In this milestone, you will work from the topic, applied setting, and research questions you identified in Module Two and
start identifying relevant research to support your final proposal. Two major aspects of your final project include
selecting foundational theories relevant to your topic and suggesting potential strategies or techniques that may
alleviate a problem in an applied setting. To help you prepare for these aspects of the project, you will complete an
annotated bibliography featuring a minimum of four research articles. Two of the articles that you find should be related
to the theories you related to your topic that you intend to feature in your final proposal. The other two articles
should discuss applied research related to your topic area.
For each article, include a summary that highlights how the article relates to your chosen topic and setting, and address
the following questions:
How do the research results and statistical findings in the article apply to your research question and your applied
setting?
What are the strengths and limitations of the research results and findings in supporting the research question?
How could you expand on available research to more specifically address your research question?
PSY 540 Module Four 1
Attention and consciousness are defined in many different ways. A rather simplistic view of
attention is to think of it as focusing a “mental spotlight” on different sensory inputs (Kolb &
Whishaw, 2009). Consciousness, on the other hand, is defined more in terms of awareness.
Kolb and Whishaw (2009) described consciousness first as awareness, and second as
awareness of awareness. When looking at the definitions of both of these constructs, there
is a bit of overlap. For example, when we are aware of something, it might be under the
focus of our mental spotlight. That is, we are aware of what we are attending to. This module
will examine both conscious and unconscious attention, both of which play a role in
cognition.
Attention serves many functions in day-to-day life. Through attention, we can search for and
detect different stimuli in our environment. For example, if you are told to turn left at the stop
sign, attentional systems in the brain will allow you to search for the stop sign, detect it, and
take appropriate action. We can also selectively attend to certain stimuli or divide our
attention among stimuli (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012). For example, you might be
selectively attending to this reading while also blocking out information coming from the
radio. Or you might be dividing your attention between both things, so that you can read and
listen to music at the same time. While we all have these abilities, many different factors
(including biological ones) may influence how well our attentional system works.
A common disorder affecting attentional abilities is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD). Although this disorder is pervasive and widely researched, we still do not know
exactly what causes it or the best way to treat it. This week’s readings provide an overview
of how attention works. By understanding how the attentional system works, we can begin to
find solutions to deficits in attention.
A common lapse of attention that occurs is inattentional blindness. In this phenomenon,
people fail to see things that are present. It was first made famous by a study conducted by
Simons and Chabris (1999). In their study, individuals watched a video of two teams passing
a basketball. One team wore white, and the other wore black. Participants were instructed to
attend to either the black team or the white team and to count the number of passes made.
As they were counting, an unexpected event occurred—a gorilla walked through the scene.
Many participants failed to see the gorilla because their attention was directed elsewhere.
2 PSY 540 Module Four
Although this experiment might seem different from everyday life, the effect happens all the
time. Consider driving, for instance. Many traffic accidents occur when individuals report
looking but not seeing an oncoming car or person. If we direct attention to a particular
stimulus in the environment, we sometimes fail to notice other potentially relevant items.
Recall from last week that visual perception is also a factor in attention. In Simons and
Chabris’s experiment, individuals were more likely to notice the gorilla if they were counting
passes the black team made, perhaps because the gorilla was more visually similar to the
black team.
Other lapses of attention might occur when we divide our attention between two tasks, for
example, talking on our cell phones and driving. Research has noted that talking on a cell
phone while driving leads to poorer driving performance than driving while under the
influence of alcohol (Strayer, Drews, & Crouch, 2006). More recent research has even
indicated that using a cell phone while walking can lead to inattentional blindness. Hyman,
Boss, Wise, McKenzie, and Caggiano (2010) found that individuals were less likely to report
seeing a unicycling clown while walking and using their cell phones in comparison to
individuals who were just walking. This research is important, because walking is a relatively
simple activity that occurs without conscious awareness. That is, you do not have to
consciously think about moving your legs; the activity occurs with very little effort. Yet, when
combined with using a cell phone, it is enough to deplete attentional resources and leads to
a failure to notice other things in the environment.
The last area that is considered this week is how conscious versus unconscious thought
influences cognition. It is often noted that behaviors such as combing your hair, riding a bike,
recognizing letters, and so on do not require conscious thought to be completed. Instead,
these tasks become automatic and can be completed without thinking about them. In
contrast, it has been suggested that more complex processing and decisions require more
conscious awareness. However, cognitive psychologists have discovered that even in more
complex processing, unconscious thought may be better. Based on a series of studies,
Dijksterhuis and Nordgren (2006) proposed an unconscious thought theory. According to
their theory, conscious thought can lead to poor decisions, because its capacity is limited.
However, the capacity of unconscious thought is much larger, allowing us to consider more
information and make better decisions. Later in the course, we will examine both decision
making and problem solving. It is a good idea to keep the ideas of conscious versus
unconscious thought in mind as we examine theories and principles of these areas of
cognitive psychology.
PSY 540 Module Four 3
References
Dijksterhuis, A., & Nordgren, L. F. (2006). A theory of unconscious thought. Perspectives on Psychological
Science, 1(2), 95–109.
Hyman, I. E., Boss, S. M., Wise, B. M., McKenzie, K. E., & Caggiano, J. M. (2009). Did you see the unicycling
clown? Inattentional
blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(5), 597–607.
Kolb, B., & Whishaw, I. (2009). Fundamentals of human neuropsychology (6th ed.). New York City, NY: Worth
Publishers.
Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic
events. Perception, 28, 1059–1074.
Sternberg, R. J. & Sternberg, K. (2012). Cognitive psychology (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Strayer, D. L., Drews, F. A., & Crouch, D.J. (2006). A comparison of the cell phone driver and the drunk driver.
Human Factors, 48(2), 381–391.
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