Subject: Re: historical perspective on theories of attention From: Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 13:15:48 -0700Dear Peter et al., Your point about 'urgency' is well taken. And cartoonification of key signal features, particularly if they have a high level of 'urgency' or 'pertinence', would be a very useful procedure for the auditory system to adopt. As you indicate, it would be great if such cartoonification could be pinned down and characterized. Regards, Diana >I wonder if the distinction between urgency and importance is useful >if taking a sort of evolutionery perspective? by this, I mean >that,if we are looking for some simple physical features that tend >to encourage attention, might these be causal features, and if so, >are they reducible to signal features? >I'm thinking of items like "auditory looming" (which I think of as >part of the general class of "comingness"), which may signify call >to action. >I wonder if perception has been shaped by "urgency". Important items >- like understanding the shape of the place in which one is, mapping >escape routes, food etc, can be perceived 'in between' urgent items. >In this way, planning (for escape or feeding) can reduce the number >of urgent items. >So much of auditory spatial perception in real environments can be >'background', requiring little or no attention. An example might be >the reverberant characteristics of a room. Very few people bother to >pay explicit attentino to this, yet most learn to 'use' a room, so >that the perception of direction of sources in a given room improves >over time (Barbara Shinn Cunningham, and others) >So timeliness of response might be facilitated by inattentive, >unconscious or preconscious processes that just run in the >background, building up a background cognitive context that matches >the ongoing causal context well enough for survival. In the absence >of this, a sudden noise in our ear makes us jump whereas the same >noise, albeit unanticipated, would provoke a different response if >it occurred 20 metres away. The question is, what key signal >features differ in those two cases? Can these be cartoonified, and >is that what perception does (especially in urgent cases)? >regards >ppl > >Dr. Peter Lennox >S.P.A.R.G. >Signal Processing Applications Research Group >University of Derby >http://sparg.derby.ac.uk >Int. tel: 1775 > >>>> Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> 03/05/2006 20:30 >>> >Dear Dan, John et al., > >To place this discussion in historical perspective, the 'late >selection' model of attention was first proposed by Deutsch, J.A. and >Deutsch, D.,'Attention: Some theoretical considerations', >Psychological Review, 1963, 70, 80-90. There have, of course, been a >large number of elaborations of this basic model. The article is >attached. > >Cheers, > >Diana Deutsch > >-- >Professor Diana Deutsch >Department of Psychology >University of California, San Diego >9500 Gilman Dr. #0109 >La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA > >858-453-1558 (tel) >858-453-4763 (fax) > >http://www-psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch >http://www.philomel.com > >______________________________________________________________________ >This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. >For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email >______________________________________________________________________