Cognitive Psychology- Attentional Blink Task Background : The Attentional Blink
ID: 3493319 • Letter: C
Question
Cognitive Psychology- Attentional Blink Task
Background:
The Attentional Blink (AB) phenomenon was first described by Raymond, Shapiro and Arnell in 1992.
In the first experiments a brief temporal separation was introduced between two objects to be identified. Researchers measured how long the first object continued to interfere with the second, and hence the time course of the first object's attentional demand.
“When asked to identify two visual targets (T1 and T2) embedded in a sequence of distractors, observers will often fail to identify T2 when it appears within 200–500 ms of T1— an effect called the attentional blink.”
Questions:
1. Identify the Independent Variables (IVs) and Dependent Variables (DVs) in this task. Interpret your results while clearly explaining the the relationship between the IVs and DVs.
2. What characteristics of the first stimulus affected your ability to direct attention to the second one in the experiment? Be as specific as possible.
3. What role do the distractors in the task play? Do you think the results would be the same if there were no distractors?
4. Provide atleast three real-life examples of the attentional blink phenomenon.
Explanation / Answer
Questions:
Q -. Identify the Independent Variables (IVs) and Dependent Variables (DVs) in this task. Interpret your results while clearly explaining the the relationship between the IVs and DVs.
Answer:The independent variable in an experiment is the varibale which is manipulated by experiemter to observe its impact upon the dependent variable. In this experiment using attentional blink task the time in terms temporal seperation between the presentation of two target stimulie (T1 and T2) is experimentally manipulated within the range of 200-500ms. Therefore the DV in this experiment is Temoral sepration between T1 and T2. The dpendent variable is time course of attentional demands of subjects measured by subjects ability to identify T2 (success or failure) when presented within the temporal seperaiton of 200-500ms. Therefore the dependent variable here is
Success or Failure in identification of T2 by subjects.
The outcome clearly shows that the level of IV influences the liklihood of successful identification of T2