What This Document Is
These are lecture notes from a Cognitive Psychology (PSY 200) course at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, dated September 29, 2017. The notes cover the core concept of attention, exploring its various facets and early theoretical models attempting to explain how we selectively focus on information. It introduces key ideas surrounding how we process sensory input, thoughts, memories, and feelings, and how these relate to both overt (observable) and covert (internal) attention.
Why This Document Matters
These notes are valuable for students enrolled in introductory cognitive psychology courses. They provide a foundational understanding of attention, a critical process underlying all other cognitive functions like perception, memory, and language. Understanding attention is essential for anyone interested in how the mind filters and prioritizes information from a complex environment. The notes also introduce landmark studies and models that shaped the field.
Common Limitations or Challenges
This document represents a single lecture’s worth of notes. It provides an overview of early attention models, but does not delve into more contemporary theories or research. It also doesn’t include practical applications of attention research, such as its relevance to fields like eyewitness testimony or human-computer interaction. This is a starting point, not a comprehensive resource.
What This Document Provides
The full document includes:
* An overview of what constitutes “attention” as a cognitive process.
* Explanation of key terms like *saccades* and *fixations* related to eye movements and attention.
* A detailed outline of Broadbent’s filter model of attention, including its stages (Sensory Register, Filter, Detector).
* A summary of Cherry’s (1953) dichotic listening experiments and their implications for selective attention.
* An introduction to Treisman’s Attenuation Model as a refinement of Broadbent’s model.
* Discussion of task load (high vs. low) and its impact on attentional control.
* An exploration of the distinction between controlled and automatic processing.
* Notes regarding a follow-up lecture on October 3, 2017.
This preview does *not* include detailed explanations of experimental methodologies, in-depth critiques of the models, or subsequent research building upon these foundational concepts.