Attention and Automaticity in the Processing of Self-Relevant Information

A neglected aspect of the study of social cognition has been the way in which people select information for further processing from the vast amount available in social environments. A major contemporary model of attention holds that there are two separate types of processes that operate concurrently: a flexible but resource-limited control process that regulates the contents of conscious awareness, and a relatively inflexible automatic process that can attract attention to stimuli without conscious intent. Passive automatic processes, can either facilitate or inhibit active attentional processing, necessitating either less or more attentional effort, depending on the characteristics of the information that is currently present. On a dichotic listening task in which subjects attended to or ignored self-relevant stimuli, it was found that self-relevant information required less attentional resources when presented to the attended channel, but more when presented to the rejected channel, relative to neutral words. This differential capacity allocation occurred despite subjects' lack of awareness of the contents of the rejected channel. The results supported the existence and interaction of the two processes of attention in social information processing.

[1]  F. W. Irwin,et al.  The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness , 1933, The Psychological Clinic.

[2]  T. K. Srull,et al.  Category accessibility: Some theoretical and empirical issues concerning the processing of social stimulus information , 1981 .

[3]  D. Norman,et al.  On the role of active memory processes in perception and cognition , 1975 .

[4]  R. Shiffrin,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: I , 1977 .

[5]  S. Fiske,et al.  What does the Schema Concept Buy us? , 1980 .

[6]  E. C. Cherry.  Some Experiments on the Recognition of Speech, with One and with Two Ears , 1953 .

[7]  Tim Shallice,et al.  The Dominant Action System: An Information-Processing Approach to Consciousness , 1978 .

[8]  R. Wyer.  The Acquisition and Use of Social Knowledge , 1980 .

[9]  T. K. Srull,et al.  The Role of Category Accessibility in the Interpretation of Information About Persons: Some Determinants and Implications , 1979 .

[10]  D E Meyer,et al.  Meaning, memory structure, and mental processes. , 1976, Science.

[11]  M. S. Mayzner,et al.  Human information processing : tutorials in performance and cognition , 1975 .

[12]  T. K. Srull,et al.  Category accessibility and social perception: Some implications for the study of person memory and interpersonal judgments , 1980 .

[13]  W. S. Rholes,et al.  Category accessibility and impression formation , 1977 .

[14]  G. A. Miller.  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW THE MAGICAL NUMBER SEVEN, PLUS OR MINUS TWO: SOME LIMITS ON OUR CAPACITY FOR PROCESSING INFORMATION 1 , 1956 .

[15]  S. Kaplan.  The Physiology of Thought , 1950 .

[16]  E. E. Jones,et al.  The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. , 1972 .

[17]  M. Posner.  Chronometric explorations of mind , 1978 .

[18]  M. Ross,et al.  Egocentric Biases in Availability and Attribution , 1979 .

[19]  B. J. Winer.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design , 1992 .

[20]  N. Anderson.  Likableness ratings of 555 personality-trait words. , 1968, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[21]  M. D. Storms,et al.  Videotape and the attribution process: reversing actors' and observers' points of view. , 1973, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[22]  P. Shaver,et al.  Cognitive consequences of self-awareness , 1976 .

[23]  Peter A. White,et al.  Limitations on verbal reports of internal events: A refutation of Nisbett and Wilson and of Bem. , 1980 .

[24]  H. Markus.  Self-schemata and processing information about the self. , 1977 .

[25]  B H Kantowitz,et al.  Double stimulation with varying response requirements. , 1974, Journal of experimental psychology.

[26]  Allan Collins,et al.  A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing , 1975 .

[27]  J. H. Neely.  Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited-capacity attention. , 1977 .

[28]  S. L. Nielsen,et al.  Personality and Selective Attention. , 1980 .

[29]  A. Greenwald.  The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. , 1980 .

[30]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Point of view and perceptions of causality. , 1975 .

[31]  M. Erdelyi.  A new look at the new look: perceptual defense and vigilance. , 1974, Psychological review.

[32]  T Shallice,et al.  Dual functions of consciousness. , 1972, Psychological review.

[33]  G. Logan.  Attention and automaticity in Stroop and priming tasks: Theory and data , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[34]  B. Hayes-Roth.  Evolution of Cognitive Structures and Processes. , 1977 .

[35]  Stephen J. Boies,et al.  Components of attention. , 1971 .

[36]  S. Jay Samuels,et al.  Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading , 1974 .

[37]  L. Z. McArthur,et al.  Figural emphasis and person perception. , 1977 .

[38]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. , 1977 .

[39]  G. Logan,et al.  On the Use of a Concurrent Memory Load to Measure Attention and Automaticity , 1979 .

[40]  N. Moray.  Attention in Dichotic Listening: Affective Cues and the Influence of Instructions , 1959 .

[41]  A Treisman,et al.  Semantic processing in dichotic listening? A replication , 1974, Memory & cognition.

[42]  Allen and Rosenbloom Paul S. Newell,et al.  Mechanisms of Skill Acquisition and the Law of Practice , 1993 .

[43]  E. Higgins,et al.  Individual construct accessibility and subjective impressions and recall. , 1982 .

[44]  I. D. Brown.  The Measurement of Perceptual Load and Reserve Capacity , 1964 .

[45]  John B. Carroll,et al.  The American Heritage Word Frequency Book , 1971 .

[46]  D. Kahneman.  Attention and Effort , 1973 .

[47]  B. J. Winer,et al.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design, 2nd Edition. , 1973 .

[48]  D. Broadbent.  The hidden preattentive processes. , 1977, The American psychologist.

[49]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Salience, Attention, and Attribution: Top of the Head Phenomena , 1978 .

[50]  G. Logan,et al.  When it helps to be misled: Facilitative effects of increasing the frequency of conflicting stimuli in a Stroop-like task , 1979 .

[51]  M. Brenner,et al.  The next-in-line effect , 1973 .

[52]  John B. Dillon.  Left Handedness , 1914, Science.

[53]  Susan T. Fiske,et al.  Attention and weight in person perception: The impact of negative and extreme behavior. , 1980 .

[54]  J. H. Neely.  Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Evidence for facilitatory and inhibitory processes , 1976, Memory & cognition.

[55]  Salience and the Cognitive Mediation of Attribution , 1979 .

[56]  J. Bruner.  On perceptual readiness. , 1957, Psychological review.

[57]  D. Norman.  Memory While Shadowing , 1969, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[58]  A. Levy,et al.  The organizational functions of the self: An alternative to the Duval and Wicklund Model of self-awareness. , 1979 .

[59]  G. Bateson.  Steps to an Ecology of Mind , 1972 .

[60]  M. Posner,et al.  Attention and cognitive control. , 1975 .

[61]  R. Jarvella,et al.  Memory for the intentions of sentences , 1974, Memory & cognition.

[62]  J. Bradshaw,et al.  A word-naming deficit in nonfamilial sinistrals? Laterality effects of vocal responses to tachistoscopically presented letter strings , 1979, Neuropsychologia.

[63]  Walter Mischel,et al.  On the interface of cognition and personality: Beyond the person–situation debate. , 1979 .

[64]  H Egeth,et al.  Selective Attention , 2019, Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.

[65]  Irwin G. Sarason,et al.  Emotion, Personality, and Selective Attention , 1981 .