Lecture 3- auditory attention Flashcards
describe selective attention for vision
we can typically see more than one thing in a visual field at once
- we need to attend to visual info of interest and ignore irrelevant visual info
describe auditory selective attention
- the need to select from simultaneous overlapping sounds
how can auditory selective attention be measured
verbal shadowing tasks ; attend to one stream of sound and ignore the irrelevant stream
Name the 3 main theories and theorists eproposed about when selection takes place
early filter models - Broadbent 1958
attenuation models- triesman 1964
Late filter models - Deutsch and Deutsch 1963
experimentally, verbal shadowing and diachotic listening tasks used to assess these models
what is bottleneck positioning
- the position of which we select out info and filter out the other info
all theories propose that somewhere there is a bottleneck (filter) which allows some info through and slows down the rest
where does broadbent, triesman and deutsch suggest the bottleneck for filtering info is ?
Broadbent; occurs early in the system
Triesman: midway
Deutsch : late
whats the name of the task which is use din early studies of diachotic listening
the shadowing task - pps hea a recording of someone speaking delivered to one ear- must repeat the speech back while they are listening to ot (atrtended channel)
at the same time- a second message is played to the other ear which is to be ignored (unattended channel)
what is the typical outcome of the shadowing task
performance normally good- and pps hear little from the unattended channel (cherry 1953)
what is reported by cherry 1953- about diachotic listening
pps hear little from the unattended channel (cherry 1953)
describe the procedure in treisman 1964 study
- pps shadowed a coherant prose in attended channel
- in unattended channel read czech but in an english accent - so familiar way of being pronounced with sounds resembling english but speech gibberish
what was the outcome/results in treisman 1964 study
after 1 min of shadowing - only 4/30 pps dtected something peculiar ( different language) in unattended channel
shows some people can recognise
what did cherry 1953 find about words in the unattended channel
pps could report physical characteristics - eg speaker sex, voice pitch and loudness
even if didnt process semantic content - some could understand at low level
What did Moray 1959 find about the unattended channel
poor memory of unattended channel even when wods presented 35 times
what model feeds into the info from Moray, triesman and cherry
broadbents early filter model
what was the procedure of broadbent 1954 study
participants wear headphones- presented with different sounds in each ear (numbers)
task was to recall as many digits as poss
recorded whether digits were recalled pair by pair or ear by eatr
most = ear by ear - showing focus on one channel only
what was recorded / results of broadbent 1954 study
recorded whether digits were recalled pair by pair or ear by eatr
most = ear by ear - showing focus on one channel only
what is concluded by broadbents study in relation to his early model
- two stimuli/ messages presented at the same time gain access at the same time (in parallel) to a sensory buffer (the system in auditory attention)
- one of the inputs is allowed through a filter based on its physical characteristics/ location- the other input remains in the buffer for later processing (which will be weaker)
- only info which makes it through the buffer is processed for meaning (semantically)
- the filter prevents overloading the limited capacity mechanism beyond the filter which processes input for meaning
^ cope with limited capacity mechanism by reducing the cognitive overload
how does broadbents early filter theory account for the findings in the studies
Model can account for Cherry’s findings by assuming the unattended channel is rejected by the filter.
It can account for dichotic listening findings by assuming the filter selects one stream (ear) of information based on physical characteristics.
name a study which uses early filtering yet opposes broadbents theory
Gray and wedderburn 1960
describe Gray and wedderburn 1960 task
Dichotic listening task in which “who 6 there” might be presented to one ear, as “4 goes 1” might be presented to the other ear.
describe Gray and wedderburn 1960 results
The preferred order of report was determined by meaning (who goes there? Followed by 461). The fact that selection can be based on the meaning of presented information is inconsistent with Broadbent’s theory. Selection isn’t necessarily based on the physical characteristics of the sounds
what is the difference between broadbent and Triesmans models
- both look at physical characteristics of sounds and not just meaning
- triesman attenuates (turns down) unattended material- so accounts for hearing name in unattended channel and cocktail party effect
- broadbent eliminates unattended stimuli
provide evidence towards favouring triesmans model
- triesman attenuates (turns down) unattended material- so accounts for hearing name in unattended channel and cocktail party effect
- overcomes issues with broadbents models whereby sometime info in unattended channel breaks through - allowing for some processing even though channel is unattended
describe the method in Triesman and riely 1969 study
diachotic listening task
pps showed a message in one ear - had to tap when they heard a target word from either ear
what would the attenuation and late filter model predict from Triesman and riely 1969 study
attenuation: more targets should be reported from the shadowed stream than the unattended
late filter model: equal numbers of words should be detected from each stream
what was found in Triesman and riely 1969 study
more words were detected in the attended stream relative to the unattended - supports attenuation theory
