Moray Flashcards
Background of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
Shadowing
Shadowing the listener, paying attention to one message (shadowed) but not the other message(rejected)
Cherry (1953) tested this selective attention and found no recall of the rejected message
Aim of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
Experiment 1 -to test cherry’s results more rigourously
Experiment 2 -to see if some messages can break through the intentional block
Experiment 3-to see if it expectations affect message processing to the rejected ear
Design method of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
Laboratory experiment, experiment, one and two repeated measures design experiment, three independent measures design
Experiment 1 = IV: message played to shadow or rejected ear
DV: number of words recalled in rejected message
Experiment 2 =IV: effect of affective messages(contained persons name)
DV: number of affective instructions responded to
Experiment 3= IV: whether digits were inserted into one or two messages
IV; participants were told they would be asked questions about shadowed messages or told to remember digits
DV: number of digits correctly remembered
Sample of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
Men and women undergraduate or research workers.
Experiment 1= participant number, unknown,
experiment 2= 12 participants
Experiment 3= 14 participants
Materials/apparatus of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
Two tape recorders prose passage and word lists , avometer.
Procedure of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
four passages played for shadow practice.
Experiment 1=
Passage presented to shadow air and list of words presented 35 times to rejected ear .
Rejected message, tested using free recall, then a recognition test of similar words as a control.
Experiment 2=
Participants shadow 10 passages to write here, while another passage plate to rejected left ear
Shadow right received instructions to create an expectation or set for further messages
Rejected left ear, had affective messages with participants, name, or non-affective messages
Experiment 3=
Participants shadow one message in each ear
Digits inserted towards the end of both messages, one message or neither message
Group 1 ask questions about shadows context group 2, told to remember all digits
Results of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
Experiment 1=
Mean of 4.9 words (out of seven) recognised from shadowed message.
Mean of 1.9 words (out of seven) recognised from rejected message.
Mean of 2.6 words(out of seven) recognised from the control list.
Experiment 2=
20 out of 39 Affective messages responded to by rejected ear, compared to 4 out of 36 non-effective messages.
This difference is a significant
(p< 0.01)
There was some effect of expectation or set, but not significant -mean frequency of hearing effective message with a pre-passage warning was 0.8 whereas it was 0.33 with no warning,
Experiment 3=
No significant difference between the number of digits, recalled by either group warning, to remember all the digits or not .
Conclusions of Moray’s 1959 study on auditory attention
Experiment1= shows that the context of the rejected message is blocked supporting Cherry
Experiment 2= shows that I’m effective message breaks through the attentional barrier
Experiment 3= neutral material was not important enough to break the barrier even when warned.
Research method and techniques
+ lab conditions mean extraneous variables are controlled, e.g. incoming messages in headphones were identical and sound levels were constant.
-conditions mean participants are often aware of being studied so response to demand characteristics, e.g. they may realise what they should attend, especially to the shadowed message. And every day life people may divide their attention.
Validity
-Listening to sound through Headphones, and being asked to block out or shadow, what is heard is extremely artificial.
+ however, every day experiences would tend to confirm that we do to now are the conversations and sounds therefore the ecological validity of the study is sound
Reliability
+ Morris procedures were highly standardised e.g. the way each passage of prose and the word list was presented was the same for every participant. This means that the research could be replicated to check the reliability of results into auditor attention.
Sampling bias
+ the sample was easily accessible as MORAY Used undergraduate or researchers he worked with this opportunity sample, saved him time and money on obtaining participants.
-the sample is unrepresentative as students and research is are likely to have high cognitive ability and may perform better on attentional tasks reducing population validity
Types of data
+ quantitative data, e.g. mean number of words counted for shadows and rejected ear This makes it easy to compare the two conditions and use inferential tests to determine significance.
Ethical considerations
Participants were not fully informed of the aims of the study or that in experiment three, they would be tested on recall of information. This may be seen as a mild yet acceptable use of deception.
Ethnocentrism
- people in individualist cultures may be more accustomed to selective attention, whereas people in collective cultures may be more likely to pay attention to everything around them as they are more focused on group behaviour rather than individuals. There is evidence that children from individualist cultures land skills related to focus attention more easily than children from collectivist cultures
