ATTENTIONAL
CAPTURE
Attentional Capture is the sensory adaptation to
break into our awareness, due to movement created, by something to get our
attention. This ability of movement to capture our attention from background is
a physiological ability developed when we were hunters, or were being hunted.
The ability to detect motion, and react to it quickly, is one of our greatest
strengths for survival, as it is for most mammals.
One of the best examples of Attentional Capture is of a person trying to be found in
a crowd. Because the people in the crowd are moving at roughly the same speed,
doing the same types of motions, walking, talking, etc, it is difficult to find
one person. If that same person being sought waves his hands and arms, the
process of Attentional Capture detects the movement, and our attention is
directed towards the movement. The faster and more vigorous, the easier it is to
see.
As a hunting guide at Catalina Island one of the
first things you learned about pigs and goats, is that they cannot see things
standing still very well, (also to have the wind in your face as you approached
them). As a bow hunter, I had to advance slowly and freeze whenever a pig looked
up, so Attentional Capture would not give me away. As long as he was not
concentrating on me, or looking at me, I could sneak up slowly and get within 20
feet to take a shot. If however I moved fast and that movement captured the
attention of the pig, or goat, they would
run.
Movement is not the only thing which can
cause Attentional Capture, the mind may be caught by objects of fear, or objects
of addiction, or by a learned stimulus, such as someone calling your
name.
Attentional capture is a flexible system,
however, rather than one with an innate reflex structure that is completely set.
We've all learned to respond quickly to at least one personally relevant
stimulus - our names. Imagine you are at a gathering and having a conversation
with someone. Another person in a nearby conversation says your name. Even
though you had no idea what those people were talking about, your attention was
captured by your name (this is generally called the Cocktail Party Effect
although it works in all sorts of gatherings). Once you notice your name, your
attention moves to that other conversation -just like a dog orienting toward a
squirrel. (Squirrel! And Snakes, Names, and Addictions: Attentional Capture,
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-mishaps/201006/squirrel-and-snakes-names-and-addictions-attentional-capture)
One of the diseases suspected of being involved
with Attentional Capture cognitive problems is schizophrenia. The inability to
distinguish what to attend to in looking at objects has direct implications on
working memory, also known as WM. Because the person with schizophrenia cannot
find clues to assign Attentional Capture to relevant areas of the brain, they
cannot distinguish correct stimulus clues with correct stimulus perception, they
cannot remember or distinguish stimulus to remember, and as a result, take in
too much data to attend to:
Recent evidence suggests that impairments in top-down driven attentional selection
occur not only on the level of perceptual processing but also on the level of
WM encoding. For instance, in the presence of highly distracting stimuli, PSZ,
(patients with Schizophrenia), were impaired in their ability to efficiently
select task-relevant items for WM encoding [25]” (Impaired
Contingent Attentional
Capture Predicts Reduced Working Memory Capacity in Schizophrenia,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495971/)
Thus Attentional Capture is that which
grabs our attention, from ourselves, when we are to intent on what we are doing,
or saying. This ability is a physiological driven ability for us to attend to
certain things, movement, and calling of our names, certain fear objects like
snakes, etc, to react when needed. Without this ability we would be all like
people texting and driving, or walking. Not paying attention to things we need
to, to survive, or attend to.
CAPTURE
Attentional Capture is the sensory adaptation to
break into our awareness, due to movement created, by something to get our
attention. This ability of movement to capture our attention from background is
a physiological ability developed when we were hunters, or were being hunted.
The ability to detect motion, and react to it quickly, is one of our greatest
strengths for survival, as it is for most mammals.
One of the best examples of Attentional Capture is of a person trying to be found in
a crowd. Because the people in the crowd are moving at roughly the same speed,
doing the same types of motions, walking, talking, etc, it is difficult to find
one person. If that same person being sought waves his hands and arms, the
process of Attentional Capture detects the movement, and our attention is
directed towards the movement. The faster and more vigorous, the easier it is to
see.
As a hunting guide at Catalina Island one of the
first things you learned about pigs and goats, is that they cannot see things
standing still very well, (also to have the wind in your face as you approached
them). As a bow hunter, I had to advance slowly and freeze whenever a pig looked
up, so Attentional Capture would not give me away. As long as he was not
concentrating on me, or looking at me, I could sneak up slowly and get within 20
feet to take a shot. If however I moved fast and that movement captured the
attention of the pig, or goat, they would
run.
Movement is not the only thing which can
cause Attentional Capture, the mind may be caught by objects of fear, or objects
of addiction, or by a learned stimulus, such as someone calling your
name.
Attentional capture is a flexible system,
however, rather than one with an innate reflex structure that is completely set.
We've all learned to respond quickly to at least one personally relevant
stimulus - our names. Imagine you are at a gathering and having a conversation
with someone. Another person in a nearby conversation says your name. Even
though you had no idea what those people were talking about, your attention was
captured by your name (this is generally called the Cocktail Party Effect
although it works in all sorts of gatherings). Once you notice your name, your
attention moves to that other conversation -just like a dog orienting toward a
squirrel. (Squirrel! And Snakes, Names, and Addictions: Attentional Capture,
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-mishaps/201006/squirrel-and-snakes-names-and-addictions-attentional-capture)
One of the diseases suspected of being involved
with Attentional Capture cognitive problems is schizophrenia. The inability to
distinguish what to attend to in looking at objects has direct implications on
working memory, also known as WM. Because the person with schizophrenia cannot
find clues to assign Attentional Capture to relevant areas of the brain, they
cannot distinguish correct stimulus clues with correct stimulus perception, they
cannot remember or distinguish stimulus to remember, and as a result, take in
too much data to attend to:
Recent evidence suggests that impairments in top-down driven attentional selection
occur not only on the level of perceptual processing but also on the level of
WM encoding. For instance, in the presence of highly distracting stimuli, PSZ,
(patients with Schizophrenia), were impaired in their ability to efficiently
select task-relevant items for WM encoding [25]” (Impaired
Contingent Attentional
Capture Predicts Reduced Working Memory Capacity in Schizophrenia,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495971/)
Thus Attentional Capture is that which
grabs our attention, from ourselves, when we are to intent on what we are doing,
or saying. This ability is a physiological driven ability for us to attend to
certain things, movement, and calling of our names, certain fear objects like
snakes, etc, to react when needed. Without this ability we would be all like
people texting and driving, or walking. Not paying attention to things we need
to, to survive, or attend to.