| What is selective attention | - When people listen to two or more simultaneous ‘messages’
- Instructed to process + respond to only one of them |
| The shadowing technique | - 1 message is fed into the left ear, different message into the right ear (through headphones)
- Participants have to repeat one of these messages aloud as they hear it
- Is a form of dichotic listening |
| What is divided attention | - Dual-task technique, people asked to focus on both (or all) the messages
- Deliberately divides people’s attention |
| Aims | - To see if there’s an inattentional barrier
- To see if affective cue’s break that inattentional barrier
- To see if neutral cues break the inattentional barrier
- To test cherry’s dichotic listening findings |
| Background | - Cherry's 'cocktail party effect' through dichotic listening tasks
- They realised however deep in conversation you might be at a cocktail party, if someone mentions your name, this would draw your attention |
| The experiments | - Experiment 1
- Experiment 2
- Experiment 3 |
| Samples used in each experiment | - Undergraduates and research workers of both genders
- Opportunity sample
- Experiment 1: not given
- Experiment 2: 12 participants
- Experiment 3: 14 particpants |
| What research method were used in all three experiments | - All lab experiments, had an IV and DV and high levels of control |
| Experiment 1 IV | - The dichotic listening test
- The recognition test |
| Experiment 1 DV | - No. of words recognised correctly in the rejected message |
| Experiment 1 experimental design | - Repeated measures |
| Experiment 2 IV | - Whether or not instructions were prefixed by the participant’s own name |
| Experiment 2 DV | - No. of effective instructions |
| Experiment 2 experimental design | - Repeated measures |
| Experiment 3 IV | - Whether digits were inserted into both messages or only one
- Whether ppts had to answer questions about the shadowed message at the end of each passage
- Whether ppts had to merely remember all the numbers they could |
| Experiment 3 DV | - No. of digits correctly reported |
| Experiment 3 experimental design | - Independent measures design |
| Strength of using repeated measures design | - No individual differences, results more reliable as you are able to get more consistent results |
| Weakness of using repeated measures design | - Order effects, interferes with validity
- As ppt’s may get better at remembering information because of practice or worse because of fatigue |
| Strength of using independent measures design | - No order effects because ppt’s only take part in one condition
- Increases validity, ppt’s can not get better through practice or worse through fatigue |
| Weakness of using independent measures design | - Individual differences, interfere with validity as you are unsure that the IV is definitely causing the DV |
| What were the controls of the apparatus | - 60 decibels above hearing threshold
- Male speaker only
- Made sure each ppt was hearing the same message |
| Outline the procedure for experiment 1 | - A list of words was spoken 25 times as the ‘rejected’ or ‘blocked’ message
- At the end of the shadowing task ppts asked to recall all they could remember from the rejected message
- Ppts given recognition test of 21 words, 7 in the shadowed passage, 7 in the rejected message and the last 7 were in neither |
| Outline the procedure for experiment 2 | - Ppts shadowed 10 short passages of light fiction
- Rejected messages were played in the other ear which were not attended to
- Moray wanted to find out of these messages would be heard if it included their name |
| Outline the procedure for experiment 3 | - Digits were inserted to each passage in a random way
- First group were given no instruction
- Second group told they would be asked questions on rejected |
| Findings from experiment 1 | - The mean words recognised in the showed message was 4.9/7, rejected message it was 1.9/ 7 |
| Findings from experiment 2 | - Most ppts ignored instructions in the passages they were shadowing
- Said they thought this was an attempt to distract them
- With name, heard instructions 20/39 times
- Without name, heard instructions 4/36 times |
| Findings from experiment 3 | - There was no significant different between the digits recall in each condition |
| Main conclusions from research by Moray | - When ppts direct their attention to a message in one ear, almost none of the rejected message is able to penetrate the block
- ‘important’ messages, like names, can penetrate the block
- So will hear instructions in rejected message |
| Evaluate the research method | - Controlled lab experiment
- Standardised, controls extraneous variables
- Ppts may have been aware of the study, demand characteristics
- Low ecological validity |
| Data | - Quantitative data, no. number of words from a list in an unattended message that P's could recall |
| Evaluate the data collected in Moray' study | - Easy comparison between conditions and for the result to b easily summarised
- The study could be repeated to establish test-reset reliability |
| Ethical issues | - The study was conducted ethically as tasks were clearly explained to participants before the study |
| Validity | - High design validity, lab experiment
- Standardised, controls extraneous variables
- Ppts may have been aware of the study, demand characteristics |
| Ecologically validity | - Low ecological validity, headphones block out background noise
- Participants would not experience these conditions in real life |
| Reliability | - Moray uses highly controlled lab experiment and a standardised procedure, therefore it is replicable
- Test-retest reliably could be established |
| Evaluate the sample used in Moray's research | - Undergraduate students + research workers
- Collected relatively quickly + cheap
- May have been pre selected due to their high level of cognitive ability
- Not generalisable
- May have known the topic they were questioned on |
| Ethnocentric | - Could only be representative of English speaking westerners, who have brains that have been shaped for language |
| Not ethnocentric | - Cognitive processes such as selective attention, depend upon the physiognomy of the brain
- Not ethnocentric, investigating a species specific behaviour |
| To what extent can research by Moray support psychology as a science | - Fulfilled scientific criteria and used a lab experiment |
| Usefulness | - Provides robust empirical evidence into auditory selective attention + Cherry's cocktail party effect |
| How does research by Moray fit into the cognitive area | - Cognitive process of attention
- By trying to find out if 'unattended' material can penetrate the attention barrier |
| How does research by Moray link to the key theme | - The key theme is attention
- Provides robust empirical evidence into auditory selective attention
- Info that is either neutral or not important cant penetrate the block |
