Moray Flashcards
What is the background of morays study
Attention is a limited resource. When our attention is focused on certain things, a barrier is put up that stops us from focusing on other things
Cherry came up with the cocktail party effect - when the barrier can be broken only by the sound of your name
What is the cocktail party effect
Concept originally suggested by cherry in which we would hear it when our own name is said within a crowded
What dichotic listening
When headphones are worn by a participant and a different message is played at each ear
What is shadowing
When a participant is told to focus on a passage of text and repeat it out loud as they hear it
What is affective instructions
When a person is asked to do something, proceeded by their name being said within a
What is non-affective instructions
When a person is asked to do something but their name is not used
What was morays aim
To test cherrys findings on the in-attentional barrier more thoroughly
What apparatus did moray use
Brunel mark iv stereophonic tape recorder
Headphones
What was the sample for morays first example
Undergraduate students
Make and female
From Oxford university
What was the procedure for morays first example
Participants had to shadow a piece of prose they could hear in one ear (the attended message)
In the other ear, they could hear a list of simple words repeated 35 times (rejected message)
At the end of the task, participants completed a recognition task of 21 words
What were the results of morays first experiment
Participants recognised 4.9 words on average from shadowed passage
Participants recognised 1.9 words on average from rejected passage
Participants recognised 2.6 words on average from neither passage
What conclusions were found from morays first example
Participants are much more able to recognise words from shadowed passage. Almost none of the words from the rejected passage are able to break the inattentional barrier
What was the aim for morays second example
The experiment wanted to find out if an affective cue, their name, would break the inattentional barrier
What was the sample for morays second example
12 undergraduate students
Male & female
From Oxford university
What are the independent variables of morays second example
Affective or non affective instructions
What is the dependent variable for morays second example
Whether participants were more likely to hear an instruction in a message they’re not paying attention to if it is preceded by their name
What is the procedure for morays second example
- Participants heard 10 passages of light fiction including both affective and non-affective instructions
- Participants were told to either change ear or to stop. They were told to make as few errors as possible
- The instructions were at the start and/or end of the passage
- Passages were read at a steady monotone with a pace of 130 words per minute by a single male voice
What were the results of morays second example
Participants heard/followed the instructions preceded by their name 20/39 times
Participants heard/followed the instructions not preceded by their name 4/36 times
What were the conclusions of morays second example
Affective messages are able to break the inattentional barrier. This backs up the previous work by cherry
What were the reflections from morays second example
Warning - participants were given a warning in passages 8 and 10
Effect - there was a slight increase in how many times the rejected message instruction was heard
Interesting - moray was interested whether pre warning could help break the inattentional barrier
What was the aim of morays third example
To find out if prewarning would help neutral material break the inattentional barrier
What was the sample of morays third example
28 undergraduates
Male & female
From Oxford university
Split into 2 groups of 14
What were the independent variables of morays third example
Warning or no warning
What is the dependent variable of morays third example?
How many digits the participants were able to recall from the rejected message
Was the procedure of morays third example?
Participants were asked to shadow one message.
The messages sometimes contain digits towards the end
The digits were sometimes only in the shadowed passage, sometimes only in rejected passage, sometimes in both and sometimes there were no digits
What were the results of morays third study
There was no significant difference between the groups in how many digits they were able to recall from the rejected passage
What was the conclusions from morays third example
Warnings do not help neutral information break the attention barrier. The information must be meaningful in order to do this
What ethics were kept by moray
Students had tasks clearly explained prior to participation
No real stress to the task themselves
What ethics were broken by moray
Control group not told about digits in experiment 3 (deception)
Was it ethnocentric
Yes - only conducted in one culture
But not ethnocentric as attention is universal
How was morays study internally reliable
Standardised procedure such as passages used, pace and voice of speaker, recognition task in experiment 1
How was morays study externally reliable
Sample size was very small
How did morays study show construct validity
Controlled BUT results may have been down to understanding of passages, hearing ability and not attention
How did morays study show population validity
All students from a single area and occupation BUT both males and females
How did morays study show ecological validity
Realistic to hear multiple conversations at once BUT not isolated, wearing headphones and tested afterwards
