Divided Attention and Cognitive Psychology - Essay Example

Running Head: DIVIDED ATTENTION AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Divided Attention and Cognitive Psychology [The [The of the Institution] Divided Attention and Cognitive Psychology It is important to remember that in the study of behaviour, we are confronted with a much more complex phenomenon than appears at first glance. For example, take a simple reaction time task, probably the most basal behaviour and at the same time the simplest reaction we can study. The instruction is: 'When the stimulus appears, then push this button as quickly as possible.' To respond to this instruction, the subject must orient and keep his or her attention directed towards an area where the stimulus will appear, detect the stimulus, and identify it as a critical stimulus. The subject then has to decide that he or she should react and select the appropriate action programme. The subject must initiate the action and execute it by triggering the specific motor programme. It would be bold to assume that all these stages and processes are controlled by a uniform attentional function. Indeed, in the meantime there is a great deal of evidence that the flux of information processing is controlled by a large number of very specific processes, as will be illustrated in the following. Yet we are still far from having a complete overview of how the different sub functions work, and have not identified all the underlying brain structures and processes involved. However, the analysis of attentional performance plays a key role in psychological research in general and in neuropsychology in particular. The problem has been approached from different directions: purely experimental research in normal functioning, neurophysiological and neuroanatomical studies in animals and humans, neuropsychological studies of brain-injured subjects and, recently, through investigations of attentional processes using neuroimaging techniques. Besides the fact that it is not easy to measure the degree of difficulty of tasks when these are performed separately, the problem is still more complex when the subject is asked to perform the same tasks, but simultaneously. Several theoretical elaborations have endeavoured to account for the subject's ability to divide, share or allocate his/her attention to two or several tasks performed simultaneously. The two most important are the central capacity theory and the theory of multiple resources, to which, as we shall see, are added other alternative explanations. The notion of capacity or resources of attentional processing plays a determinant role in the understanding of mechanisms allowing the performance of two tasks simultaneously, as well as in the way in which attention can be distributed between sensory, cognitive and motor tasks. Research in cognition identifies a tendency to focus upon and recall selectively that information which supports original ideas, a reasoning fallacy known as confirmation bids. (Cacioppo, 2000) Belief perseverance, a reasoning fallacy similar to confirmation bias, further complicates the problem. According to research examining belief perseverance, people tend to adhere to their original ideas, regardless of the presence of disconfirming evidence. (Bloom, 2001) While studies in cognition considered the problematic reasoning of the average individual in everyday situations, anecdotal evidence also exists to support the existence of these fallacies in academic and scientific reasoning as well (Eysenck & Keane, 2005) Worldviews relate reciprocally with general life data. (Berger, 2005) Worldviews are influenced by learning experiences and, in turn, affect what people perceive and how they interpret their perceptions. While genetically transmitted temperaments provide broad parameters for worldviews, daily life experiences affect the particular manifestations of these temperaments (Kristal, 2005). As regards the divided attention correlation with cognitive psychology, it transpires that the cognitive standpoint of learning chiefly suggests as how the mind interrelates with peripheral information and along with it, how it develops the information into internal perceptive mechanism simultaneously (Eysenck & Keane, 2005). In this connection, knowledge engages a set of inbuilt interior cognitive procedures and mechanism. (Eysenck & Keane, 2005) These various research approaches have led to an increasingly fine-meshed view of attentional performance, and in the process the number of different aspects of attentional performance has became quite large. For example, the following aspects have been discussed: focused attention, selective attention, control, vigilance, sustained attention, concentration, arousal, alertness, divided attention, capacity, effort, alternating attention, attentional shift, flexibility, lapses of attention, fatigability, inhibition, supervisory control, and speed of information processing. None the less, as of yet, there is no generally accepted consensus about the classification of specific attentional functions. Of course, the consistent use of these concepts in neuropsychology would be desired; however we are still far from such a standardized usage. This is surely less an expression of a lack of agreement and more likely the consequence of the fact that, despite all the intensive efforts deployed, until now we have not yet fully understood the phenomena underlying what we call attention. This is not only a theoretical problem but also a clinical one, because it raises questions as to which impairments in subprocesses we can expect in patients with brain damage or brain disease, what diagnostic tools we should use, and which treatment of specific deficits in attentional performance we should take into account. Indeed, whereas a task with which the subject is relatively unfamiliar requires as a first step the use of different processing resources, with practice, the subject gradually installs a mode of more economical functioning (automatic), which will finally show itself by a lower cost concerning these specific resources. Thus, practice reduces attentional demands and the demand on other central resources. This is also true for double tasks. Practice leads to a decrease in resources demand, a decrease which generates an improvement of performances which may be linked either to the automation of one of the tasks, or to the skill acquired as the result of simultaneous and repeated handling of two or several tasks. A classic example of automation in multiple tasks and of transformation in skill is learning to drive a car. To start with the learner will need to allocate all his/her attentional resources to the numerous tasks necessary to control his/ her vehicle: as well as the different manoeuvres that he/she has to carry out, he/she will have to put these together with the movement of the vehicle in traffic. At this stage, all his/her attention will be concentrated on a large number of events to be coordinated and the novelty of the task will require mainly the use of controlled processes. At this first level of familiarization with the task, the novice will probably prefer the person who accompanies him/her to speak only in case of real necessity, just leaving him/her to cope with the essentials. With practice, some aspects of driving will gradually become more automatic and will reorganize themselves to progressively lead to a new aptitude or skill. At the end of the apprenticeship, the driver will no longer experience any difficulty in talking with a passenger while controlling the vehicle; practice and therefore automatic processing in driving will in turn release some available quantity of attentional resources which the subject will then be able to allocate to other tasks, as for example talking with a passenger. Note nevertheless that even in the case of strongly automated tasks, according to the constraints imposed by the situation, recourse to controlled processes is sometimes necessary. Therefore an experienced driver in an unknown place where there are a lot of events to process-dense traffic, numerous indicator panels, etc.-will interrupt the conversation in progress so as to allocate all his/her attentional resources to the situation requirements. This type of example brings up the question of the automation degree of the task with which the subject is confronted and the impact of this automation on divided attention. This aspect takes us back to the problem of assessing the degree of task difficulty. The degree of automation is not only linked to the requirements and constraints inherent in the task itself but also to inter- and intra-individual variations. Indeed, familiarization or competence degree for a specific task can bring about some important inter- and intra-individual variations. Intra-individual because it is evident that, for example, if one selects a reading task, the academic subject will undoubtedly have much less difficulty in combining this type of activity with another, compared to a lesser schooled subject or simply a bad reader. Similarly, a trainee typist will have a significantly lower performance if he/she has to hold a conversation while working, which will not be the case with an experienced typist. We must also take into account the intra-individual variations given that the same subject can familiarize himself gradually with a task but can also, through apprenticeship, acquire with time a high level of competence and maybe some expertise in the task in question. Note finally that the competences are specific to the tasks: so, a person able to play the piano while talking will probably be unable to do the same when typing and vice versa. However, despite the quality of this performance in the dual task, the rate of memorization for dictated written words remained limited. It was true even when twenty successive words composed a sentence or were extracted from the same semantic category. In a later phase, the two subjects were able to write the names of the categories to which the dictated words belonged, and this while keeping to a normal reading speed as well as a correct understanding of the read text. The understanding of the attentional system is of central importance for neuropsychology and neuropsychological rehabilitation for several reasons. For one, attentional processes are fundamental to all cognitive skills. Second, disorders in these processes are relatively frequent compared to other neuropsychological disorders; and third, disorders in attentional processes can lead to a number of impairments in very different areas of performance, because attentional processes form the basis for the entire cognitive apparatus. At this point in time, we cannot assume that we have a complete understanding of the attentional system and its individual components and specific functions. But one thing is clear: it is a complex system of highly interactive subprocesses, which overlaps with all other cognitive processes and systems in many ways and is therefore not easy to separate from them. However, it would certainly be wrong to consider attentional processes as merely a part of the cognitive system, because a key aspect of these selective processes is the fact that their control involves not only cognitive and strategic functions but, to a significant extent, also emotional and motivational processes. Following the proposal of van Zomeren and Brouwer (1994), attentional processes can be divided heuristically into different components, or better still into different perspectives which play different roles within the attentional system. These components are based on very different theoretical foundations. The central aspect is selective attention, in particular focal attention, which is based on entire systems of specific functions for focusing on individual stimulus segments, for controlling the input or processing in different channels, and for integrating the input from different sensory channels or sources of processing. A further important aspect of selective attention is the ability to shift the attentional focus between stimuli or cognitive processes. Each of these systems seems to be hierarchically structured and extends from sensory-level control processes to the control of cognitive processing. Selective attention seems to link the emotional system with cognitive processes: in particular the control of the attentional focus in order to analyse relevant information more carefully seems to be under the control of emotional and motivational processes. The aspect of divided attention is more of practical importance than it is a theoretically clear and distinct concept. Corresponding to its rather vague theoretical foundation, the specific subskills which are employed when carrying out dual tasks are ill-defined. Accordingly, within the framework of rehabilitation, the therapy for impairments in divided attention is far less specific than that for other functions (Sturm et al., 1997). Even less precise are the attentional components which van Zomeren and Brouwer (1994) group under the intensity aspect, namely, tonic and phasic arousal, vigilance and sustained attention. The tonic arousal function is a prerequisite for any efficient behaviour, and it is a question of definition whether it should be subsumed under the concept of attention. In the neuropsychology of brain-injured patients, tonic arousal (Parsuraman, Warm and See, 1998) is of great importance, because it is fundamental to a state of clear consciousness and general orientation. In contrast, phasic alertness seems rather a specific aspect of focused attention, which directs the attentional focus toward an expected stimulus or an expected event in time, paralleling the orientation in space. Perhaps it is not a good conceptual solution to name these processes 'phasic alertness' or 'phasic arousal' because then they are immediately associated with the concept of tonic arousal, although they are clearly different. The most intricate component of attentional processes is the concept of vigilance and/or sustained attention. Clinically, these aspects are of great importance but conceptually and functionally their distinction is not at all clear. Vigilance overlaps in many aspects with concepts or processes of phasic arousal and focused attention and, like sustained attention, is controlled to a large extent by motivation and effort. Serious doubts must be raised, however, as to whether vigilance, or more correctly the Vigilance decrement', and sustained attention are functionally equivalent. Thus, the two concepts do not have the same ecological validity and the same predictive power in the context of neuropsychological rehabilitation. In conclusion, we can say that the concept of attention refers to the function by which experience and thoughts are given a systematic and chronological structure. The processes underlying attention allow the individual to form a real-time percept of reality. This percept is based on relevant information from the different sense modalities, which are temporally integrated, selected, and associated with a hierarchy of conceptual categories. In this manner, a person comprehends his or her actual integration in time and space. At the same time, the attentional processes provide the basis requirements for nearly all cognitive performances. Every type of practical or intellectual activity can be greatly limited by impaired consciousness, fatigue or a reduced ability to concentrate. This is especially true for all forms of brain injury or disease. But every clinical therapist should be aware of the fact that attention cannot be conceptualized as a unitary function. Rather, it has to be assumed that control of the information flow in the cognitive system is controlled by a number of hierarchically organized, and in part, highly specific processes. However, it should also be taken into account that attention, emotion, and motivation are closely linked. Without considering emotional and motivational processes, the control of the attentional focus cannot be understood. References Berger, K. (2005). The Developing Person throughout the Lifespan: New York: Worth. Bloom, R, Nelson, C. A., & Lazerson, A. (2001). Brain, mind, and behavior (3rd ed.) New York: Worth. Cacioppo, J. T, Berntson, G. G., Sheridan, J. F., & McClintock, M. K. (2000). Multilevel integrative analyses of human behavior: Social neuroscience and the complementing nature of social and biological approaches. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 829-843. Eysenck, M.W. and Keane, M.T. (1991). Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Eysenck, W Michael. & Mark T. Keane: 2005: Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook (5th Edition): Psychology Press Ltd. Kristal, J. (2005). 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