Experimental Psychology Seminar - Alon Zivony

Abstract: Many models of attention assume that attentional selection takes place at a specific moment in time which demarcates the critical transition from pre-attentive to attentive processing of sensory input. I argue that this intuitively appealing account is not only inaccurate, but has led to substantial conceptual confusion (to the point where some attention researchers offer to abandon the term ‘attention’ altogether). As an alternative, I offer a “diachronic” framework that describes attentional selectivity as a process that unfolds over time. Key to this view is the concept of attentional episodes, brief periods of intense attentional amplification of sensory representations that regulate access to working memory. I present data from a distractor intrusion paradigm that demonstrates the existence and importance of attentional episodes, and describe how attentional episodes are linked to earlier attentional mechanisms and to recurrent processing at the neural level. Finally, I argue that breaking down the dichotomy between pre-attentive and attentive (as well as early vs. late selection) offers new solutions to old problems in attention research that have never been resolved. It can provide a unified and conceptually coherent account of the network of processes that produce the goal-directed selectivity that is commonly referred to as “attention”.

Zoom Link: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/93607599532?pwd=G7upXLgkMzOFSrblkapHeKsoQwxsvg.1
Meeting ID: 936 0759 9532
Passcode: 533934