Inattentional Blindness

Mack, Arien

doi:10.1111/1467-8721.01256

Cited by 618 publications

(716 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…This idea is consistent with evidence from the attention literature that unattended or irrelevant stimuli are processed (e.g., Mack & Rock, 1998) and can compete for resources (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974;Stroop, 1935). The results of Experiment 2 further localized this effect to the presence of two characters in the discourse rather than their visual presence in the scene being described.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

The effect of additional characters on choice of referring expression: Everyone counts☆

Arnold

Griffin

2007

Journal of Memory and Language

232

307

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Two story-telling experiments examine the process of choosing between pronouns and proper names in speaking. Such choices are traditionally attributed to speakers striving to make referring expressions maximally interpretable to addressees. The experiments revealed a novel effect: even when a pronoun would not be ambiguous, the presence of another character in the discourse decreased pronoun use and increased latencies to refer to the most prominent character in the discourse. In other words, speakers were more likely to call Minnie Minnie than shewhen Donald was also present. Even when the referent character appeared alone in the stimulus picture, the presence of another character in the preceding discourse reduced pronouns. Furthermore, pronoun use varied with features associated with the speaker's degree of focus on the preceding discourse (e.g., narrative style and disfluency). We attribute this effect to competition for attentional resources in the speaker's representation of the discourse. Keywords language production; discourse; reference; pronouns; word selection; proper names When people talk, they refer to things. They constantly make rapid decisions about whether an expression should be explicit, like Michelle Bacheletor the first female president in Chile, or whether it should be relatively underspecified, like she. In this paper we examine the production processes involved in the choice between less specific expressions, like pronouns, and more explicit expressions, like proper names.Research on this issue has primarily focused on the aspects of discourse that constrain speakers' choices in referring expressions, and in particular, the linguistic discourse history. The standard approach assumes that a speaker's task is to pick a referring expression that maximally fits the current discourse situation, so as to make it easy for the listener to interpret. An explicit formulation of this idea is offered by Chafe (1994), "If language is to function effectively, a speaker is obliged to categorize a shared referent in a way that allows the listener to identify it" (p. 97). Similarly, Gundel and colleagues (1993) state, "the form of referring expressions… Corresponding author: Dr. Jennifer Arnold, UNC Chapel Hill, Dept. of Psychology, CB#3270 Davie Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270, Email: jarnold@email.unc.edu. This research was partially funded by NIH grants HD-41522 to J. Arnold and MH61318-01 to Z. Griffin, as well as NSF grant BCS-0318456 to Z. Griffin.Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Aut...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

The effect of additional characters on choice of referring expression: Everyone counts☆

Arnold

Griffin

2007

Journal of Memory and Language

232

307

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“…These findings suggest that when attention was not directed to the manner in which actions were performed, they were perceived exclusively at the level of goals, and participants showed a form of inattentional blindness to the manner in which the actions were performed (cf. Mack & Rock, 1998). Thus, while participants in this experiment appeared to code actions in terms of goals, it is possible that drawing attention to the manner in which the actions are performed would shift the representation involved in automatic imitation from the level of goals to that of movements.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Automatic imitation of biomechanically possible and impossible actions: Effects of priming movements versus goals.

Longo¹,

Kosobud²,

Bertenthal³

2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

102

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Recent behavioral, neuroimaging, and neurophysiological research suggest a common representational code mediating the observation and execution of actions; yet, the nature of this representational code is not well understood. We address this question by investigating whether this observation-execution matching system (or mirror system) codes both the constituent movements of an action as well as its goal, and how such sensitivity is influenced by the topdown effects of instructions. Automatic imitation of observed finger actions was tested by manipulating whether the movements were biomechanically possible or impossible, while holding the goal constant. When no mention was made of this difference (Experiment 1), comparable automatic imitation was elicited from possible and impossible actions, suggesting that the actions had been coded at the level of the goal. When attention was drawn to the difference between possible and impossible movements (Experiment 2), only possible movements elicited automatic imitation. This sensitivity was specific to imitation, not affecting spatial S-R compatibility (Experiment 3). These results suggest that the human mirror system isautomatic imitation is modulated by top-down influences, coding actions in terms of both movements and goals depending on the focus of attention.

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“…Imagine that instead of using letters in Experiments 2 and 4, one employ participants' own names are used as the prime. In light of the established literature that one's own name is particularly Selective Attention 49 powerful in capturing attention in a variety of paradigms (e.g., Mack & Rock, 1998;Moray, 1959), it seems likely that participants would process their own names even in location tasks. This was indeed the result of a recent experiment (Chen & Simmonds, in press), in which the prime was either the participant's personal name or the name Piaget.…”

Section: Attention To Location Versus Attention To An Object Featurementioning

confidence: 99%

Selective Attention and the Perception of an Attended Nontarget Object.

Chen¹

2005

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Although many theories of attention assume that attending to an object results in the processing of all its feature dimensions, there has been no direct evidence that the irrelevant dimensions of an attended nontarget object are encoded. This article explores factors that modulate such processing. In 6 experiments, participants made a speeded response to a probe preceded by a prime that varied in 2 dimensions. Their reaction times to the probe were influenced by the response compatibility between the relevant and irrelevant dimensions of the prime. Furthermore, the effect was observed only when attention was directed to a nonlocation object feature and when participants' reaction times were relatively long. These results suggest that the effect of attention on a nontarget object is more complex than was previously understood.

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Inattentional Blindness

Cited by 618 publications

References 14 publications

The effect of additional characters on choice of referring expression: Everyone counts☆

The effect of additional characters on choice of referring expression: Everyone counts☆

Automatic imitation of biomechanically possible and impossible actions: Effects of priming movements versus goals.

Selective Attention and the Perception of an Attended Nontarget Object.

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