Psy 348 Attention / Consciousness

Selective attention

Attending to one conversation while tuning out another one

            Colin Cherry – cocktail party phenomenon –  dichotic listening & shadowing:

            physical characteristics of the stimulus are paramount in successful attending;

            semantic characteristics are largely irrelevant

The theoretical problem:  we cannot attend to everything simultaneously

 so there is some sort of limiter: but what is it, and how does it work?

            Filter & bottleneck theories

                        Donald Broadbent – Early sensory-level filter

                        Anne Triesman – Early sensory-level attenuator

                        Deutsch & Deutsch – Late filter

            Attentional-resource theories

                        Assume finite pool of cognitive resources available for attending

                        Sounds good, but criticized as overly vague

The paradigmatic task:  The Stroop task 

RED                  GREEN            BLUE                PINK         

BLUE                RED                  PINK                GREEN

GREEN             PINK                BLUE                RED

PINK                  RED                GREEN             BLUE

Divided attention

            e.g., Driving car while using cell phone

                        Major problem:  #1 factor in auto accidents:

                        Recent #2 factor in auto accidents:

            Ulric Neisser ~ Robert Becklen ~ Elizabeth Spelke

                        We can learn to attend to two tasks simultaneously,

                         but it takes considerable practice

            Success in divided attention depends on difficulty of the tasks

                        Two very hard tasks = almost impossible to divide attention

                        One very hard task, one easy = can be learned with difficulty

                        Two easy tasks = easy to learn

Controlled versus automatic processes

            Note that controlled processes require full conscious awareness

                        These usually involve difficult tasks

            Automatic processes often occur with little or no conscious awareness

                        These usually involve easy tasks

                        Or else difficult tasks that have been very well learned

Automatic processing X divided attention

            Once an attentional task has become automatic, e.g. well-learned,

            then divided attention with another, relatively easy task, is possible

Application:  Attention & Advertising

Two compelling attentional issues in advertising:

            To catch attention (problem in selective attention)

            To hold attention (problem in sustained attention)

The underlying principles in advertising involve several cognitive processes or attentional stimuli,

crossed with various motivators that advertisers believe are fundamental to

(1) humans in general or (2) the target group in particular:

            Cognitive factors or stimuli                           Motivators   

            Subconscious / preconscious                             Sex                             

            Classical conditioning                                       Health ~ relief from illness        

            Repetition                                                         Companionship

            Contrast / Brightness                                         Happiness/”good times”

            Color                                                               Curiosity                                  

            Movement                                                        Etc                  

            Information

            Etc.                                                                                         

            Note “emotionality” component of many of the motivators

Common psychological techniques used in ads:

            Classical conditioning 

                  desirable something/somebody/event – repeatedly paired with – product/message

            Repetition

                  a component of classical conditioning, but also works by itself
                 often presented as variations on a theme

Strong attention attractors:

sharp contrasts - bright colors - movement - humans, animals - famous person - surprise - etc

            “Intrinsic motivators,” e.g., sex [both symbolic & explicit] - humor - fear -  etc

Cognitive stimulation, e.g., puzzles - irony & wit – complexity -  whimsy - social & cultural concerns -

         subtlety (e.g., in contrasts, colors, composition, emotional tone) - etc

Does “subliminal,” i.e., subconscious or preconscious, advertising work?

Marcel – 1970's & 1980’s

            Priming & categorization:

            Priming stimuli: visual stimuli presented very fast (20 – 110 msec)

                        [Aside:  saccadic eye movements = 200 msec]

            Participant generally cannot name what she saw

            Subsequent categorizations tend to be based on the priming stimuli

Zajonc 1970’s – 1990’s

            Emotion is a major factor in cognitive processes – much research & other evidence

             Unfortunately greatly ignored by academic psychology [C.f., Descartes’ influence]

             WH & Jesse Howard, 1997, 1998: 

                        Words presented very briefly (~50 msec), many  times,

                        using positive, negative, or neutral connotations

                        Afterwards participants were influenced by the emotional connotations in a 

                                liking task, although they couldn't say whether they’d seen the words before.

So, regarding advertising:

            Subliminal messages do not work directly – that is, the viewers will not subsequently     

             recall the specific product being advertised.

            However, combining “subliminal” with emotion & classical conditioning may be very powerful.

            Add to this the effects of repetition and various other stimulus properties, such as

            movement, color, contrast, etc., and the effect of the ad may be almost irresistible.

Classical conditioning is one of the major ways that humans learn things. 

Review:  Pavlov’s classical conditioning paradigm:

UCS                àààà                    UCR

The UCS automatically elicits the UCR

CS is paired with the UCS several times.  Then

CS                   àààà                    CR

That is, the CS now elicits the CR, even though the UCS is no longer present.

Much of human learning is thought to occur this way, even when we aren’t aware of it!

Advertisers use classical cond to “teach” consumers to like and want particular products

          UCS                                                                              UCR

Something desirable/attractive/etc                      To want, desire, want to be like, etc

[Attractive people, places, things . . .]                [We admire, like, want, . . .]

            CS                                                       CR

Product/message                                              We want, desire, etc

So we learn to want, like & presumably purchase a particular product

This could also be used to lead people to support causes, political parties, etc

Summary

Advertising is intensively concerned with attracting and maintaining attention.

This involves extraordinary management of several attentional factors.

The “sensory” factors are carefully designed to maximize “attention-getting” effects

             – color, contrast, movement, etc.

The cognitive factors are manipulated intensively depending on the product and the target audience

The general approaches tend to fall into 2 or 3 major categories:

            Sex

            Information

            Humor/Delight

Repetition is then used intensively to “fix” the audience’s awareness of the ad’s content

Ads are almost invariably based on classical conditioning or else sheer repetition

Both of these are intimately related to both selective and sustained attention

Exercise: 

Part 1   Find three ads, one for each of the three categories mentioned above.

Send a PowerPoint slide of one of the ads with brief analytical notes regarding its attentional

components, as an email attachment, to me for presentation & discussion in class. 

Date due:  Mon, Sep 15, 6:00 p.m.

Part 2   Send Power point slides of the other two ads to me, with brief analytical notes as above.

Date due:  Fri, Sep 19 3:00 p.m.

Part 3   Bring a written attentional analysis of just ONE of the ads to class on Tues, Sep 23 – approximately 2 – 3 pages.
             Include a printed copy of the ad with your analysis.

Slide formats:

Font size = 18

Layout : blank – DO NOT use one of the preformatted layouts unless you know how to modify its font sizes, etc

For your ad, be sure that it will fit onto the slide as a reasonably large picture – very small pics usually don’t enlarge well in PowerPoint. 

Pics that are too large for the slide, however, can easily be reduced in size, just by clicking & dragging one of the corners, without loss of clarity.

Be sure to put your name on the slide!  If slide has no name, then I won’t know whose it is.

Be sure to save each slide with your name & the attention category as the filename:

e.g., If it were my slide, I'd name the file as:  Hallford  humor

Remember: when you send the slide to me, put 348 & your name in the subject line of your email.