EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

EXPERIMENT PROPOSAL

Working Title: Experimenter:

Implications of Processing Strategies Marquez, Cherry Luz P.
on Attention Allocation

LITERATURE REVIEW

Processing Strategies

Processing strategies as defined by Wixted and Thompson-Schill (2018) pertains to a set of

techniques or schema that acquires, analyzes and absorbs information from various sources as provided
by environmental cues or stimuli. In the field of experimental psychology, the concept is corroborated
by information processing, or the stages associated with absorbing and interacting with knowledge and
stimuli, is a construct often found in counselling theory, or therapy.

As studied by McLeod (2007), processing strategies relate to depth of processing involved in

memory, and predicts the deeper information is processed, the longer a memory trace will last. Unlike
the multi-store it is a non-structured approach. The basic idea is that memory is really just what happens
as a result of processing information. In relation to this, memory is just a by-product of the depth of
processing of information, and there is no clear distinction between short term and long term memory.
Moreover, it takes into consideration the strategies and level of processing entailed in the treatment of
information. Basic principles dictate that the idea that the way information is encoded affects how well
it is remembered, and the deeper the level of processing, the easier the information is to recall.

In an attempt to understand how information are processed through the employment of various
strategies, De Winstanley and Bjork (2004) presented findings in their study relating to the
characterization of the learner emerging from recent metacognitive research and have possible
implications for how learners might be induced to process information more effectively. When
presented with items that must be generated versus read at encoding, individuals typically remember
better those items that they generated versus those that they only read. In a first set of two
experiments, participants were able to profit from such an experience to the extent that a generation
advantage was eliminated on subsequent memory tests of generated and read items. Two additional
experiments demonstrated the critical nature of this experience in leading to improved processing of
future to-be-read information and elimination of a generation advantage.

Soldat et al. (2016) argued that various environmental cues provide affective information that
directly influences processing strategies with positively valenced cues leading to systematic processing.
It was found out in their research that an environmental cue, such as color, can directly affect processing
strategy in low motivation participants. Further, there were no effects on accuracy on these simple tasks
or on affective state. It was therefore identified in the study that processing strategies extend the
cognitive tuning branch of the affect-as-information strand. Relating to this, cognitive tuning was
originally applied to the effects of experiences affect and such includes various environmental cues and
affective signals. In simpler terms, environmental cues or stimuli set the starting point of mental
processing through the use of wide array of processing strategies.

According to Schweizer et al. (2009) from University of Frankfurt, effects due to specific
processing strategies become obvious in comparing the models representing these processing strategies
and also by investigating the variances of the corresponding latent variables. The usefulness of such
models is demonstrated by the reaction time data of a cognitive task including three treatment levels.
Two different processing strategies were considered: analytic and holistic. The results indicated that the
participants applied both processing strategies.” The researchers concluded: "The analytic strategy was
primarily applied for performing with respect to the second and third treatment levels and the holistic
strategy with respect to the first treatment level."

Attention Allocation

Attention allocation as defined by Kramer et al. (2016) refers to an evaluative cognition

methodology which focuses on optimizing limited cognitive resources. It was further noted that
attention allocation has several purposes which includes guiding the process of working out
what knowledge should be stored in memory, what should be stored locally on disk, and what
can be stored distributed on other machines; and guide the forgetting process. Essentially, it
derives context from the meaning of attention in the field of psychology as the concentration of
awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli; or the awareness of the here
and now in a focal and perceptive way.

According to Archibald et al. (2015), attention allocation, updating working memory, and
language processing are interdependent cognitive tasks related to the focused direction of
limited resources, refreshing and substituting information in the current focus of attention, and
receiving/sending verbal communication, respectively. Results from the study revealed a
selective attention cost when working above but not within memory span capacity. Measures of
general working memory were positively related to overall task performance, whereas language
abilities were related to response time. In particular, higher language skills were associated with
faster responses under low load conditions. These findings suggest that attentional control and
storage demands have an additive impact on working memory resources but provide only
limited evidence for a domain-general mechanism in language learning.

In a study spearheaded by Haller et al. (2017) entitled “Attention allocation and social
worries predict interpretations of peer-related social cues in adolescents,” it was noted that there
are several limitations that need to be considered when interpreting the results of this study.
Firstly, we did not measure depressive symptoms. The lack of an interaction between social
anxiety and attention allocation may be attributable to a possible presence of depressive
symptoms. Depressive symptoms frequently co-occur with social anxiety. There is some
evidence to suggest that co-occurring depressive symptoms may ‘cancel out’ attentional biases
linked to anxiety. The research also cited a study by Taghavi et al. positing that while anxious
adolescents, relative to controls, selectively allocated attention toward threat stimuli,
adolescents with both types of symptoms did not show any attentional bias towards either
threat- or depression-related material relative to participants in the control group .

According to news reporting originating from Boston, Massachusetts, by VerticalNews

correspondents, research stated, "In a recent paper, we introduced a method and equation for
inferring the allocation of attention on a continuous scale. The size of the stimuli, the estimated
size of the fovea, and the pattern of results implied that the subjects' responses reflected shifts
in covert attention rather than shifts in eye movements.” When the stimuli were close together,
as in the previous study, fixations that supported correct responses at one stimulus also
supported correct responses at the other stimulus, as measured over the entire session. Yet, on
any particular trial, correct responses were limited to just one stimulus. This pattern suggests
that the constraints on responding within a trial were due to limits on cognitive processing,
whereas the ability to respond correctly to either stimulus on different trials must have entailed
shifts in attention.

An article authored by Lehrer (2010) about a psychological disorder Attention

Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) presented a theory that the disorder is really about the
allocation of attention, being able to control our mental spotlight. Even arithmetic is now
compelling enough to notice; the neural currency of long division has been increased, which
makes it easier to allocation our attention to the place in the classroom it is supposed to be
allocated.

Influence of Processing Strategies on Attention Allocation

Writing in Handbook of Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology, Weiner (2012) asserted
that parallel processing strategies have substantial impact on attention allocation as the stimuli
presented by the external environment are processed and filtered as some of these are irrelevant to the
goals and priorities of human beings. According to the discussions, the selectivity of attentional
processing means that people’s representations of social entities are always incomplete, whether in
significant or merely trivial ways. Furthermore, attentional filtering inevitably produces memory
representations containing less than a full recreation of the social environment.

Focusing on the conservation of capacity for higher attention, Soldat et al. (2016) argued that
when processing strategies are employed to process affective cues which signal that a situation or
occurrence may be beneficial or not, other cognitive resources are conserved which may give ample
space for more significant processing of information and learning. Accordingly, through facial analysis in
heuristic or non-systematic processing, the mind could allocate its capacity for having higher level of
alertness, longer attention span and stronger motivation. The study also highlighted the importance of
identifying the rationale or purpose of the information received to evaluate its propensity to contribute
in the physiological and psychological well-being of an individual. Furthermore, empirical results
necessitate that there is strong correlation between the assistive tendency of processing strategies to
attentional allocation.

According to the news editors in a research published in Psychology and Psychiatry Journal
Atlanta (2018), the ability to detect threatening stimuli is an important skill for police officers. No
research has yet examined whether implementing different information processing strategies can
improve threat detection in police officers and police trainees. However, clear and convincing findings
have shown that induced processing strategies can influence attentional mechanisms related to threat
detection in police trainees and police officers.
 Operationally, the primary aim of their study was to compare the effect of strategies
accentuating the processing of the emotional or the semantic dimension of stimuli on attention towards
threatening and neutral information. In a cueing paradigm, participants had to respond to a target that
was presented following a threatening or neutral cue. Participants then answered a question, known
before hand, concerning the cue. The question was used to induce both the emotional or semantic
processing strategy. Results showed that when the processing strategy was emotional, police trainees
and officers were faster to detect the target when it followed a relatively threatening cue, compared to
a neutral cue, independently of its spatial location. This was not the case when the processing strategy
was semantic.

Pinto and Papesh (2019) experimented that when observers search for multiple targets, they are
slower and less accurate, yet have better incidental memory for non-target items encountered during
the task. One explanation for this may be that observers titrate their attention allocation based on the
expected difficulty suggested by search cues. Difficult search cues may implicitly encourage observers to
narrow their attention, simultaneously enhancing distractor encoding and hindering peripheral
processing. Across three experiments, we manipulated the difficulty of search cues preceding passive
visual search for real-world objects, using a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) task to equate item
exposure durations. In all experiments, incidental memory was enhanced for distractors encountered
while participants monitored for difficult targets. Moreover, in key trials, peripheral shapes appeared at
varying eccentricities off center, allowing us to infer the spread and precision of participants' attentional
windows. Peripheral item detection and identification decreased when search cues were difficult, even
when the peripheral items appeared before targets. These results were not an artifact of sustained
vigilance in miss trials, but instead reflect top-down modulation of attention allocation based on task
demands. Implications for individual differences are discussed.

REFERENCES

Archibald, Lisa et al. (2015). Attention allocation: Relationships to general working memory or
specific language processing, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. (139) 83-98.

De Winstanley, Patricia Ann & Bjork, Elizabeth (2004). Processing strategies and the generation
effect: Implications for making a better reader. Memory & Cognition 32, 945–955.
https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196872

Dissociating Attention and Eye Movements in a Quantitative Analysis of Attention Allocation.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2017;8():1-11.

Haller, Simone P. (2017). Attention allocation and social worries predict interpretations of peer-
related social cues in adolescents, Developmental Cognitive Nueroscience. (25)
105-112.

Kramer, Arthur F., et al. Attention : From Theory to Practice, Oxford University Press USA -
OSO, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central
Lehrer, Jonah (2010). The Attention-Allocation Deficit. Retrieved from Wired thru https://
www.wired.com/2010/09/the-attention-allocation-deficit/

McLeod, S. A. (2007, December 14). Levels of processing. Simply Psychology. https://

www.simplypsychology.org/levelsofprocessing.html

Pinto, J. D. G., & Papesh, M. H. (2019). Incidental memory following rapid object processing:
The role of attention allocation strategies. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 45(9),
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Psychology; reports summarize psychology findings from department of psychology (can threat
detection be enhanced using processing strategies by police trainees and officers?).
(2018, Aug 11). Psychology & Psychiatry Journal

Soldat, A. S., Sinclair, R. C., & Mark, M. M. (1997). Color as an environmental processing cue:
External affective cues can directly affect processing strategy without affecting mood.
Social Cognition, 15(1), 55-71.

Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Language and

Thought : Developmental and Social Psychology, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central

Weiner, Irving B., et al. Handbook of Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology, John
Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2012.