Attention Research Methods Flashcards
Explain the Dichotic Listening Task (Cherry, 1953)
Commonly used to investigate selective attention within the auditory system
Participants were presented with simultaneous messages in both ears. Participants were instructed to listen and to recall message (shadow) from attended ear whilst another message played in the other unattended ear.
Most participants were unable to notice little of the message from the unattended ear and understood the shadowed message much better
Variations of the Dichotic listening task
Moray (1959) changed the unattended ear from English to German and 76% failed to notice
Another variation in the unattended ear was the speaker changing from male to female and 23% did not realize
This suggests a selective and limited capacity of attention which is not preserved in the LTM but filtered on physical characteristics
Evaluation of the Dichotic listening task
Does not explain meaning- Cocktail party phenomenon (manage to attend to name) implies semantic encoding of physical characteristics
Meyer (1999) weight related messages
Threshold? Capacity? Attenuation?
Application to air traffic control and driving
What is the dual task technique
The dual task paradigm requires participants to perform two tasks simultaneously
Examples of the dual task technique
Strayer (2001) driving and mobile phone
Allport (1972) Pianist- read music and play successfully
Typewriter- read and type
Factors affecting dual task
Personal significance, task difficulty, task similarity and practice
Evaluation of dual task technique
Hampton and Morris (1996) proposed that the most demanding task usually overrides the other tasks, tasks using different parts of the brain had dual task interference
Wickens (2005) similar tasks compete for same processing mechanisms, there is better time sharing when two tasks use different resource levels, such as a pianists using visual and acoustic
When was the Stroop test proposed?
1935
What did the stroop test look into?
Interference in serial verbal reactions
Describe the stroop test (Stroop, 1935)
Reaction is 74% longer to name an incongruent word and its ink color
Speech of processing: words are quicker to read than colors are named
Selective attention theory: naming colour’s requires more attention than reading
Halkiopoulous (1981) used what to examine selective attention?
Dor-probe task
When has the dot-probe test been used in psychological research?
Attentional bias- participants are situated in front of a computer screen and stare at a visual cross fixation point, two stimuli appear, one of which is threatening and one neutral, after a blank internal a dot-probe appears on either side of the screen- participants are asked to press a button whenever they indicate the allocation of the dot, there was a quicker reaction when the dot occurred in the previous location of the threatening stimuli
Who used a diary study, and for what?
Reason (1979) examined action slips
Evaluate the diary studies
Are our participants reliable?
Does not tell us when occassions where likely to occur
Results depends on comittment and honesty of participants
