Deck 9: Visual Attention

Question 1

Which of the following is an example of zero stimulus onset asynchrony?

A)The cue occurs before the target.
B)The cue occurs after the target.
C)The cue occurs, but the target never occurs.
D)The cue occurs at the same time as the target.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Beck, Muggleton, Walsh, and Lavie (2006) used transcranial magnetic stimulation to examine change blindness.They tried various combinations of inhibiting the parietal lobes of participants while those participants were doing a change-blindness task.They found that ______.

A)interrupting the function of the left parietal lobe increased change blindness
B)activation of both the right and left parietal lobe decreased change blindness
C)activation of both the right and left parietal lobe increased change blindness
D)interrupting the function of the right parietal lobe increased change blindness

Answer 2

D

Question 3

As Jules stares at the group of baseball players, his attention is drawn toward the one player not wearing a uniform.This is an example of ______.

A)covert attention
B)attentional capture
C)attentional salience
D)overt attention

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The process of attending to multiple sources of information is known as ______.

A)divided attention
B)selective attention
C)elective attention
D)source monitoring

Question 5

Simons and Levin (1997) conducted an experiment in which participants were asked directions by an experimenter.When the participant started giving directions, two other experimenters, posing as construction workers, passed by carrying a detached door.The construction workers passed between the experimenter who had asked for directions and the participant.What happened next?

A)The first experimenter hid behind the door and exited the scene, while a second experimenter, the same gender and age as the first experimenter, replaced the first.
B)The participant was asked if he attended to the message written on the detached door.
C)The door remained between the experimenter and participant, causing the latter to choose between talking through the door or moving around the door to talk.
D)The experimenter went with the construction workers, leaving the participant with no one to talk to.

Question 6

Simons and Levin (1997) conducted a field experiment in which participants were chosen at random.In the experiment, an experimenter posing as a tourist asked a person on campus for directions.When the experimenter asking the question was changed, the researchers found that ______.

A)nearly 50% of the participants failed to notice the change from one person to another
B)nearly 100% of the participants noticed the change from one person to another
C)nearly 100% of the participants failed to notice the change from one person to another
D)the participants were surprised when the experimenter was suddenly someone of a different gender

Question 7

When a particularly odd image or striking sound captures our attention, that image or sound is said to have ______.

A)stimulus salience
B)covert attentional appeal
C)change blindness resistance
D)attention shift capacity

Question 8

In Posner (1980), valid cues were found to result in ______ reaction times than neutral cues, but neutral cues were found to result in ______ times than invalid cues.

A)faster; slower
B)slower; faster
C)faster; faster
D)slower; slower

Question 9

Rensink, O'Regan, and Clark (1997) showed photographs of a variety of scenes, one image at a time.After a set period of looking at each photograph, it would disappear and be replaced by a nearly identical image.They found that ______.

A)change blindness varied as a function of the brightness of the photographs
B)change blindness varied as a function of the participants' alertness level
C)some participants never found the change between one image and the other
D)most participants quickly found the change between one image and the other

Question 10

At a library circulation desk, Daniela checks out materials while answering the telephone.This example shows ______.

A)divided attention
B)selective attention
C)elective attention
D)source monitoring

Question 11

In the Posner cueing paradigm, the participant maintains fixation at the central point.Cues indicate whether the target will appear on the left or the right.In most trials, the cue is valid; that is, the target appears on the indicated side.But in some trials, the cue is invalid; that is, the target appears on the opposite side of the cue.The experimenters measure the reaction time to indicate that the target is present.The results show that ______.

A)maintaining fixation reduces reaction time significantly
B)participants are relatively faster when the cue is invalid
C)reaction time increases for valid trials
D)participants are relatively faster when the cue is valid

Question 12

In Simons and Chabris's (1999) experiment, participants are focused on a challenging perceptual task, counting the white team's basketball passes while ignoring the black team's basketball passes.Because of the challenging nature of the task, ______.

A)inattentional blindness is more likely to occur
B)attentional capture of irrelevant stimuli is more likely to occur
C)attention shift is more likely to occur
D)the spotlight model of attention is needed to explain the data

Question 13

Anderson, Laurent, and Yantis (2013) conducted an experiment in which they paired particular colored stimuli with specific amounts of monetary reward.The participants learned to associate these stimuli with the particular rewards that occurred.The researchers found that ______.

A)participants could not direct their attention if an unpleasant color was associated with a large sum of money
B)participants learned to attend to money that was similar in color to the reward
C)when participants saw the reward-associated object in another task, it captured their attention and slowed their performance on the intended task
D)when participants attended to the reward, they learned the words for the colors in a new language more quickly

Question 14

The difficulty we experience in detecting differences between two visual stimuli that are identical except for one or more changes to the image is known as ______.

A)attentional rapture
B)change blindness
C)stimulus salience
D)image processing deficit

Question 15

In the Posner cueing paradigm, participants attend to cues that indicate to which side a light will occur.However, the participant must maintain fixation at the central point.The goal of this study is to determine if ______.

A)alertness and attention refer to the same psychological construct
B)attention can be divided without a cost in performance during neutral trials
C)attention can be selectively introduced vicariously
D)attention can be covert, or directed to a location other than where the person is looking

Question 16

Which of the following is an example of inattentional blindness?

A)Even though Dwayne focuses on talking to Jean, he still sees a car pull up to the curb.
B)Haruto is so focused on a man juggling oranges that he fails to notice two people rushing past behind the juggler.
C)Even though Ebba is blind, she still senses a blinking light three feet away.
D)Hans stares straight ahead, but he is unable to see a horseback rider approaching from the left.

Question 17

Simons and Chabris (1999) asked participants to watch a video that shows three people wearing white T-shirts, passing a basketball, and three people wearing black T-shirts, passing another basketball.They found that ______.

A)participants could not detect one basketball if they were tracking the other one
B)attention could be divided as long as the uniforms being worn were achromatic
C)attention could be divided and almost all participants noticed a cheerleader walking through the scene
D)nearly half of the participants failed to notice a person in a gorilla suit walking through the scene

Question 18

On a train, Federico focuses on reading a novel while other people are talking and the conductor collects fares.This example shows ______.

A)divided attention
B)selective attention
C)elective attention
D)source monitoring

Question 19

Drew, Võ, and Wolfe (2013) used expert radiologists as their test participants.The stimuli were CT scans taken to determine if patients had dangerous nodules on their lungs.What happened in the study?

A)More than 80% of the radiologists failed to detect the image of a gorilla in the CT scan.
B)Because of change blindness, many of the expert radiologists were unable to detect a change of CT scan while they were examining them.
C)The radiologists attended to relevant aspects of the stimuli only when their attention was selectively undivided.
D)When distracting elements were introduced, the radiologists focused on those instead of the relevant aspects of the CT scan.

Question 20

The processes of attention that allow us to focus on one source when many are present are known as ______.

A)divided attention
B)selective attention
C)elective attention
D)source monitoring

Question 21

A phenomenon that occurs when a separate image is presented to each eye is known as ______.

A)change blindness
B)perceptual bistability
C)binocular rivalry
D)blindsight

Question 22

Screeners at airports must look for forbidden objects, such as knives, among the great many combs and toothbrushes passing through their screening machines.What task does this most resemble?

A)the Posner cueing task
B)divided attention tasks
C)visual search
D)attentional simulation

Question 23

After an accident that caused neurological damage, Nahia could not attend to stimuli on the left side of her visual world.This is an example of ______.

A)hemifield neglect
B)attentional blindness
C)repetition blindness
D)attentional blink

Question 24

Zaid searches for a green ball among green squares and orange balls.This is an example of a ______ search.

A)feature
B)conjunction
C)change-detection
D)gorilla pattern

Question 25

Lana searches for a green marble in a bunch of red marbles.Except for its color, the green marble is identical to the red ones.This is an example of a(n) ______ search.

A)feature
B)conjunction
C)change-detection
D)intersectional

Question 26

One of the hypotheses to explain why blindsight occurs is ______.

A)patients are being deliberatively misleading about their abilities
B)intact pathways to the superior colliculus allow patients to respond to visual stimuli
C)the patients mistakenly infer that information from audition and touch really came from visual processing
D)the subjective blindness is due to damage to the macula of the retina

Question 27

Tong, Nakayama, Vaughan, and Kanwisher (1998) examined two regions of the brain during binocular rivalry using fMRI technology.They found that ______.

A)posterior parietal lobe activity preceded shifts in perception
B)activity in the executive network was found to be necessary for all conscious shift of perception
C)participants had more activity in the fusiform face area when the image shifted to the face, but when participants perceived the house, no particular region was more active than any other
D)participants had more activity in the fusiform face area when the image shifted to the face, but when participants perceived the house, they had more activity in the parahippocampal region

Question 28

What is the name for the neural system that focuses on attention as the inhibition of habitual responses and the top-down control of attention, found in the frontal lobe?

A)orienting attention network
B)dorsal attention system
C)executive attention network
D)feature integration system

Question 29

What is the name of the theory stipulating that some features can be processed in parallel and quickly prior to using attentional resources, whereas other visual characteristics require us to use attention and are done serially and therefore less quickly?

A)visual attention model
B)the spotlight model of attention
C)the selective model of features
D)feature integration theory

Question 30

The tendency to respond more slowly or not at all to the second appearance of a target in an RSVP task when the second stimulus occurs within 500 ms of the first stimulus is known as ______.

A)attentional capture
B)attentional blink
C)attentional blindness
D)attentional search

Question 31

Moran and Desimone (1985) conducted a single-cell recording experiment with rhesus monkeys.Monkeys were trained to keep their eyes fixated on a central point and to then, as in the Posner paradigm, to attend to objects in one of two locations they were not directly looking at.They found that ______.

A)in monkeys, visual attention occurs in the monkey's lateral geniculate nucleus
B)monkeys did not respond faster to valid trials than to invalid trials
C)at a physiological level, attention does not feedback to earlier visual processing; attention is cognitive
D)at a physiological level, attention can affect the processing of visual information

Question 32

Simultagnosia is ______.

A)the inability to detect novel stimuli in RSVP displays
B)the inability to perceive attentional components of visual stimuli
C)a limited ability to localize objects in space
D)a deficit in perceiving more than one object at a time

Question 33

What is the name of the neurological condition caused by damage to both the left and right posterior parietal lobes, which results in a limited ability to localize objects in space?

A)Sack's syndrome
B)Bálint's syndrome
C)visual neglect syndrome
D)attentional blindness syndrome

Question 34

Tamber-Rosenau, Esterman, Chiu, and Yantis (2011) conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with human participants to examine how the executive attention and orienting attention networks allocate attention in a visual attention task.Participants watched an RSVP display, consisting of two streams of letters, one to the left of fixation and one to the right of fixation.They found that ______.

A)areas of the brain in the prefrontal lobe and in the parietal lobe were active during attentional shifts
B)areas of the brain in the prefrontal lobe and in the parietal lobe were both inactive during attentional shifts
C)the area of the brain in the parietal lobe was active during attention shifts, but the prefrontal lobe was inactive
D)the area of the brain in the prefrontal lobe was active during attention shifts, but the parietal lobe was inactive

Question 35

Rapid serial visual presentation paradigm is a method of ______.

A)studying attention in which a series of stimuli appear rapidly in time at the same point in visual space
B)quickly inducing change blindness effects, even when the attentional demands are relatively weak
C)studying the effects of divided attention during visual search procedures
D)demonstrating blindsight ability, even though the stimuli appear rapidly

Question 36

What is the name for the neural system, located primarily in the parietal lobe, that allows us to engage in visual search and direct our visual attention to different locations in visual space?

A)executive attention network
B)frontal attention system
C)orienting attention network
D)lateral attention system

Question 37

Richards et al.(2010) compared infants who were alert and those who were not (i.e., sleepy).They also compared infants at 4, 5, and 7 months of age in an oddball paradigm.They found that ______.

A)children that young always showed a novelty preference regardless of the flow of attention
B)alert babies, regardless of age, showed greater EEG activity than sleepy babies did when presented with the oddball item
C)the EEG activity was greatest in the superior frontal gyrus when infants were attending to novel stimuli
D)sleepy babies showed greater activity than alert babies but only at the age of 4 months

Question 38

A phenomenon in which a static visual image leads to alternating perceptions is known as ______.

A)binocular rivalry
B)situational blindness
C)perceptual bistability
D)repetition blindness

Question 39

The executive attention network is most associated with which brain region?

A)posterior parietal
B)pulvinar
C)hypothalamus
D)prefrontal lobe

Question 40

The presence of visual abilities in the absence of V1 in the visual cortex--the patient claims to be blind but makes visual responses-is known as ______.

A)repetition blindness
B)attentional blindness
C)blindsight
D)change blindness

Question 41

How does binocular rivalry demonstrate the top-down processing of perception?

Question 42

Hemifield neglect or unilateral visual neglect is a condition in which a person fails to attend to stimuli on one side of the visual world (usually the left) as a consequence of neurological damage to the posterior parietal lobe.

Question 43

Change blindness is the difficulty we experience in detecting differences between two visual stimuli that are identical except for one or more changes to the image.

Question 44

In the oddball procedure, an infant is shown a series of pictures of related objects, such as different kinds of balls.Then the infant is presented with an object from a different category, such as a toy animal.Research finds that ______.

A)infants as young as four months orient toward a novel object
B)infants remember objects from the familiar category better than the novel items
C)attention is focused on the familiar items
D)it is not until a child is approximately 1 year old that one sees a familiarity preference

Question 45

Divided attention is the process of attention that allows us to focus on one source when many are present.

Question 46

Mack and Rock (1998) asked participants to maintain fixation on a central point.They then saw a large cross somewhere in the parafoveal region.The participants' task was to determine if the horizontal or vertical lines of the cross were larger.The researchers found that ______.

A)reaction time in the task slowed when the horizontal lines and vertical lines were not perpendicular to each other
B)reaction time was faster when the stimuli were presented more dimly than when the stimuli were presented more brightly
C)attention to the horizontal lines inhibited perception of the vertical lines
D)a majority of the participants did not report seeing an introduced diamond, even though it was presented in the fovea

Question 47

Give an example of covert attention and an example of overt attention.

Question 48

Conjunction search is the search for a target in which the target is specified by a combination of features.

Question 49

Compare and contrast selective attention and undivided attention.Give an example for each.

Question 50

Attentional blink is the tendency to respond faster to the second appearance of a target in an RSVP task when the second stimulus occurs after 1 second.

Question 51

Orienting attention network is a neural system, located primarily in the temporal lobe, that allows us to engage in sustained attention or alertness.

Question 52

Peter is shown a photograph of a man standing in a garden holding an orange.He is then shown an identical photograph, except that the man is holding an apple, not an orange.Peter does not detect a difference.This type of experiment demonstrates which phenomenon?

A)blindsight
B)the attentional spotlight
C)feature integration
D)change blindness

Question 53

In their experiment, Simons and Chabris (1999) asked participants to watch a video that shows three young college-age adults wearing white T-shirts, passing a basketball, and three young college-age adults wearing black T-shirts, passing another basketball.They found that participants could not accurately track the passes when a person in a gorilla suit interrupted the game.

Question 54

Visual attention cannot be covert--attention is synonymous with the direction of gaze.

Question 55

There is evidence to suggest that video game players ______.

A)show reduced attentional blink
B)will eventually develop blindsight
C)show higher reaction times than normal in RSVP studies
D)develop increased change blindness

Question 56

A basketball player has dribbled the ball so often that she doesn't have to think about it and instead can focus on where to pass the ball.The player dribbling the ball is an example of automaticity.

Question 57

Give an example from your everyday life of change blindness.

Question 58

SELECT ALL THAT APPLY.A patient with hemifield neglect was studied by Bisiach and Luzzatti (1978).They tested him on both perception and imagery tasks.They found that ______.
a.when asked to imagine himself walking from north to south in his native city, the patient described the sites only on the west side (his right)
b.when asked to imagine himself walking from south to north, the patient described the sites only on the east side (now on his right)
c.the patient showed neglect for the left side of his visual images
d.the patient showed neglect for the right side of his visual images

Question 59

How does stimulus salience relate to attentional capture?

Question 60

Attentional capture is the process whereby a salient stimulus causes us to shift attention to that stimulus.