Moray - 1959 Flashcards
Who is the background to Moray?
Cherry (1953)
What method to test selective attention did Cherry test out?
shadowing
What did Cherry find out through using shadowing?
one of two dichotic messages for his study on attention in listening found participants who shadowed a message presented to one ear were ignorant to the content of a message simultaneously presented to the other ear
What two researchers carried on Cherry’s ideas?
Hampton & Morris (1996)
What did Hampton & Morris investigate?
how people can attend to one message by investigating why so little seemed to be remembered about other conversations
What does the first experiment in Moray’s study aim to do which links to Cherry (1953)?
aimed to test Cherry’s findings more rigorously
What did Moray’s second and third experiments aim to investigate?
aimed to investigate other factors that can affect attention in dichotic listening
What was the method in this study?
Laboratory experiment (all 3 tasks)
What are the strengths of using a lab experiment?
- high control which reduced the impact of any extraneous variables = more valid results
What are the weaknesses of using a lab experiment?
- lacks ecologically validity and mundane realism= less valid results
What was the equipment used?
A Brenell Mark IV stereophonic tape recorder modified with two amplifiers
What did the modification of the tape recorders do?
- allowed two independent outputs through attenuators
- one output going to each earpiece of a pair of headphones
Why was matching for loudness only approximate?
participants were asked to say when two messages were equally loud to the experimenter = subjective
How many experiments were there?
3
What was the design in experiment 1?
repeated measures
What is a strength of repeated measures design?
no individual differences between conditions of the IV = more reliable
What is a weaknesses of a repeated measures design?
- order effects more likely (boredom, fatigue, practice)
- demand characteristics are more likely
What was the design for experiment 2&3?
independent measures
What is a strength of independent measures?
- no order effects
- reduced chance of demand characteristics
What is a weakness of independent measures design?
- individual differences between groups
What are the IVs for experiment 1?
1- the dichotic listening test
2- the recognition test
What was the DV for experiment 1?
the number of words recognised correctly in the rejected message
What was the IV in experiment 2?
whether or not instructions were prefixed by the participants own name
What was the DV in experiment 2?
the number of affective instructions
What were the IVs in experiment 3?
- whether digits were inserted into both messages or just one
- whether participants had to answer questions about the shadowed message at the end of each passage or just had to remember numbers
What was the DV in experiment 3?
the number of digits correctly reported
What is the sample?
undergraduate and research workers of both sexes
What is a strength of this sample?
- lacks gender bias (both sexes)
What is a weakness of this sample?
- age bias (undergrad students)
- culture bias (from same place)
- small (unrepresentative)
What is important to note about the sample per experiment?
1- not noted how many
2- 12
3- 2 groups of 14 (28)
What happened before the experiment?
participants were given four passages of prose to shadow for practice
What is standardised about the passages throughout the whole study?
recorded by a male speaker
What is a strength of standardising the speaker of the passages?
- no gender differences
- reliable results
What was the participant hearing in experiment 1?
a short list of simple words in one ear and a shadowed passage in the other
How often was the word list repeated?
35 times
What was the participant asked to report after?
the content of the rejected message
What did the recognition test consist of?
words in passage and word list also some words that were presented for the first time
What did the extra info in the recognition test serve as?
a control
What was the gap between the end of the shadowing and the beginning of the recognition test?
30 seconds
Why was there a 30 second delay between the end of the experiment (1) and the recognition test?
so any info recalled is not from the short term memory (as info is stored in the STM for up to 30s)
What is important to note about how loud the word list was being spoken during the test?
- faded in after shadowing had already begun
- equal in intensity to shadowed message
- at the end it faded out and became inaudible as the prose finished
What was the purpose of experiment 2?
to conduct the limits of the efficiency of the attentional block
What was the material in experiment 2?
10 short passages of light fiction
What were participants in experiment 2 told?
that their responses would be recorded and that objects of the experiment was for them to score as few mistakes as possible
What did half of the passages contain?
the participants own name
How were the passages read?
steady monotone voice at a 130 words per minute pace
How were participant responses gathered?
recorded and later analysed
What did the passages in experiment 3 include?
numbers - sometimes present in both, one, or none (as a control)
What were the different groups in experiment 3 asked?
1st group - content of the passage
2nd group - amount of numbers correctly remembered
What type of test was used to analyse the results in experiment 3?
a t-test
What is a t-test?
a test that compares mean scores of two groups
What type of data was gathered?
quantitative
What is a strength of quantitative data?
- objective
- easy to analyse and compare
What is a weakness of quantitative data?
no reasoning behind WHY for behaviour
What was the mean score in experiment 1 of words presented in the shadowed message?
4.9 / 7
What was the mean score in experiment 1 of words presented in the rejected message?
1.9 / 7
What was the mean score in experiment 1 of words presented for the first time on the recognition test?
2.6 / 7
What are some findings from experiment 1?
- there was no trace material from the rejected message being recognised
- the difference between the new material and that from the shadowed message was significant at the 1 % level
- the 30 second delay was not likely to have caused the rejected message to be lost
Do Moray’s experiment 1 support or go against Cherry?
support
What was found from experiment 2?
most participants ignored the instructions that were presented in the passages they were shadowing and said they thought this was merely an attempt to distract them
What was the difference in attention between affective and non-affective instructions in experiment 2?
instructions were more heard when affective (39 presented and 20 heard) than non-affective (36 presented and 4 heard)
Why were the affective instructions presented 39 times when it was meant to have 36 like the non-affective?
3 participants incorrectly switched over to the other ear (all during passage 10)
What was found in experiment 3?
there was no significant difference between any of the conditions
What are some conclusions of this study?
- subjectively important message such as a persons own name can penetrate the block
- it is very difficult to make neutral material important enough to penetrate the block
How does this study link to the understanding of behaviour?
- attention = selective as unable to focus unless subjectively important
- suggests most info is not processed unless deemed relevant
