Editing Attention (section)

==Selective and visual==
{{See also|Selective auditory attention}}
[[File:Wikipedia-spotlight.jpg|thumb|200px|right|alt=The spotlight model of attention]]
In [[cognitive psychology]] there are at least two models which describe how visual attention operates. These models may be considered metaphors which are used to describe internal processes and to generate hypotheses that are [[falsifiable]]. Generally speaking, visual attention is thought to operate as a two-stage process.<ref name="Jonides">{{cite journal | vauthors = Jonides J | year = 1983 | title = Further towards a model of the mind's eye's movement | url =http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jjonides/pdf/1983_4.pdf | journal = Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society | volume = 21 | issue = 4| pages = 247–50 | doi=10.3758/bf03334699| doi-access = free }}</ref> In the first stage, attention is distributed uniformly over the external visual scene and processing of information is performed in parallel. In the second stage, attention is concentrated to a specific area of the visual scene (i.e., it is focused), and processing is performed in a serial fashion.

The first of these models to appear in the literature is the spotlight model. The term "spotlight" was inspired by the work of [[William James]], who described attention as having a focus, a margin, and a fringe.<ref name="Eriksen">{{cite journal | vauthors = Eriksen CW, Hoffman JE | year = 1972 | title = Temporal and spatial characteristics of selective encoding from visual displays | journal = Perception & Psychophysics | volume = 12 | issue = 2B| pages = 201–4 | doi = 10.3758/BF03212870 | doi-access = free }}</ref> The focus is an area that extracts information from the visual scene with a high-resolution, the geometric center of which being where visual attention is directed. Surrounding the focus is the fringe of attention, which extracts information in a much more crude fashion (i.e., low-resolution). This fringe extends out to a specified area, and the cut-off is called the margin.

The second model is called the zoom-lens model and was first introduced in 1986.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Eriksen CW, St James JD | title = Visual attention within and around the field of focal attention: a zoom lens model | journal = Perception & Psychophysics | volume = 40 | issue = 4 | pages = 225–40 | date = October 1986 | pmid = 3786090 | doi = 10.3758/BF03211502 | doi-access = free }}</ref> This model inherits all properties of the spotlight model (i.e., the focus, the fringe, and the margin), but it has the added property of changing in size. This size-change mechanism was inspired by the [[zoom lens]] one might find on a camera, and any change in size can be described by a trade-off in the efficiency of processing.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Castiello U, Umiltà C | title = Size of the attentional focus and efficiency of processing | journal = Acta Psychologica | volume = 73 | issue = 3 | pages = 195–209 | date = April 1990 | pmid = 2353586 | doi = 10.1016/0001-6918(90)90022-8 | hdl = 11577/2470912 | hdl-access = free }}</ref> The zoom-lens of attention can be described in terms of an inverse trade-off between the size of focus and the efficiency of processing: because attention resources are assumed to be fixed, then it follows that the larger the focus is, the slower processing will be of that region of the visual scene, since this fixed resource will be distributed over a larger area. It is thought that the focus of attention can subtend a minimum of 1° of [[visual angle]],<ref name="Eriksen"/><ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Eriksen CW, Hoffman JE | year = 1973 | title = The extent of processing of noise elements during selective encoding from visual displays | journal = Perception & Psychophysics | volume = 14 | issue = 1 | pages = 155–160 | doi = 10.3758/BF03198630 | doi-access = free }}</ref> however the maximum size has not yet been determined.

A significant debate emerged in the last decade of the 20th century in which Treisman's 1993 Feature Integration Theory (FIT) was compared to Duncan and Humphrey's 1989 attentional engagement theory (AET).<ref name = "Raftopoulos_2007">{{cite book | vauthors = Raftopoulos A | title= Cognition and Perception |publisher= Oxford University Press|year= 2007| chapter = Visual Processing and Attention }}</ref>{{rp|5–7}} FIT posits that "objects are retrieved from scenes by means of selective spatial attention that picks out objects' features, forms feature maps, and integrates those features that are found at the same location into forming objects." Treismans's theory is based on a two-stage process to help solve the binding problem of attention. These two stages are the preattentive stage and the focused attention stage.

# Preattentive Stage: The unconscious detection and separation of features of an item (color, shape, size). Treisman suggests that this happens early in cognitive  processing and that individuals are not aware of the occurrence due to the counter intuitiveness of separating a whole into its part. Evidence shows that preattentive focuses are accurate due to illusory conjunctions.<ref>{{Cite journal| vauthors = Treisman A, Vieira A, Hayes A |date=1992|title=Automaticity and Preattentive Processing|journal=The American Journal of Psychology|volume=105|issue=2|pages=341–362|doi=10.2307/1423032|jstor=1423032|pmid=1621885|issn=0002-9556}}</ref>
# Focused Attention Stage: The combining of all feature identifiers to perceive all parts as one whole. This is possible through prior knowledge and cognitive mapping. When an item is seen within a known location and has features that people have knowledge of, then prior knowledge will help bring features all together to make sense of what is perceived. The case of R.M's damage to his parietal lobe, also known as [[Balint's syndrome]], shows the incorporation of focused attention and combination of features in the role of attention.<ref>{{Cite journal| vauthors = Cohen A, Rafal RD |date=1991|title=Attention and Feature Integration: Illusory Conjunctions in a Patient with a Parietal Lobe Lesion|journal=Psychological Science|volume=2|issue=2|pages=106–110|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.1991.tb00109.x|jstor=40062648|s2cid=145171384|issn=0956-7976}}</ref>

Through sequencing these steps, parallel and serial search is better exhibited through the formation of conjunctions of objects. Conjunctive searches, according to Treismans, are done through both stages<ref>{{Citation|title=Feature Binding, Attention, and Object Perception|date=2003|work=Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness|publisher=The MIT Press|doi=10.7551/mitpress/2834.003.0008|pmc=1692340 |isbn=978-0-262-26750-2|last1=Treisman |first1=A. |volume=353 |issue=1373 |pages=1295–1306 |pmid=9770223 }}</ref> in order to create selective and focused attention on an object, though Duncan and Humphrey would disagree. Duncan and Humphrey's AET understanding of attention maintained that "there is an initial pre-attentive parallel phase of perceptual segmentation and analysis that encompasses all of the visual items present in a scene. At this phase, descriptions of the objects in a visual scene are generated into structural units; the outcome of this parallel phase is a multiple-spatial-scale structured representation. Selective attention intervenes after this stage to select information that will be entered into visual short-term memory."<ref name="Raftopoulos_2007" />{{rp|5–7}} The contrast of the two theories placed a new emphasis on the separation of visual attention tasks alone and those mediated by supplementary cognitive processes. As Rastophopoulos summarizes the debate: "Against Treisman's FIT, which posits spatial attention as a necessary condition for detection of objects, Humphreys argues that visual elements are encoded and bound together in an initial parallel phase without focal attention, and that attention serves to select among the objects that result from this initial grouping."<ref name="Raftopoulos_2007" />{{rp|8}}