Moray

• Background: what is selective attention

  Selective attention is when people are presented with 2 or more simultaneous 'messages'/information in our environment and process or respond to only one and reject the others. This is measured using dichotic listening tasks.
• Background: Broadbent + the need for selective attention

  Broadbent investigated the aviation industry raising awareness of the importance of air traffic controllers to be able to selectively attend to important messages whilst rejecting the others.
• Background: Cherry and the cocktail party effect

  Cherry was interested in finding out how the 'Cocktail Party Phenomenon' works - people @ cocktail parties are good at tuning into one convo whilst tuning out all others. So he conducted dichotic listening tasks in which Ps listened to different messages, one in each ear, and shadow one of them, thus setting up a block to the rejected message. Cherry found that very little could be remembered from the unattended message.
• Background: how Moray was inspired to replicate + expand on Cherry's study

  Moray was keen to replicate Cherry's work + expand on knowledge of selective attention and dichotic listening.
• What did Cherry mean by shadowing one message

  repeat the message out loud
• What is shadowing

  one message is fed into the left ear and a different message into the right ear (through headphones) and Ps have to repeat one message aloud as they hear it + ignore the other.
• Definitions

  shadowed/attended message = the message which is repeated out loud

  rejected/unattended message = the message which is ignored

  affective cue = something which is meaningful to you
• Overview of Moray's experiments

  
• Research method

  study consists of 3 experiments. all tasks were laboratory-based, had high levels of control + had an IV and DV, there4, they were all lab experiments
• Apparatus/materials

  in all tasks, a Brenell Mark IV stereophonic tape recorder modified with 2 amplifiers to give 2 independent outputs through attenuators, one output going to each of the earpieces of a pair of headphones.
• Controls within the procedure

  • both messages were matched for loudness - approx 60db above the Ps hearing threshold (by asking Ps to say when the 2 messages seemed equally loud to them) - ensure one message isn't louder than another + there4 easier to hear
  • speech rate approx 150 words a minute = both messages are the same speed
  • all passages were recorded by one male speaker = the gender of the speaker doesnt affect the hearing of the message
  • completed trial tasks = ensure everything was working correctly + Ps understood the task
• Procedure

  all 3 experiments involved dichotic listening tasks that required the P to shadow one message while 2 messages were played to them, one in each ear
• E1 aim

  to investigate the amount of information recognised from the rejected message
• E1 sample

  male and female undergraduates + research workers
• E1 research method

  -repeated measures design

  -IV =

  • the dichotic listening test
  • the recognition test

  -DV = the number of words correctly recognised in the rejected message (quantitative)
• E1 procedure

  
• E1 findings

  significantly more words were recognised from the shadowed message compared to the rejected message these findings support Cherry = concurrent validity

  
• E1 conclusion

  In a situation where a subject directs his attention to the reception of a message from one ear and rejects a message from the other ear, almost none of the verbal content of the rejected message is able to penetrate the block set up
• E2 aim

  To investigate the effect of hearing one's own name (affective cue) in the unattended message
• Why was E2 conducted

  
• E2 sample

  12 male + female undergraduates + research workers
• Research method

  -RMD

  -IV = whether or not instructions were prefixed by the Ps own name

  -DV = the number of affective instructions heard or followed (quant)
• E2 procedure *at end: their performances on the shadowing tasks were tape recorded + analysed

  
• E2 results

  significantly more affective cues were heard (or followed) in comparison to non-affective cues

  
• Conclusion

  Subjectively 'important' messages, such as a person's own name, can penetrate the block: thus, a person will hear instructions if they are presented with their own name as part of the rejected message
• E3 aim

  to investigate the effect of instructions to identify a specific target (numbers/digits) in the rejected message

  -does being given an instruction to listen out for numbers at the start of the task within the rejected message make Ps more likely to hear them?
• Why was E3 conducted

  
• E3 sample

  28 male and female undergraduates and research workers - 2 groups of 14
• E3 research method

  -IMD (Ps either have instructions or don't)

  -IV =

  • whether or not digits were inserted into both messages or only one
  • whether Ps had to answer questions about the shadowed message at the end of each passage or whether they were instructed to remember all the digits they could

  -DV = the number of digits correctly reported
• E3 procedure

  
• E3 findings

  The results showed no significant difference in the mean scores of digits recalled between the 2 conditions
• E3 conclusion

  While perhaps not impossible, it is very difficult to make 'neutral' material important enough to break through the block set up in dichotic shadowing
• Usefulness

  
• Unanswered Qs (diversity Q)

  • only know about auditory attention -> what about other types e.g. visual?
  • don't know about other social groups/cultures -> would they act the same?
  • dont know why some Ps could recall + other couldn't -> indv diffs?
• Example Q

  
• Example Qs

  
• Evaluation table

  
• Section A Qs pt1

  
• Section A Qs pt2

  
• Section A Qs pt3