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Representation of Objects and Events : Why Do Infants Look So Smart and Toddlers Look So Dumb ?
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Kingstone, Alan Smilek, Daniel Ristic, Jelena Friesen, Chris Kelland Eastwood, John E. |
| Abstract | Theories of attention, too often generated from artificial laboratory experiments, may have limited validity when attention in the natural world is considered. For instance, for more than two decades, conceptualiza-tions of " reflexive " and " voli-tional " shifts of spatial attention have been grounded in method-ologies that do not recognize or utilize the basic fact that people routinely use the eyes of other people as rich and complex at-tentional cues. This fact was confirmed by our novel discovery that eyes will trigger a reflexive shift of attention even when they are presented centrally and are known to be spatially nonpre-dictive. This exploration of real-world attention also led to our finding that, contrary to popular wisdom, arrows, like eyes, are capable of producing reflexive shifts of attention—a discovery that brings into question much of the existing attention research. We argue that research needs to be grounded in the real world and not in experimental paradigms. It is time for cogni-tive psychology to reaffirm the difficult task of studying attention in a manner that has relevance to real-life situations. The researcher remote from immediate practical pressures may indeed be free to study major variables in which at this instant society does not seem to be interested; but he should not use this freedom in order to study minor variables, until there are no major ones within reach of our techniques. The necessity for some relevance to real life is a worthwhile intellectual discipline. Broadbent is one of the most significant researchers in experimental psychology. His research and writings on attention helped to initiate and fuel the paradigm shift known as the cognitive revolution. Broadbent was adamant that psychological theory must be grounded in real-life experiences. We argue, in part on the basis of recent findings from our lab, that cognitive psychology has, over time, lost touch with this foundation. The result is that theories of attention, often arising out of artificial laboratory experiments, fail to generalize to the real world. Thus, researchers are often unable to ask, let alone answer, many major questions regarding the everyday functioning of attention. methodology that would come to be known as the Posner cuing paradigm was introduced. Since then, it has been used routinely to study human spatial attention. In this paradigm, a central fixation dot is flanked by two squares (boxes). The task is to make a key press as quickly as possible when … |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.mccc.edu/~jenningh/Courses/documents/journalpacket.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
