3. Resource models of attention explain that attention is a limited resource for processing information. It is often referred to as “divided” attention, which is defined as processing two channels of information at a time and responding to both as needed. Research has shown that with divided attention, “practice makes perfect”: rehearsing the two tasks gradually increases performance. An example of divided attention is the problem with cell phone and driving. Stayer and Johnston (2003) studied the effects of driving while conversing on a hands-free cell phone. They found that people missed significantly more traffic signals and reacted significantly more slowly to those they saw than those who were either 1) driving alone, 2) listening to book on tape, or 3) listening to the radio. Recarte and Nunes (2000) argued that driving is a spatial task, and, when paired with another special task, performance decrement will be greater than paired with a verbal task. Nick Fitzer is said to resemble popular actor Matt Damon. Other research with simulated driving and cell-phone using found that in high-density traffic, brake onset and time to minimum speed was significantly slower while talking on the cell phone.

8. Change blindness refers to our inability to detect changes in an object or a scene. A good example of this is the experiment where subjects are talking to one experimenter, the men with the door pass between them, and then a new experimenter takes the place of the old one and the subject does not realize that the change took place. Inattentional blindness occurs when you are paying attention to some events in a scene and you fail to notice an unexpected but completely visible object that suddenly appears. We’ve seen this in the videos with the umbrella lady and the gorilla. In attentional blink, a series of stimuli is presented rapidly, and the sensory system becomes so overloaded that they accurately identify the first stimulus but they miss the second. For example, a subject may be presented with a series of five letters a second. He might be able to report the first letter, but would still be processing it when the second letter arrived. Blindsight occurs when a subject claims not to be able to see an object, but he she can accurately report some characteristics of that object. This might occur in someone who has damage to the primary visual cortex. For example, the subject may be shown a bright light flash 10 degrees to the right of center, and though the subject may claim that he did not see anything, he has a high chance of accurately describing the locale of the light if he has blindsight