Moray

• Background

  • Attention is a limited resource. When our attention is focused on a certain thing a 'barrier' is put up that stops us from focusing on other things
  • Cherry was interested in how people put up an inatentional barrier at a party when lots of conversations were happening at once. Discovered that this barrier could be broken by your name being said and he called this the cocktail party effect.
• Dichotic listening


  When headphones are worn by a participant and a different message is played in each ear
• Shadowing

  Affective instruction:

  • When a person is asked to do something, followed by their name

  Non-affective instruction:

  • When a person is asked to do something not followed by their name
• Aims

  To further investigate Cherry's theory on inatentional barriers more thoroughly
• Apparatus

  • Brenell Mark IV stereophonic tape recorder
  • Headphones
• Experiment 1 - the inatentional barrier sample

  • Undergraduate students
  • Both genders
  • Oxford uni
• Experiment 1 procedure

  • Participants had to shadow a piece of prose they could hear in one ear - this was the attended message participants were focusing on
  • In the other ear a list of simple words was repeated 35 times. This list was the rejected message.
  • At the end, participants completed a recognition task - they had to indicate what they recognised from a list of 21 words (7 from rejected message, 7 from the attended message and 7 similar words)
• Experiment 1 results

  • Participants recognised 4.9 words from the shadowed passage
  • 1.9 were recognised from the rejected passage
  • 2.6 similar words were recognised
• Experiment 1 conclusions

  • Participants recognised far more words from the shadowed passage
  • Almost none of the words from the rejected message were recognised and able to break the inatentional barrier
• Experiment 2 - affective instructions aim

  • To find out if an affective cue (their name) would break the inattentional barrier.
• Experiment 2 sample

  • 12 undergraduates
  • Both genders
  • From oxford uni
• Experiment 2 IV

  • Affective instruction
  • Non-affective instruction
• Experiment 2 DV


  Whether participants were more likely to hear cue instruction they're not paying attention to if their name is used
• Experiment 2 procedure

  1. Passages - participants heard 10 passages of light fiction including both affective and non-affective instructions (repeated measures)
  2. Instructions - participants were either told to change ears or stop. They were told to make as few mistakes as possible.
  3. Oder - the instructions were at the start and/or end of the passage
  4. Controls - passages were read at a steady monotone with a pace of 130 per minute and a male voice
• Experiment 2 results

  Affective instruction

  • Participants heard/followed instruction preceded by their name 20/39 times

  Non-affective instruction

  • Participants heard/followed instruction not preceded by their names 4/36 times
• Experiment 2 conclusion

  Affective messages (such as names) are able to break the 'inattentional barrier', backing up Cherry's theory
• Experiment 3 - Pre-warning aim


  To see if a pre-warning would help neutral material break the inattentional barrier.
• Experiment 3 sample

  • 28 undergraduate students
  • Both genders
  • Oxford uni
  • Split into two groups of 14
• Experiment three IV


  Warning

  • Participants were told they should memories as many digits as possible

  No warning:

  • Participants were told they would be asked questions at the end of the shadowed passage
• Experiment three DV


  How many digits participants were able to recall from the rejected message
• Experiment 3 procedure

  • Participants were asked to shadow one message
  • The messages sometimes contained digits towards the end
  • Digits were sometimes only in the shadowed passage, sometimes only in the rejected passage, sometimes in both and sometimes there were no digits (control)
• Experiment 3 results


  There was no significant difference between the groups in how many digits they were able to recall from the rejected passage.
• Experiment 3 conclusions


  Warning do not help neutral info break the barrier. The info must be useful.
• Overall conclusions

  1. Almost none of the verbal content from a rejected message penetrates a block when attending to another message
  2. 'Important' messages like names can penetrate the barrier
  3. A short list of words cannot be remembered even after being repeated several times
  4. It is difficult to make neutral material important enough to break inattentional barrier