Elsevier

Behavioural Processes

Volume 44, Issue 2, December 1998, Pages 127-145
Behavioural Processes

Switching or gating? The attentional challenge in cognitive models of psychological time

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0376-6357(98)00045-XGet rights and content

Abstract

This paper briefly outlines theories dealing with attentional processes, before the status of attention is evaluated within cognitive models of psychological time. Particular emphasis is put on comparing the temporal information processing model (TIP) and the attentional gate model (AGM). It is argued that certain functional attributes that the AGM splits between an `attentional gate' and the switch located at the clock level of the TIP model were already ascribed to the switch and supported by previous animal data. Thus, the notion of an `attentional switch' is favored over adding a `gate'. This does not exclude the possibility that the TIP model may be adapted to accommodate both prospective and retrospective timing data.

Introduction

Over the decades, the definition of attention has depended on the mentalistic or scientific orientation of psychologists (James, 1890). Its selective aspects (focusing on certain features to the exclusion of others) have been recognized for a long time, and its usefulness in explaining why an organism does not always produce the same response when it faces the same set of stimuli in a constant environment is in no doubt. However, the allocation of attentional resources between concurrent tasks or the involvement of attention in the preparation of motor processes have been analyzed more recently. Overall, attention may be conceived as a cognitive process bridging the gap between the flow of incoming stimuli and the response of an organism. The main theoretical families of ideas dealing with attentional processes in general will be briefly outlined below, before their influence on the cognitive models of psychological time is discussed. Some experimental strategies designed to investigate these different approaches will be described, in particular those that are adapted to the study of the relationship between attention and subjective duration in animal and human subjects.

Section snippets

Attentional processes: filtering or resource allocation

Theories dealing with attentional processing can be classified as `filter' or `capacity' theories. The former concern focused attention and the selection of to be processed stimuli (they are also called `bottleneck' or `single channel' theories (Broadbent, 1958)). The latter deal with attentional processing limitations, i.e. attention allocation (Kahnemann, 1973). As the flow of incoming information is much too large to be processed as a whole some selection must take place to discard

Psychological time: with or without a timer?

Most time estimation data obtained from human subjects have been interpreted within two main theoretical frameworks: memory- and attention-based models. Only one of these approaches takes attentional processes into account. According to the pioneering work of Ornstein (1969)and his `storage-size' model, subjective duration is a by-product of nontemporal information processing and derives from the quantity and complexity of information stored in the memory. Events taking less `space' are

Animal timing: temporal information processing

Data collected in humans with the dual-task paradigm can thus be explained on the basis of attentional tradeoff between a timer and a stimulus processor. However, the role of attention within models accounting for animal timing performance seemed to be less clear, although, during the 1960s and 1970s Staddon (1965), Staddon (1967, 1974)repeatedly suggested that the accuracy of timing performance directly depended upon the capacity to focus attention on the crucial temporal parameters of the

The attentional gate model

More recently, the attentional gate model (AGM) proposed a `merger' between scalar timing properties and cognitive factors such as attention (Zakay and Block, 1995Zakay and Block, 1996Zakay and Block, 1997Zakay and Block, 1998Block and Zakay, 1996). By suggesting that the same theoretical framework might be common to all species, it addressed a question of fundamental importance both for attention and timing concepts. According to Block and Zakay (1996)(p. 182), the AGM combines features of

TIP and attention

The TIP model clearly specifies that the closure of the switch (Zakay and Block use the term `opening' for the equivalent operation) is triggered by incoming significant temporal information and can be modulated by attention and stimulus factors (for instance, its modality). Even if the TIP model, which was developed within the context of animal timing, does not consider the attentional mechanism as a fully fledged component, it never disputed the idea that attention may be divided between

Conclusions

Attentional phenomena in time discrimination have been interpreted in relation to existing theories of attentional processing. The data reflected both the selective and capacity aspects of attentional processing and confirmed again that, in spite of the absence of specific receptor channels, duration is a type of information in its own right. It also seems that several attentional effects described in animals and humans can be readily interpreted within the framework of the TIP and scalar

Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to Dr Françoise Macar for insightful comments on a previous version of the manuscript, and to Dr John Wearden for improving the language.

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