Moray

Question 1

What does dichotic listening mean?

Answer 1

• 2 different stimuli coming into different ears

Question 2

What was the background (general)?

Answer 2

• a cognitive process, allows us to select information that is constantly being bombarded at our brains and concentrate on it, whilst at the same time also rejecting information
• referred to as selective/focussed attention
• research has been conducted into both auditory and visual selective attention

Question 3

What was the background (Cherry)?

Answer 3

• cocktail party effect -> skilled at tuning into 1 voice/conversation, while tuning out the other conversations. getting people to listen through headphones while 2 different messages were played in each ear (dichotic listening task). participants shadowed the message and ignored the other. Cherry found very little information could be remembered from the ignored message.

Question 4

What was the background (Broadbent)?

Answer 4

• filter model of selective attention -> sensory filter mechanism selected only 1 channel of incoming sensory information and blocked all others. says filtering occurs early in the process of selective attention

Question 5

What was the background (Johnson & Heinz)?

Answer 5

• can happen at any stage in processing of information. we can switch attention if the unattended channel becomes more meaningful to us.

Question 6

What were the aims?

Answer 6

1. to provide an empirical test of Cherry’s findings
2. to see if some kinds of messages break through the inattentional block to the rejected ear
3. to see if expectations may affect the way the message to the rejected ear is processed

Question 7

What were some controls?

Answer 7

• apparatus -> Brenell Mark IV stereo tape recorded, twin amplifiers to give 2 different outputs
• loudness was matched, asking ppts to say when the message appeared to be equivalent volume
• ppts completed 4 trial shadowing tasks
• the loudness of each message was approx. 60db above hearing threshold, speech rate was approx. 150 words/min
• all passages were recorded by 1 male speaker

Question 8

What were the research methods (exp 1)?

Answer 8

• lab experiment, repeated measures design

Question 9

What was the sample (exp 1)?

Answer 9

• no sample size

Question 10

What were the IV’s (exp 1)?

Answer 10

• message played to the shadowed ear, message played to the rejected ear

Question 11

What was the DV (exp 1)?

Answer 11

• number of words recalled in the rejected message

Question 12

What was the procedure (exp 1)?

Answer 12

• different messages played in the shadowed and rejected ears -> rejected (word list repeated 35 times)
• ppts shadowed passage by repeating it out loud
• asked to recall all they could hear from the rejected message
• 30 second gap between test of recall
• word list -> similar material but not the same as the passage

Question 13

What were some results (exp 1)?

Answer 13

• mean words repeated out of 7: shadowed - 4.9, rejected - 1.9

Question 14

What were some conclusions (exp 1)?

Answer 14

• even if something is repeated it can still be blocked
• you recognise more while paying attention

Question 15

What were the research methods (exp 2)?

Answer 15

• lab experiment, repeated measures design

Question 16

What was the sample (exp 2)?

Answer 16

• 12 participants

Question 17

What were the IV’s (exp 2)?

Answer 17

• instructions to the rejected ear prefixed with ppts name, or not

Question 18

What was the DV (exp 2)?

Answer 18

• number of instructions to the rejected ear that were responded to

Question 19

What was the procedure (exp 2)?

Answer 19

• ppts had to shadow 10 paired passages of light fiction, 1 passage to left, 1 to right (10 times)
• told responses to shadowed ears would be recorded, told to aim to make as few errors as possible, ignore the rejected ear
• rejected ear -> middle of passage a random message played containing the ppts name, ‘… you may stop now’, next instruction had no name included

Question 20

What were some results (exp 2)?

Answer 20

• affective/presented = 39
• affective/heard = 20
• non-a/presented = 36
• non-a/heard = 4

Question 21

What were some conclusions (exp 2)?

Answer 21

• cognitive block can be broken down by something important to the participant

Question 22

What were the research methods (exp 3)?

Answer 22

• lab experiment, independent measures design

Question 23

What was the sample (exp 3)?

Answer 23

• 2 groups of 14 ppts

Question 24

What were the IV’s (exp 3)?

Answer 24

• digits inserted into 1 or 2 messages
• whether ppts asked about just shadowed or about all digits heard

Question 25

What was the DV (exp 3)?

Answer 25

- number of questions answered correctly about the digits heard

Question 26

What was the procedure (exp 3)?

Answer 26

- asked to shadow 1 or 2 dichotic messages - digits were put in at the end of the message - group 1: asked q's about shadowed message - group 2: remember all the digits they can

Question 27

What were some results (exp 3)?

Answer 27

- no difference in mean scores of digits recalled correctly

Question 28

What were some conclusions (exp 3)?

Answer 28

- numbers are not important enough to break through the inattentional block