What is attention?

Pool, tasks, as long as tasks don’t compete

Attention refers to many different kinds of mechanisms.

What are the theories of attention?

If tasks compete for the same resource it will deplete faster. Dual tasks drain faster. Multiple
pools with non-competing tasks should be fine as long as tasks aren’t too hard.

What is top-down processing? Bottom up processing?

​ Top-Down: May target inconspicuous locations in visual scene slower volitional.

​ Bottom Up: Based on image features. Very fast. Involuntary/Automatic.

How are eye-moments related to attention? What is the evidence?

How are saccades and Smooth pursuit different?

​ Saccades – Rapid motion (25-30ms) between fixations, Occur every 250-300ms, evidence for
micro-saccades.

​ Smooth – Requires feedback.

What is the evidence for the limits of attention?

​ Inattentional Blindness

​ ​ Shows there are remarkable gaps in our perceptions. When motion detection is
disrupted, it is very difficult to observe changes to unattended image locations.

​ Change Blindness​ ​

Change blindness is a perceptual phenomenon that occurs when a change in a visual

stimulus is introduced and the observer does not notice it. For example, observers often fail to
notice major differences introduced into an image while it flickers off and on again.

​ Failures of selection in time

When new info arrives in a rapid stream, spending time processing it will cause you to
miss some other incoming info, resulting in what are called failures of selection in time.

​ Attentional Blink

The difficulty in perceiving and responding to the second of two target stimuli amid a
RSPV stream of distracting stimuli.

Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP): Experimental procedure in which stimuli

 appear in a stream at one location at a rapid rate. (About 8 per second)

​ Dual task interference

​ Hemispatial neglect

​ ​ Damage to right brain = Less awareness to visual field in left eye. (Vice Versa)

​ ​

What is the spotlight theory of attention? What is the evidence?

​ Theory which holds that we can move our attention around to focus on various parts of our
field.

What is the object based theory of attention? What is the evidence?

​ Basically staring at a specific object rather than the object and its location.

Faster judgments when bumps are on the same object (in spite of slightly larger distance)

What is visual Search?

​ Visual search is a type of perceptual task requiring attention that typically involves an active
scan of the visual environment for a particular object or feature (the target) among other objects or
features (the distractors).

What is disjunctive search? Conjunctive search? How does number of distractors effect each
type of search task?

Where’s Waldo = Conjunctive search (looking for specific items)

Add more of the same objects (Waldo) adds more distractors which has a longer search time =
Disjunctive search.
What are the differences between the theories of object recognition

​ Template matching models

​ ​ Detect patterns by matching visual input with a set of templates stored in memory.

​ Feature matching Models

​ ​ Detect objects by the presence of features.

​ ​ Each object is broken down into features.

​ ​ Ex:

​ ​ ​ A= / + \ + -

​ Recognition-by-components

​ Configural models

​ ​ Individual instances are not stored; what is stored is an “exemplar” or representative

element of category.

​ ​ Recognition based on distance between perceived item and prototype.

How do Top-down processing and context effect Object Recognition?

​ Context can often help in identification of an object. Context can alter the interpretation of an
object.

What are monocular depth cues?

​ Size, depth, over lapping,

What are binocular depth cues?

​ Convergence, binocular cues are what allow us to see 3D,

How do shading and lighting effect concave shapes, convex shapes, curved surfaces, planar
surfaces?

​ Concave shapes have shadows at top and light at bottom.

​ Convex shapes have light at top and shadows at bottom.

What is parallax?

​ The effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from
different positions, e.g., through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera.
What are accommodation, convergence, stereopsis and binocular disparity?

What are the Horopter and Panum's Fusion area?

​ Horopter= Imaginary line in space where both eyes can see the object. You need both eyes.

​ Panums= The area around the Horopter where

What are crossed and uncrossed disparity? Diplopia?

​ Crossed= Diplopic image not on horopter outside panums but closer than the fixation view.

​ Uncrossed=Double image not on horopter, its beyond panums view farther away from the
fixation point.

What are some of the uses of color vision?

​ Color is used not only to match our socks but also relates to our ability to perceive forms
accurately, Identifications of objects, Survival, Signaling, Certain colors have specific meanings, Some
are learned, Responding to traffic signals, Others are instinctive, A female robin responding to a male
robins red breast, Color also indicates, Spoiled food, Health, Emotions.

What is the visible spectrum? Can you name all the colors? What are short, middle and long
wavelength?

​ Colors are: Violet, Indigo, Blue (short wave), Green (medium wave), Yellow, Orange, Red
(long wave).

What do rods and cones do? How are they different?

​ Rods: are responsible for vision at low light levels (scotopic vision). They do not mediate color
vision, and have a low spatial acuity.

​ Cones: are active at higher light levels (photopic vision), are capable of color vision and are
responsible for high spatial acuity. The central fovea is populated exclusively by cones. There are 3
types of cones which we will refer to as the short-wavelength sensitive cones, the middle-wavelength
sensitive cones and the long-wavelength sensitive cones or S-cone, M-cones, and L-cones for short.

What is additive color mixing? Subtractive color mixing?

What is a MacAdam Ellipse?

​ In the study of color vision, a MacAdam ellipse is a region on a

chromaticity diagram which contains all colors which are indistinguishable, to
the average human eye, from the color at the center of the ellipse. The
contour of the ellipse therefore represents the just noticeable differences of chromaticity.

What is a metamer?

​ Metamerism/ metameric match. A metameric match is one where two lights, or objects, appear
to be identical even though the spectral content of the light coming from them is different.

Why the change in 3Dglasses from green and red to cyan and red. Why the change?

​ Red-green anaglyph glasses:

With pure red left lense and pure green right lens these are the predecessors of red-cyan anaglyph
glasses. The main disadvantage of red-green anaglyph glasses is that green filter lets too much red
color through so some ghosting can be present when viewing anaglyph imagery.
​ Red-blue anaglyph glasses
These glasses have pure red left lens and pure blue right lens. No disadvantages in viewing anaglyph
images, because the filters let through colours, which don't overlap. So no ghosting is present.