Moray (classic study) Flashcards
What is attention
Attention is the ability to select specific information and reject unnecessary information we are constantly bombarded with
Cherry’s theory of attention
There are channels of attention:
1) attended channel we focus on
2) Unattended channel of information we reject, barriers are put up called inattentional barrier
Background of this study: Cherry’s research
Cherry wanted to research what could penetrate in attentional barrier and so he created a dichroic listening task where he found that many didn’t notice details of rejected message but certain cues could (ie name) theorised cocktail party effect
Cocktail party effect
Hearing an affective cue (your name) can break inattentional barrier in place against rejected message
Moray’s aim of the study
To test Cherry’s findings using a dichotic listening task to see if the cognitive process of switching ‘channels’ (rejected or attended) is accurate after hearing an affective cue
What is a dichotic listening task?
Playing 2 different passages into different ears
Where participant is asked to ‘shadow’ a certain ear (attended channel)
Other ear is rejected
3 main experiments that took place
Experiment 1 = recognise words from rejected channel
Experiment 2 = recognise name from rejected channel
Experiment 3 = recognise numbers from rejected channel
What was the wanted message in all experiments that participants would shadow?
A light piece of fiction
What is shadowing?
Reading the passage aloud as it is being heard
How were the messages standardised?
The loudness was 60db above participants hearing threshold for all messages
150 words/min (at same pace)
Same male speaker
Apparatus of all experiments
A stereophonic tape recorder modified to give 2 independent outputs to each ear
Headphones with dichotic listening task
Experiment 1 set up
The shadowed wanted message = in right ear with a piece of light fiction
The rejected message = a short list of words repeated 35 times in left ear
What happened in experiment 1 immediately after participants shadowed the wanted message?
Completed a survey 30s after which had 21 words total:
7 from shadowed message
7 from rejected message word list
7 words similar to in shadowed message but not in either (control)
Why was the control list of 7 words set up in experiment 1
Because it was to identify that participants had rejected words from unwanted message and identified words from wanted message rather than guessing
Mena number of words identified in experiment 1from shadowed passage
4.9 out of 7
Mean number of words identified in experiment 1 from rejected passage
1.9 out of 7
Mean number of words identified in experiment 1 from neither passage/control
2.6 put of 7
Sample used in experiment 1
Unknown number of students from Oxford University
Conclusion from experiment 1
Despite words being repeated in unwanted message, participants recalled no words from it so in a situation where participants directs attention away from wanted channel, almost no information penetrates inattentional barrier set up
Aim of experiment 2
To see if an affective instruction is strong enough to penetrate the inattentional barrier put up to rejected message
What is an affective instruction?
An instruction telling participants to do something with their name in it
Sample of experiment 2
12 participants from Oxford University (students)
What was the set up in experiment 2?
A piece of light fiction in right ear as the shadowed passage
In the rejected message, there is a piece of light fiction with instruction embedded in the middle
Both contained instruction at start to look out for instructions in the middle
How many trials did participants go through in experiment 2?
10 because each instruction in middle of rejected passage contained a different instruction to see which participants picked up on
