Attention

Attention:

e.g. focusing on the material being talked about in class

e.g. focusing on reading and ignoring other stimulation

e.g. paying attention to the feeling of your toes in your shoes

 

attention is:

• selective:

 

e.g. at a party you can choose to focus on one voice and ignore the noise from the rest of the party

 

 

• shiftable:

 

e.g. if someone calls your name at the party you can shift your attention to that person

 

e.g. go to a museum and focus on one painting then shift to the next, etc.

 

 

 

 

attention can be either automatic or conscious:

• automatic:

 

 

e.g. someone saying your name draws your attention automatically

 

Stroop Effect:

 

 

 

Results:

 

Conclusion:

 

 

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e.g. riding a bicycles is automatic so don't need to concentrate as much attention on it

 

• conscious:

 

e.g. directing where you want to focus at any given time. I want to think about how to rearrange the furniture in my living room vs. reading a novel.

 

what catches our attention depends on:

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e.g. if you especially like basketball you are much more likely to attend to an announcement about a game being on TV tonight

e.g. if you really like art, you're more likely to attend to an advertisement for an arts & crafts show

e.g. see your name in the newspaper it will pop out at you

 

• Perceptual Set:

 

e.g. Count the number of Spade Cards

 

 

• novel features of stimuli also catch our attention

 

e.g. a blond person in Spain vs Sweden

 

e.g. Treisman's Feature Detection Experiment

 

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e.g. more likely to pay attention to a commercial that is much louder or quieter than the program it interrupts.

 

 

 

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e.g. one thing moving among a bunch of non moving items

 

 

attention is limited:

 

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e.g. talking on a cell phone while driving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Problem Solving

Problem Solving:

Ill Defined Problems:

 

 

e.g. How can I improve my friendship with my roommate?

 

e.g. What should I major in?

 

Well Defined Problems:

 

e.g. use four straight lines to connect all the dots. How?

 

0	0	0
0	0	0
0	0	0

e.g. Put a coin in a bottle and then stop the opening with a cork. Tell how you can get the coin out of the bottle without pulling out the cork or breaking the bottle.  How?

 

 

e.g. Place the six letters A-F into the squares such that each row, column, and sub-block contains each of the letters A-F (only one of each).

 

 

Approaches to Problem Solving:

• Algorithm:

 

e.g. solving an anagram -- CUPRITE

 

an algorithm would systematically start with one letter combination then change one letter and see if it's a word, then change a second letter and see if it is a word, etc.

 

• Advantage of Algorithms:

 

 

• Disadvantage of Algorithms:

 

 

• Heuristic:

e.g. solving an anagram -

 

OIULQR

 

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• Advantage of Heuristics:

 

 

• Disadvntage of Heuristics:

 

• Insight:

 

 

• Insight improves with more Incubation (amount of time taking a break).

Silveria (1971)-- Had 3 groups try to solve the "cheap-necklace" problem.

e.g. You are given four separate pieces of chain that are each three links in length. It costs 2 cents to open a link and 3 cents to close a link. All links are closed at the beginning of the problem. Your goal is to join all 12 links of chain into a single circle at a cost of no more than 15 cents.

 

 

 

Group 1:

 

Group 2:

 

Group 3:

 

Results:

Group 1 -

 

Group 2 -

 

Group 3 -

 

 

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Obstacles to Problem Solving:

• Mental Sets:

e.g. Water Jar Problems

Jar Capacities
A	B	C					Goal
21	127	3					100
14	163	25					99
18	43	10					5
9	42	6					21
20	59	4					31
14	38	8					6

• Results:

 

• Functional Fixedness:

e.g. Candle Problem: mount the candle on the wall so that the wax doesn't drip directly onto the floor.

 

Solution:

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