevant
information (cocktail party effect)
Two messages, same voice, both ears:
subjects could invariably separate messages,
but with difficulty; uses physical/source
characteristics
Dichotic listening with shadowing
Recalls little if any content from other ear
Often doesnt recall language
Can recognize it as speech/nonspeech, and can
recognize male-female

Broadbent (1958)
Influential paper on focused (selective)
attention; felt by many to be a critical
cornerstone paper in cognitive psychology
Influenced by Cherrys shadowing results
Used dichotic listening, and found a strong
tendency to report digits by ear, thus
reflecting a tendency to select based on
perceptual/physical characteristics of the
input

Broadbents Filter Theory

Stimulus#1

Stimulus#2

Sensoryregister/buffer

SelectionFilter

Limitedcapacity
STM

Problems with Broadbents Theory:

Recall across ears can be organized
(automatically?)

Problems With Broadbents Filter

Model
Sometimes attention doesnt follow input
source: Gray & Wedderburn (1960)
fan
rage
tic

out
tas
ous

Can demonstrate that unattended

information is processed phonologically
or semantically: Corteen & Wood (1972)
EDRs to shock-associated words in an
unattended channel city name study

Early Vs. Late Selection

Early theories (Broadbent, Treisman)
selection takes place well before extensive (e.g., semantic)
analysis takes place
contradicted by studies showing semantic effects in
unattended ear
Late theories (Deutsch & Deutsch)
extensive analysis of stimuli takes place before selection
raises issue of benefits of selective attention
shadowing delayed by presentation of a synonym in the
other ear; recall biased by semantic interpretation (e.g.,
bank-river, vs. bank-money)

Broadbent

Sensoryregister

SelectionFilter

STM

Stim#1
Stim#2

Treisman
Sensoryregister

Attenuator

STM

Stim#1
Stim#2

Deutsch&Deutsch
Sensoryregister
Stim#1
Stim#2

STM

A Hybrid: Perceptual Load Theory

Everyone has limited attentional capacity
The amount of attentional capacity allocated to the
main task depends on its perceptual load, which is
determined by the number of units in the display
and the nature of processing required for each unit
(Lavie & Tsal, 1994, p. 185)
Any spare capacity beyond that taken by the highpriority relevant stimuli is automatically allocated to
the irrelevant stimuli (Lavie, 1995, p. 452). Thus, the
total available attentional capacity is always allocated
to processing
Early selection occurs when load is high; late
selection dominates when load is low

Evidence for Perceptual Load Theory

rtxpqk

__x___

Mean target identification time as a function of distractor type (neutral [N] vs. incompatible [Z]) and perceptual load (low
vs. high). Based on data in Lavie (1995). Nature of distractor has more effect on time when perceptual load is low.

A Capacity Model
Kahneman (1973)
Supplements previous bottom-up
analysis with a consideration of topdown influences
Emphasizes concept of processing
resources
Attention and mental effort are strongly
correlated
Arousal can work to increase processing
resources

Kahnemans
Model

Understanding the Effects of Attention is

Important When there are Limitations on
Processing

Resource-limited processes
Processes dependent on the availability of resources that can
be devoted to task solution
Applying more effort or processing resources increases task
performance
If output not available until task is finished, then devoting
more resources decreases RT
If output continuously available, then performance level
increases
Data-limited processes
Processes dependent upon the quality of data input, rather
than upon resource allocation
Applying more resources may have little effect on
performance
Most processes have both resource- and data-limited components

Present

Absent

Yes

True Positive

False Positive

No

False Negative

True Negative

Basic Signal Detection Framework

Focused Visual Attention

The Attentional Spotlight model
items within a small portion of the field can be seen
clearly
Posners covert shifting of the spotlight
Problem: proximity not always facilitative e.g. Driver
& Baylis, 1989 common movement

Zoom-lens model (Eriksen & Yeh, 1985)

Magnification inversely proportional to FOV

magnification can be increased or decreased
Grouping processes affect spatial extent of attention
Problem: attention can be object-based; objects
outside the zoom can be processed or even inhibited

Evidence for Spotlight

Location-specific facilitation of
attention
RTs faster when object appears in cued
location
search for target letter and report
orientation of U; done better when two
letters are close together
T

vs.

Focused Visual Attention

The Attentional Spotlight model
items within a small portion of the field can be seen
clearly
Posners covert shifting of the spotlight
Problem: proximity not always facilitative e.g. Driver &
Baylis, 1989 common movement overrides proximity

Zoom-lens model (Eriksen & Yeh, 1985)

Magnification inversely proportional to FOV

magnification can be increased or decreased
Grouping processes affect spatial extent of attention
Split attention (Awh & Pashler)
Problem: attention can be object-based

Experiments Demonstrating Split Attention

(a problem for the zoom-lens model)
Awh and Pashler
(2000).
(a) Shaded areas
indicate the cued
locations and the near
and far locations are
not cued; (b) probability
of target detection at
valid (left or right) and
invalid (near or far)
locations.

Based on information in Awh

and Pashler (2000).

Object-Based Attention

Behrmann, et al (1998) JEP: HPP, 24, 1011-1036

Inhibition in Attention

Inhibition in Attention (Contd)

Negative Priming Paradigm
Prime

Probe

Task = name red drawing

Attended repeat

Unrelated

Unattended repeat

Attention as Facilitation

Preattentive Processing

Further Cognitive Processing

Stimulus 1
Stimulus 2

ATTENTION

Attention as Inhibition

Preattentive Processing

Further Cognitive Processing

Stimulus 1
Stimulus 2
ATTENTION

Inhibition of Return (IOR)

A reduced perceptual priority for information in
a region that recently enjoyed a higher priority
(Samuel & Kat, 2003, p. 897)
A bias favouring novel locations and objects
Posner and Cohen (1984)
IOR due to inhibition of perceptual and/or attentional
processes

Taylor and Klein (1998)

IOR due to inhibition of motor processes

Prime and Ward (2004) ERP study

IOR is a perceptual phenomenon not in motor
response

Models of Visual Search

Feature integration model
rapid initial parallel process not dependent on
attention
subsequent attention-dependent serial processes in
which features are combined to form objects
attention provides glue binding features together
into an object; can only do this one object at a time
feature combination affected by stored knowledge
without focused attention, features combined
randomly, producing illusory conjunctions

DisplaySizeEffect
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FeatureSearch&FeatureSingletons
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Treisman&Gelade(1980)
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FeatureConjunctions&IllusoryConjunctions

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Key Takeaway Points

Generally agreed that two processes are involved
in visual search (parallel & serial), though recent
neuroimaging data suggests otherwise
substantial overlap in brain areas involved
Different visual features are processed
independently
Speed of visual search depends on set size and
similarity of targets to distractors
Perceptually grouped objects will be selected or
rejected together; grouping probably takes place
prior to attentional enhancement

Posners paradigm

Posners paradigm

Posners paradigm

Posners paradigm

Posners paradigm

Posners paradigm

Posners paradigm

Posners paradigm

Posners components of
attention
Three components involved in
visual attention:
Disengage attention from a given
stimulus
Shift attention from one stimulus to
another
Engage attention on a new stimulus

Processing Components of
Attention (Posner & Rothbart)

Alerting (NE)
Orienting (ACh)
Executive (DA)

Dual Task Performance

Relevant to processing capacity
Interference methodology a useful tool
to determine whether two tasks share
resources
What determines degree of interference?
Task similarity
Task difficulty
Practice/expertise

 Sensitivity (d') to auditory and visual signals as a function

of concurrent imagery modality (auditory vs. visual).
Adapted from Segal and Fusella (1970).

Multiple-resource Theories

Wickens (1984).

A proposed dimensional structure of human processing resources. From

Processing resources in attention by Wickens, C.D. in Varieties of Attention edited by R. Parasuraman and
D.R. Davies 1984 by Academic Press. Reproduced by permission of Elsevier.

Norman & Shallice

Three levels of functioning:
Fully automatic processes, controlled
by well-learned schemas
Partially automatic processing,
controlled by contention scheduling
Deliberate control by a conscious,
supervisory attentional system

Summary: Important
Concepts
Limited-capacity for informationprocessing (information bottleneck)
leads to selective attention
Attentional acts take time and effort
Attentional control re: goals and plans
Automatic vs. Controlled processing
Attention and consciousness