Chapter 4: Attention

Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following is an analogy your textbook uses to describe attention?

a. a filter of information

b. a key fitting into a lock

c. a light that turns on and off repeatedly

d. a barrier that separates the features of the environment

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Views of Attention

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. Why do psychologists and researchers use so many different analogies to describe attention?

a. They are trying to explain attention in humans and in animals.

b. Few people excel at paying attention, so it is difficult to describe.

c. It is a complex process that is difficult to fully understand.

d. Attention is a common experience that everyone has had.

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Views of Attention

Difficulty Level: Hard

3. Our attention has been said to involve a ______ that filters out everything except the information we are attending to.

a. bottleneck

b. net

c. switchboard

d. bridge

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. According to the cocktail party effect, you are most likely to hear ______ amid several noisy conversations.

a. your friend’s voice

b. the loudest voice

c. discordant music

d. your name

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to "pay attention" what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. Talking to your friend during class while you are supposed to be listening to your professor’s lecture is most similar to ______.

a. salience

b. a shadowing task

c. the cocktail party effect

d. the dual-task method

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to “pay attention” what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. You are at a playground with your little brother, and you hear a child yell, “Mom!” You notice a dozen women pause in their conversations, turning their heads to see if it was their child calling for them. This is an example of ______.

a. the cocktail party effect

b. the bottleneck of attention

c. a consistent mapping condition

d. a shadowing task

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to “pay attention” what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. Which of these is known to influence the cocktail party effect?

a. a person’s level of extroversion or introversion

b. the salience of the message

c. a person’s intelligence

d. cultural differences in filtering abilities

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to “pay attention” what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Treisman’s modified filter model of attention suggests that some information passes through, but only after it has been ranked in terms of ______.

a. importance

b. definition

c. difficulty

d. currency

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. According to Treisman’s dictionary unit, the lower the threshold of information, ______.

a. the more likely you are to become confused

b. the less likely the information is attended to

c. the more likely the information is attended to

d. the less likely you are to understand the meaning

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. You are walking through the park, and you notice two people. You see that they are sitting together on a blanket of some kind. They also have a basket in front of them, and there is food inside it. There is a bottle of juice next to each person, and they appear to be laughing and enjoying the mild weather that you then notice. Combining all of these observations to surmise that this couple is having a picnic on a beautiful day in the park best illustrates ______.

a. the filter model of attention

b. top-down processing

c. the feature-integration theory

d. the capacity model of attention

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. Noticing a red flower among a field of purple flowers illustrates ______.

a. the attention capture phenomenon

b. the cocktail party effect

c. the bottleneck of attention

d. a shadowing task

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Hard

12. What do the models of attention as a spotlight and attention as a mental resource have in common?

a. Neither model explains the factors that divert someone's attention.

b. Both models contend that attention is subject to a bottleneck.

c. Neither model is taken seriously among modern experts.

d. Both models contend that each person's attention is limited.

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Attention as a Limited Resource

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. Which of the following scenarios best illustrates the notion that our attention is like a spotlight?

a. a woman baking cookies while holding her child and talking with her friend on the phone

b. a student's focus on the 90th level of his video game

c. a professor noting the students who are coming into class late while she gives a lecture

d. a student studying for an exam while browsing social media

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Attention as a Spotlight

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. What was LaBerge’s (1983) finding on shifting attention?

a. We can attend to more than one thing at a time.

b. Attention shifts very quickly.

c. Attention works like a spotlight.

d. Attention is a form of bottom-up processing.

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Spotlight

Difficulty Level: Medium

15. You are a biology major but must take at least one business class to graduate. The fact that you tend to find biology-based courses much more entertaining than the required business class supports ______.

a. Treisman’s filter model of attention

b. Kahneman’s capacity model of attention

c. Broadbent’s theory of attention

d. Treisman’s feature-integration theory

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Attention as a Mental Capacity

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. According to Treisman, if you listen to two competing messages simultaneously, you are more likely to pick up information from the second message if that message ______.

a. is louder

b. includes a spotlight

c. was spoken more slowly

d. relates to the other message

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Easy

17. In a study, participants had to complete two tasks at once or separately. It was found that when they performed both tasks at the same time, they did not perform as well as when they performed the tasks separately. This experiment employed the ______.

a. dual-task method

b. filter model of attention

c. capacity model of attention

d. single-task method

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Mental Capacity

Difficulty Level: Medium

18. What is useful about the dual-task method of studying attention?

a. The dual-task method is less complicated than the single-task method.

b. It allows researchers to prove that attentional resources have no limits.

c. It allows researchers to pinpoint which of the two tasks received less attention.

d. The dual-task method allows participants to feel successful in at least one task.

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Mental Capacity

Difficulty Level: Medium

19. Select the correct order of events in Treisman’s feature-integration model of attention.

a. dual task > single task > return to dual task

b. single task > dual task > return to single task

c. conscious, focused attention > automatic feature processing

d. automatic feature processing > conscious, focused attention

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Attention as a Feature Binder

Difficulty Level: Hard

20. An example of a conjunction target would be a ______.

a. green square among red squares

b. yellow circle among green squares

c. black circle among black triangles

d. purple triangle among blue triangles

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Feature Binder

Difficulty Level: Medium

21. The concept of attention capture explains that ______.

a. most people have nearly limitless attention if they are truly interested in the task

b. human attention varies so much that it is impossible to generalize about it

c. we automatically notice an object, sound, or scent that differs from the rest

d. we are attracted to those who try to capture our attention

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Feature Binder

Difficulty Level: Medium

22. Localization of function in the brain is consistent with ______.

a. the dual-task method

b. top-down processing

c. the filter model of attention

d. the feature-integration theory

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to "pay attention" what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Feature Binder

Difficulty Level: Medium

23. Zaretskaya et al. (2013) found activity in the ______ during a task involving a global percept.

a. right parietal cortex

b. left parietal cortex

c. right temporal cortex

d. visual cortex

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Attention as a Feature Binder

Difficulty Level: Easy

24. Daniel Simons created some studies that indicate ______.

a. eyewitness testimony is generally more reliable than statistical information

b. in a simple scene of mostly one color, a single example of a different color stands out

c. in a complex scene, some important details may elude our attention

d. the capacity for focused attention varies greatly by participant age

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The Gorilla in the Room: Inattentional Blindness

Difficulty Level: Medium

25. Participants in Simons and Chabris’ (1999) study did not notice when a gorilla walked across a scene. This illustrates ______.

a. inattentional blindness

b. change blindness

c. the Simon effect

d. perceptual blindness

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The Gorilla in the Room: Inattentional Blindness

Difficulty Level: Easy

26. Participants in Simons and Levin’s (1998) study did not notice when a person asking them for directions was switched with another person. This illustrates ______.

a. change blindness

b. selective blindness

c. inattentional blindness

d. bottom-up processing

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The Gorilla in the Room: Inattentional Blindness

Difficulty Level: Easy

27. What does the phrase “incompatibilities tax attention” mean?

a. It becomes expensive to pay attention when data are assembled in constantly changing order.

b. It becomes expensive to pay attention when data are assembled in perfect sequence.

c. Completing a task becomes more difficult when automatic processing overtakes focused attention.

d. Completing a task becomes more difficult when information comes from an unexpected direction or location.

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to "pay attention" what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Incompatibilities Tax Attention: The Simon Effect

Difficulty Level: Medium

28. If you had to turn your car wheel left to make a right turn, you would likely get confused. This illustrates ______.

a. change blindness

b. the Simon effect

c. the attention capture phenomenon

d. the theory of unconscious inference

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Incompatibilities Tax Attention: The Simon Effect

Difficulty Level: Medium

29. The Simon effect suggests that if study participants see a target on the right, they want to respond ______.

a. in the center

b. on the left

c. on the right

d. on their dominant side

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incompatibilities Tax Attention: The Simon Effect

Difficulty Level: Easy

30. The two mechanisms hypothesized to underlie the Simon effect are ______ and ______.

a. the theory of unconscious inference; the attentional-movement hypothesis

b. the attentional-movement hypothesis; the referential-coding hypothesis

c. the computational approach; the referential-coding hypothesis

d. sensation; perception

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incompatibilities Tax Attention: The Simon Effect

Difficulty Level: Easy

31. Being able to name the colors of various symbols illustrates ______.

a. change blindness

b. inattentional blindness

c. a Stroop task

d. the Simon effect

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Effects of Automatic Processes on Attention: The Stroop Task

Difficulty Level: Easy

32. In Stroop’s study (1935) on automatic processing in attention, he found that participants took less time to name colors when the word and color were ______, and more time when they were ______.

a. the same; different

b. different; the same

c. simultaneous; sequential

d. sequential; simultaneous

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Effects of Automatic Processes on Attention: The Stroop Task

Difficulty Level: Easy

33. Walking is to ______ as learning a new language is to ______.

a. top-down processing; bottom-up processing

b. controlled processing; automatic processing

c. automatic processing; controlled processing

d. bottom-up processing; top-down processing

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Easy

34. Perhaps one of the most important ways to turn a controlled task into an automatic one is to ______.

a. practice regularly

b. stop worrying about it

c. try it only once

d. try different ways of completing it

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Medium

35. You are a senior in college, and you have driven to school at least three days a week for the past four years. You know your way to and from school well. This is an example of ______.

a. voluntary processing

b. controlled processing

c. the Simon effect

d. automatic processing

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Medium

36. If you look at an image that is mostly gray, and a yellow star within that image is very noticeable to you, then your reaction is most likely an example of ______.

a. automatic processing

b. controlled processing

c. a Stroop test

d. Kahneman processing

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Medium

37. Letter targets and number distractors in Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) task is an example of a(n) ______.

a. varied mapping condition

b. consistent mapping condition

c. unconscious variable detection

d. unsuccessful variable detection

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Medium

38. Letter targets and distractors in Schneider and Shiffrin’s (1977) task is an example of a(n) ______.

a. varied mapping condition

b. consistent mapping condition

c. unconscious variable detection

d. unsuccessful variable detection

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Hard

39. You are participating in an experiment in which you are told to locate the letter “T” among a field of digits. This is an example of ______.

a. the dual-task method

b. a varied mapping condition

c. a consistent mapping condition

d. the Stroop effect

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Medium

40. In which of these situations would automatic processing most likely take over?

a. A child who has just learned to read words tries to read paragraphs.

b. An actor steps into the spotlight for the first time and reacts to the audience.

c. A commuter tries taking a new route to work and gets caught in traffic.

d. An experienced skier begins a route she has skied five times before.

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Hard

True/False

1. Evidenced by Treisman’s filter model of attention, cognitive processes go through revision when new results suggest that the original model is not right.

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to “pay attention” what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Attention as an Information Filter

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. Attention is an unlimited resource, capable of focusing on an infinite number of bits of information.

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to “pay attention” what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Limited Resource

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. Strayer and Johnston (2001) found that people have a harder time maintaining a conversation on a cell phone while driving than they do listening to the radio while driving.

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Mental Capacity

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. The spotlight theory of attention assumes that our attention focuses on only one thing at a time.

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Spotlight

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. The dual-task method compares performance on two simultaneous tasks to performance on one task at a time to see which scenario produces better results.

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Attention as a Mental Capacity

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Treisman’s feature-integration theory hypothesizes that people perceive stimuli as a whole rather than as a combination of features.

Learning Objective: 4-2: What descriptions of attention have helped researchers study attention?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Attention as a Feature Binder

Difficulty Level: Easy

7. In Simons and Chabris’ (1999) study, most people noticed the gorilla walk across the scene.

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The Gorilla in the Room: Inattentional Blindness

Difficulty Level: Easy

8. Not noticing that your mother changed the curtains in your family room is an example of change blindness.

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The Gorilla in the Room: Inattentional Blindness

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. Interference in response due to inconsistency between the response and the stimulus is known as the Stroop effect.

Learning Objective: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incompatibilities Tax Attention: The Simon Effect

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. The Stroop task is a measure of the interference in automatic processes such as reading.

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Effects of Automatic Processes on Attention: The Stroop Task

Difficulty Level: Easy

Short Answer

1. Explain the idea of attention as an information filter. Give an example from your own life of how attention can act like a filter.

Learning Objective: 4-1: When somebody tells you to “pay attention” what does he or she mean? How do we define attention?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Effects of Automatic Processes on Attention: The Stroop Task

Difficulty Level: Hard

2. Discuss Kahneman’s (1973) capacity model of attention and give one example.

Learning Objective: 4-3: How do researchers study what someone is and is not paying attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Attention as a Mental Capacity

Difficulty Level: Hard

3. Discuss the societal and legislative impact of Strayer and Johnston’s study (2001) on the cognition of distracted driving.

Learning Objective: 4-4: What factors in the environment have been found to influence our attention abilities?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Attention as a Mental Capacity

Difficulty Level: Hard

4. Discuss the Stroop task. How do the results of this task relate to our everyday attentional processing? Propose a variation of a Stroop task, and discuss how you would carry out an experiment to test it.

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Effects of Automatic Processes on Attention: The Stroop Task

Difficulty Level: Hard

5. Differentiate between automatic processing and controlled processing. Then provide an example from your own life of how a controlled process became an automatic process.

Learning Objective: 4-5: How does our automatic processing affect what we pay attention to?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Automatic and Controlled Processing: A Cognitive Dichotomy

Difficulty Level: Hard