Lecture 3- auditory attention

Question 1

describe selective attention for vision

Answer 1

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

Question 2

describe auditory selective attention

Answer 2

• the need to select from simultaneous overlapping sounds

Question 3

how can auditory selective attention be measured

Answer 3

verbal shadowing tasks ; attend to one stream of sound and ignore the irrelevant stream

Question 4

Name the 3 main theories and theorists eproposed about when selection takes place

Answer 4

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

Question 5

what is bottleneck positioning

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

where does broadbent, triesman and deutsch suggest the bottleneck for filtering info is ?

Answer 6

Broadbent; occurs early in the system
Triesman: midway
Deutsch : late

Question 7

whats the name of the task which is use din early studies of diachotic listening

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

what is the typical outcome of the shadowing task

Answer 8

performance normally good- and pps hear little from the unattended channel (cherry 1953)

Question 9

what is reported by cherry 1953- about diachotic listening

Answer 9

pps hear little from the unattended channel (cherry 1953)

Question 10

describe the procedure in treisman 1964 study

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

what was the outcome/results in treisman 1964 study

Answer 11

after 1 min of shadowing - only 4/30 pps dtected something peculiar ( different language) in unattended channel
shows some people can recognise

Question 12

what did cherry 1953 find about words in the unattended channel

Answer 12

pps could report physical characteristics - eg speaker sex, voice pitch and loudness
even if didnt process semantic content - some could understand at low level

Question 13

What did Moray 1959 find about the unattended channel

Answer 13

poor memory of unattended channel even when wods presented 35 times

Question 14

what model feeds into the info from Moray, triesman and cherry

Answer 14

broadbents early filter model

Question 15

what was the procedure of broadbent 1954 study

Answer 15

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

Question 16

what was recorded / results of broadbent 1954 study

Answer 16

recorded whether digits were recalled pair by pair or ear by eatr
most = ear by ear - showing focus on one channel only

Question 17

what is concluded by broadbents study in relation to his early model

Answer 17

• 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

Question 18

how does broadbents early filter theory account for the findings in the studies

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

name a study which uses early filtering yet opposes broadbents theory

Answer 19

Gray and wedderburn 1960

Question 20

describe Gray and wedderburn 1960 task

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

describe Gray and wedderburn 1960 results

Answer 21

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

Question 22

what is the difference between broadbent and Triesmans models

Answer 22

• 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

Question 23

provide evidence towards favouring triesmans model

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

describe the method in Triesman and riely 1969 study

Answer 24

diachotic listening task

pps showed a message in one ear - had to tap when they heard a target word from either ear

Question 25

what would the attenuation and late filter model predict from Triesman and riely 1969 study

Answer 25

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

Question 26

what was found in Triesman and riely 1969 study

Answer 26

more words were detected in the attended stream relative to the unattended - supports attenuation theory