ExamTests with Attention: Theory and Practice at Leiden University

MC-questions

Question 1

'Stimuli are selected for further processing on the basis of their physical characteristics' (Broadbent's filter theory). What kind of a theory of attention would this be an example of?

1. an early selection
2. an attenuation
3. a late selection
4. an action

Question 2

What can endogenous control of attention not be investigated by?

1. presenting cues that predict the likely location of the next target
2. presenting cues that predict the likely shape of the next target
3. presenting randomly chosen, irrelevant cues
4. keeping the location of targets constant

Question 3

A programmed action stopped in response to a stop signal would be considered:

1. neurological inhibition
2. reactive inhibition
3. top-down inhibition of a mental representation
4. behavioral inhibition

Question 4

Which term did Wilhelm Wundt use to label his view of mental activity?

1. associationism
2. structuralism
3. voluntarism
4. elementalism

Question 5

People will respond less fast in case of a target in a location that was previously occupied by a distractor. Which term does this refer to?

1. negative priming
2. inhibition of return
3. visual marking
4. distractor-based cuing

Question 6    

What does the additive factors method allow researchers to investigate?

1. the duration of mental stages
2. whether mental stages are distinct and independent
3. the difference in duration between two stages
4. whether independent variables affect the same stage

Question 7

Imagine an experiment. The conclusion of the experiment is that a centrally presented task-irrelevant auditory cue speeds up the detection of an immediately succeeding visual target presented on the left or right side of the screen. What would this be an example of?

1. an orienting effect
2. an endogenous cuing effect
3. an auditory dominance effect
4. an alerting effect

Question 8

Early attention researchers designed a method to control a person's attention and to ensure that they were attending to a message. People were asked to listen to a spoken message and repeat it after the speaker. What is a term used to describe this task of repeating?

1. dichotic listening
2. divided attention
3. shadowing
4. auditory monitoring

Question 9

Imagine a person lying inside a scanner. She's taking part in an experiment after an injection of 2-deoxyglucose. What kind of study is this person participating in?

1. an fMRI study
2. a PET study
3. an MEG study
4. an EEG study

Question 10

Imagine you're attending a TEDtalk but you're not really enjoying it. There's a clock in the room, and you write down the time while keeping your eyes on the speaker. What would this be an example of?

1. overt attention 
2. covert attention
3. inhibition of return
4. extinction

Open questions

Look at the image at the right. During a perceptual discrimination experiment, partakers have to choose on each trial whether the stimulus contains just noise or a signal embedded in noise — a tough task. With regard to signal-detection theory, the demanding nature of the task is reflected in overlap between the distributions of evidence on noise trials and signal trials, as illustrated in the picture in the attachment for one of the participants. 

Question 1

The thick vertical line in the image shows us the decision criterion of the partaker. On trial x, the participant’s perceptual system assembles the amount of evidence shown by the small arrow. Explain what the participant decides (responds) on this trial?

Question 2

Mark the area in the image that depicts ‘misses’.

Question 3

Open question: you want to conduct an experiment with the dichotic listening paradigm in which the phenomenon of ‘negative priming’ is used to show unconscious processing of information in the unattended channel. Give a short description of the essential features of the experiment. You don't have to focus on the details. Additionally, describe the dependent variable, and the expected result in case information in the unattended channel is processed. You can opt to formulate your answers in either Dutch or English.

Answer indication MC-questions

1. A
2. C
3. D
4. C
5. A
6. D
7. D
8. C
9. B
10. B

Answer indication Open questions

1. The participant decides that a signal was presented.
2. Mark the triangular area underneath the signal curve to the left of the criterion.
3. The dichotic listening experiment should involve two streams of information, for example consisting of verbal stimuli, each presented to one ear. Participants are required to attend to one ear and respond as quickly as possible to target stimuli presented to that ear. The critical manipulation is whether a target stimulus that requires a speeded response has, or has not, previously been presented to the unattended ear. The dependent variable in negative priming studies is reaction time. The expected result is that targets that were previously a distractor are associated with slower reaction times than targets that are new. The difference in reaction time is the negative priming effect.