What did Shiffrin and Schneiders 1977 study reveal about automatic processing quizlet?

Covert shifts in attention. Rectangle task. Neutral trial - no cue. Valid trial - cue points the right way. Invalid trial - cue points the wrong way. Invalid trial cost reaction time, proving it took longer to shift attention because of distance.

often used to assess attention, also known as the Posner effect, its about an individual's ability to perform an attention shift

events attended to can be responded to more quickly

determined that the fastest responses are generated for valid targets since they appear at the location that is being attended to most closely

Valid target if it appears at cued location;
Invalid target if it appears away from cued location;
Neutral target if there is no prior cue

*Posner and colleagues noticed that participants were faster to react on valid trials than on neutral trials and were slower to react on invalid trials than on neutral trials, indicating that participants could shift their attention without moving their eyes. Indeed, subsequent research established that people cannot move their eyes without first shifting their visual attention. Attention goes first, followed by the eyes (Deubel & Schneider, 1996). The fact that visual attention can shift without moving the eyes is called covert attention

*Posner (1980) further discovered that there are two ways to redirect attention. One makes use of arrows, as described above. In this case, attention is driven top-down by the participant's intentions. Posner called this endogenous attention control. Another way to have the attention shifted is by presenting a salient stimulus in the periphery. Then, the attention seems to be captured bottom-up by the new stimulus, a phenomenon Posner called exogenous attention control.

In this figure, three trials are shown on a timeline. The first is a neutral trial, the second is a valid trial, and the third is an invalid trial (in the real experiment, trials were presented in random order). At the beginning of a trial, participants are asked to look at the fixation stimulus in the middle. After about 1 second, the fixation stimulus is replaced by a cue, which is either a plus sign or an arrow pointing to the left or to the right. If the cue is neutral (+), 1 second after the cue, a light flash is presented either to the left or to the right (50% chance each), and the participant has to press a key as soon as they see the flash. If the cue is an arrow, in 80% of the trials the light flash will appear where the cue is pointing to (valid trial), and in 20% the light flash will appear on the other side (invalid trial). Participants are fastest on valid trials and slowest on invalid trials, even if they do not move their eyes. This shows that participants can shift their visual attention without moving their eyes. Source: Based on Posner (1980).- POSNERS PARADIGM

Posner's (1980) findings suggest that visual attention works like a spotlight. A spotlight illuminates a relatively small area and can be redirected to focus on any given object. Little can be seen outside its beam. Applied to Posner's paradigm, the central arrow made the participants shift their attention spotlight to the place where the light flash was most likely to appear

Spotlight, zoom lens, or split? Visual attention can be allocated quite flexibly. In the Posner paradigm, it resembles a spotlight. However, it can also function as a zoom lens, depending on the area that must be covered. In specific circumstances it can even be directed to two non-adjacent regions of space, as illustrated by the existence of split attention. In addition to space-based allocation, attention can also be directed to specific objects, as illustrated by a study in which participants had to attend to overlapping houses and faces.

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What did Shiffrin and Schneider 1977 study reveal about automatic processing?

Shiffrin and Schneider proposed a general theory of attention that postulates the existence of automatic and controlled search processes. They concluded that automatic processes develop when the mapping between stimuli and responses is consistent and controlled processing occurs when the mapping is varied.

What did Shiffrin and Schneider's 1977 study reveal about automatic processing quizlet?

Shiffrin and Schneider's (1977) demonstrated that when learning a new skill, a lot of attention or controlled processing is required, but when we are skilled we can do the task without paying much attention to it at all.

What is the automatic processing theory?

Automatic information processing refers to a mental cognitive process with the following characteristics: it is fast, parallel, efficient, requires little cognitive effort, and does not require active control or attention by the subject. This type of processing is the result of repetitive training on the same task.

What is the purpose of automatic cognitive processing?

Automatic processing involves attention and memory. Our attention can automatically filter certain types of information, such as things that are familiar, relevant, or salient to us. Our memory stores information that we automatically access in certain situations, such as how to ride a bike or how to solve 2 + 2.