Core Studies - Cognitive Psychology - Moray's Study

Question 1

Moray Background structure

Answer 1

1. What is selective attention
2. Breifly explain the work of Broadbent and the need for selective attention
3. Explain the experimental testing of selective attention by Cherry and the cocktail party effect
4. Explain that Moray was inspired by Cherry to replicate his study and expand on it

Question 2

Moray Background Model Answer

Answer 2

Selective attention is when an individual is presented with two or more simultaneous messages and processes and responds to one by blocking and rejecting the other. This is measured through dichotic listening tasks. Broadbent investigated the aviation industry, raising awareness of the importance of air traffic controllers being able to attend to important messages selectively whilst rejecting others. Cherry was interested in conducting experiments on this topic. He created dichotic listening tasks by asking participants to listen to two different messages, one in each ear, and shadow one of them, which in turn sets up a block to the rejected message. Cherry found that very little could be remembered from the rejected message. Moray was keen to replicate Cherry’s work and extend our knowledge of selective attention and dichotic listening.

Question 3

Shadowed/ Attended message definition

Answer 3

Message followed and repeated out loud

Question 4

Rejected/ Unattended Message

Answer 4

Message not followed (blocked out)

Question 5

Dichotic Listening definition

Answer 5

Listening to two different stimuli at the same time through headphones and having to follow (shadow) one and reject another

Question 6

Selective Attention definition

Answer 6

Presented with 2 different stimuli and have to process and respond to one and reject the other

Question 7

Affective Cue definition

Answer 7

Something with meaning to you, e.g, name

Question 8

Materials

Answer 8

Brenell Mark IV sterephonic tape recorder modified with 2 amplifiers

Question 9

Aim of Experiment 1

Answer 9

To investigate the amount of information recognised in the rejected message

Question 10

Aim of Eperiment 2

Answer 10

To investigate the effect of hearing one’s own name in the rejected message

Question 11

Aim of experiment 3

Answer 11

To investigate the effect of instructions to identify a specific target in the rejected message

Question 12

Procedure in experiment 1

Answer 12

• Repeat aloud (shadow) a passage of prose which was the attended message
• Given a short list of words in their other ear, which was repeated 35 times (rejected message)
• After 30 seconds, p’s given a list of words and must identify the words they heard

Question 13

Procedure in experiment 2

Answer 13

• 2 peices of light fiction, one in each ear
• Both contained an instruction at the start to listen in their right ear
• Within the passages, 3 had affective instructions, 3 had non affective instructions and 3 had no instructions

Question 14

Procedure of experiment 3

Answer 14

• P’s complete a dichotic listening task
• Some in one condition are given instructions to listen out for digits in the rejected message at the start, and the others in another condition are not told anything

Question 15

Finding for experiment 1

Answer 15

• Number of words correctly recognised (mean out of 7)
• SHADOWED: 4.9
• REJECTED: 1.9

Question 16

Finding from experiment 2

Answer 16

DV: The number of instructions heard or followed
- 5 times more likely to hear an instruction when it uses an affective cue (name)
- 20 (With name )
- 4 (No name )

Question 17

Finding from experiment 3

Answer 17

No significant difference in the mean scores of the mean scores of digits correctly recalled in both conditions

Question 18

Conclusion for experiment 1

Answer 18

When we selectively attend to a message in one ear, almost none of the information from the rejected message can break the block

Question 19

Conclusion for experiment 2

Answer 19

A person’s name acts as an affective cue which is important enough to an individual to break through the block that is set up against the rejected message

Question 20

Conclusion of experiment 3

Answer 20

Unimportant information ,such as digits, in the rejected message are not important enough to break the block set up against it even if they are primed to listen beforehand

Question 21

Why was experiment 2 needed

Answer 21

General words don’t break the block but Moray wanted to see if meaningful words can break the block against the rejected message

Question 22

Why was experiment 3 needed

Answer 22

In 2 cases when passages at the start gave p’s a pre-warning to change their listening ear, there was an increase in instructions heard. Moray wanted to see whether this pre-warning allowed p’s to recognise information in the rejected message or was it their name that allowed them to hear?

Question 23

Experiment 1 experimental design

Answer 23

• Repeated measures
• P’s hear both messages simultaneously

Question 24

Experiment 2 experimental design

Answer 24

• Repeated measures
• P’s hear messages with affective cue, non affective cue, and no instructions

Question 25

Experiment 3 experimental design

Answer 25

• Independent measures
• P’s either given instructions to listen out for digits or they are not

Question 26

Overall conclusions derived from experiment 1

Answer 26

• Almost none of the verbal content of the rejected message is able to penetrate the block set up (exp 1)
• A short list of simple words presented as the rejected message shows no trace of being remembered even when presented many times (exp 1)

Question 27

Overall conclusions derived from experiment 2

Answer 27

• Subjectively important messages such as a person’s own name can penetrate the block

Question 28

Overall conclusions derived from experiment 3

Answer 28

• It is very difficult to make ‘neutral’ material important enough to break through the block set up in dichotic shadowing

Question 29

Link to Key Theme

Question 30

Link to Area