Triesman

Views: FIGURES, TIME LINE, Cohen, Gregory, Neisser

Triesman, Anne

Influences on

Attention

Attention is most often referred to as the cognitive capacity to focus on certain aspects of our perception , while (at least temporarily) disregarding information about other parts of our perceptual environment. In practice, the 'disregarded' items are probably still being cognitively-processed, even though we may not be consciously aware of it. A good example of this is the 'cocktail party effect': we may choose to focus on conversation with one other person in a busy party, but if someone in a 'disregarded' conversation nearby mentions our name, we will frequently notice it and look round. This shows that even 'unattended' material is still being processed to some extent. In evolutionary terms, it would be rather useful for our perceptual system to let us know that a sabre-toothed tiger was bounding towards us, intent on making us its next meal, while we were concentrating on lighting the fire to roast a bit of mammoth.

Views: TOPICS, Neisser, Norman, Triesman

Cohen

C:\Program Files\Compendium-OpenLearn\media\backepoch_firgure.PNG

Views: FIGURES, TIME LINE, Chomsky, Triesman

New technological developments

The impact of new technology on psychological research (1900-2000). The technology available for psychological research can have an important impact on the type of research undertaken, and the questions posed. For instance: 1975: Development of Beta VCR system by Sony (Japan) and the VHS system by Matsushita (Japan). The development and widespread availability of video cameras and players made observation a widely available methodology for a generation of psychologists. In part this was the result of affordability and transportability � videos were cheap and relatively unobtrusive. It was also because video is relatively easy to time-stamp, rewind and fast-forward, making careful analysis possible. Andrew Whiten, in his reply to request for information to EPoCH, stated: suspect it is not well enough recognised how far video has transformed both the observational and experimental work that I and like-minded scientists have been able to undertake in the later part of the twentieth century and since. Instead of fleeting, once-only perceptions of behaviour, the luxury of repeated viewings (at different speeds if required) has allowed us to become 'superhuman' in the new depth of analysis of complex behaviour that we can achieve.\n\n1951: UNIVAC, the first commercial computer demonstrated at the US Census Bureau in Philadelphia 1965: The Minicomputer � Digital Equipment's PDP-8 1982: The personal computer: The use of computer technology in research has had a pronounced effect in a large number of areas, including the ability to conduct large scale factor analysis (something almost unimaginable when hand calculations would mean months or years of work), laboratory experiments of, for instance, reaction time measured in milliseconds by computer, and flight and driving simulators. Statistics, testing, experimental instrumentation, artificial intelligence, and teaching are some of the areas of psychology affected by the widespread availability of computers. Computers, and more specifically the Internet, have also enabled academics to communicate and collaborate more easily. The Internet is also becoming a popular laboratory for conducting research, allowing for wide sampling of a more general population than the undergraduates normally studied.\n1975�present: advances in brain imaging. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the only way to study neuropsychology was through case studies of brain damage. In a few cases, patients would present with localised brain damage, allowing the researcher to make generalisations about the functions of specific areas of the brain based on the deficits recorded in the individual patient. Later, as brain surgical techniques advanced, researchers were able to extrapolate brain function, often again from single case studies or small groups of patients, following for instance, surgical section of the corpus callosum or lobotomy. At the same time, groups of patients with neurological disorders could be tested for cognitive deficits, yielding important discoveries for neuropsychology. However, advances in scanning technology and techniques (e.g. MRI or PET scans) at the end of the 20th century have allowed researchers to pinpoint areas of brain damage, allowing more precise, and non-invasive, studies of the links between the brain and cognitive and social abilities. Developments in measures of brain activity level and location also allow for more precise study of the neurological structures underpinning psychological function in 'normal' people engaging in everyday activities. The impact of new scanning techniques for neuropsychology has been likened to the invention of the telescope on astronomy.\n2000: The mapping of the human genome. A working draft of the entire human genome sequence was announced in June 2000, which, alongside new techniques for genetic sampling, has also made possible further studies into the role of genetics in psychological characteristics and psychopathologies. Written by: Course Team

Views: CONTEXTS, Cohen, Dennet, Triesman, Whiten

Anne Triesman Anne Triesman was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England. She was the elder daughter of Percy Taylor and his French wife, Suzanne. She lived through the Second World War in a village near Rochester, Kent, where her father was chief education officer.

In 1957 she began work for a DPh in Psychology at Oxford University. Although she began by researchi ng aphasia, the rise of information theory at the time was transforming psychologists' view of the mind from a behaviourist switchboard to an active information processor.

She spent the next four years at the Medical Research Council-funded Psycholinguistics Research Unit doing more research on selective listening. In 1966 and 1967 she and her husband Michael (also a psychologist) were visiting scientists at the Psychology Department at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the USA.

She is currently (1991) professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and is ma rried to her second husband, Daniel Kahnemann.

Source: American Psychological Association Citation, 1991.

At 15 she began her school studies on Physics, Chemistry and Biology, then after one term switched t o French, Latin and History. She studied modern languages (mostly French literature) at Cambridge University, where she obtained a first class BA with distinction, which earned her the award of a research scholarship. She used her research scholarship to obtain a BA in psychology in one year.

At the same time, Donald Broadbent and Colin Cherry had published papers on a new area of research � selective listening (also called the 'cocktail party phenomenon').

During this time, her interests began to shift from audition to vision, and how attention modulated perception in these two different sense modalities. On her return she worked at Oxford University as a psychology lecturer. During this time she had the final two of her four children.

Using a two channel tape recorder originally intended for testing aphasics, Triesman began three yea rs of study of selective attention and speech perception (for which she was awarded a DPh, and later the prestigious Spearman Medal awarded by the British Psychological Society).

Testing her children one day on the lawn with a stopwatch, she found that the search for a red X amo ng red Os and blue Xs was very slow and laborious and much harder than searching for colour or shape alone. This effect was the same for adults in the laboratory, and led Triesman to begin a new program of research that explored feature integration, attention and object perception � still a major part of her research.

Top