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These templates can be filled in as part of your revision because they include everything you need to know about each study under each area of component 2 of Psychology. Blank and filled in copies will be uploaded....

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0Cognitive Area: Moray (1959) - Dichotic Listening Background information Define binaural listening: This is the ability to hear in both ears at the same. Define dichotic listening: This involves testing selective attention. The test involves listening to something different in ear and you have to repeat one which is the shadowed message and you ignore the other which is the rejected message. You then have to repeat the shadowed message back. Define attended and unattended information: Attended is the shadowed message so the one you attend and listen to and the unattended is the rejected message so the one you unattend and ignore. What is a shadowing task? The shadowing task is the message that you hear and is the one that you are interested in. This is the one you want to listen to and the one you would repeat in the dichotic listening test. Describe what Cherry (1953) did in his research (background study to Moray): Cherry introduced the method of “shadowing” to study attention. This is where participants wear a special headset which presents different information to each ear. The participant is asked to repeat one of the messages; this is shadowing. It was found that subjects who shadowed a message presented to one ear were ignorant of the content of a message simultaneously presented to the other ear. What did Cherry find out? They realised however deep in conversation you might be at a cocktail party, if someone mentions your name, this would draw your attention. They also found that the participants who shadowed one task could recall no content from the rejected task. Moray noticed that sometimes things do break this attentional barrier. What two things did he notice that can do this? Moray noticed that hearing your name is involuntary, so you don’t have to be paying attention to someone but if they say your name then they will hear it. So even if your name is mentioned in the rejected message, you will still respond to it. What reasons can you think of that would explain why these two things can break our attention? If you hear your name, you are more likely to want to listen as this would be the normal reaction to hearing a person say your name as you want to know why. Aim The aim of the study was to test Cherry’s dichotic findings in relation to, firstly, the amount of information recognised in the rejected message; secondly, the effect of hearing one’s own name in the unattended message; and thirdly, the effect of instructions to identify a specific target in the rejected message. Participants / sample Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3 The participants were male and 12 participants which included Experiment used 2 groups of 14 female undergraduates and students and research workers participants so there were 28 research staff. The number of and were both male and female participants overall. participants for study 1 was not to have an unbiased gender recorded. sample.

Method and design Experiment 1 Laboratory Experiment Repeated Measures Design

Experiment 2 Laboratory Experiment Repeated Measures Design

Independent and dependent variable Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Independent Variables: Independent Variables: - If instructions were prefixed by - Type of message participant’s own name - The dichotic listening test Dependent Variables: Dependent Variables: - Frequency of hearing the - Number of words recognised instructions from the rejected message

Experiment 3 Laboratory Experiment Independent Measures Design Experiment 3 Independent Variables: - Whether digits were in both messages or in only one - If they were asked questions about shadowed message or the numbers they heard Dependent Variables: - Number of digits correctly guessed

Materials / apparatus (messages and equipment) A Brenell Mark IV stereophonic tape recorder with twin amplifiers was used in all 3 experiments. One output would go with one headphone. Participants completed 4 trials shadowing tasks for practice and loudness od each message was approx. 60 db. All passages were recorded by one male speaker, which kept control. Procedure Before each experiment the participants were given four passages to shadow for practice. The loudness for each message was about 60 decibels. The speech rate was about 150 words a minute. All passages were recorded by one mail speaker. They matched the loudness for each message by playing both and asking the participant that they were the same loudness. It has been found that there was no significant favouring for the louder message. All three studies used a dichotic listening task. This means a different message was played in each ear, one of which was to be shadowed and one was to be rejected. They were recorded onto a tape with the rate of 130 to 150 words per minute. Two controls were that the rejected message was played at a volume that was the same at the shadowed message, and they were always played through headphones which played one message into each ear. Before each experiment, the participant had 4 practice passages to shadow. Experiment 1

Experiment 2

Experiment 3

A list of simple words was repeatedly presented to one ear whilst the participant shadowed another message which was played to the other ear. The word list faded after the shadowing had begun, and was the same volume. The word list was repeated 35 times, and the participants had to recall the rejected message. As a control, they were also presented with a list of words not present in either message. There was a gap of 30 seconds between the end of the shadowing and the beginning of the recognition test.

Participants were shown short passages of text from a light fiction source. They shadowed 10 short passages of light fiction and were told their responses would be recorded. They were also told to ensure they make as few mistakes as possible. In some of the passages, other words were inserted, but in two cases the participants were not told about this. For each passage, there was a different set of instructions. Passages were read at 130 words per minute.

Participants were required to shadow one of two simultaneous dichotic messages. In some, numbers were added to either one or both messages. The location of the number varied and some messages contained no numbers to act as a control. One group of participants were told to remember the numbers and the other group were told they would be asked questions about the content of the shadowed message.

Results Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3 Out of 7, the mean number of Most participants ignored the A t-test was conducted to words recognised in the instructions presented to them in analyse the number of digits shadowed message was 4.9, it the shadowed passages as they reported in both sets. The results was 1.9 in the rejected message felt it was there to distract them. were not significant in any case and 2.6 for the words presented In the affective condition where at the 0.05 level. Participants for the first time in recognition the instructions were preceded couldn’t be primed to respond to test. Material from the rejected by the participant’s name, 20 out digits heard in the rejected message was not recognised. The of 39 messages were heard. In message; telling participants difference between the new the non-affective condition, 4 out whet they would be tested on material and shadowed message of 36 messages were heard. 3 did not have an effect. was a significant at the 0.01 results were rejected as level. The 30 second delay is participants started paying unlikely to cause the rejected attention to the rejected material to be forgotten as words message. These results are all early in the shadowed message highly significant. This shows that were recognised. This supports people pay more attention if the the work of Cherry as instruction is prefixed with their participants could not recognise name. the rejected message. Controls Same volume for both messages; messages played at a constant speed; no expression in the speeches; all used the same type of tape recorder; all had 4 passages to practice beforehand; all loudness was approximately 60 decibels; speech rate was about 150 words per minute; all passages were recorded by one male; all three studies used a dichotic listening task; the rejected message was played at a volume that seemed to the individual participant to be the same as the shadowed message; the two messages were always played through the headphones directing the separate message to each ear individually; word list repeated the same amount of times; list of words not present in either message; gap of 30 seconds between the end of the shadowing and the beginning of the recognition test; short passages of text; passages of 10; responses recorded. Conclusions

When we direct our attention to a message from one ear and reject a message from the other ear, almost none of the verbal content of the rejected message is able to get through this block. The short list of simple words which were presented as the rejected message could not be remembered even when presented many times. However, ‘important’ messages, such as our own name can penetrate this block, which may be part of the rejected message. Therefore, it is almost impossible to make ‘neutral’ material important enough to break through the block which occurs in dichotic shadowing. Evaluation (add context to your point) Strength

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Demand characteristics Social desirability bias

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Lab experiment High control Extraneous variables controlled Standardised Headphones for all

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Quantitative data Good amount of data collected

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No qualitive data Have not analysed data fully yet

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Internal validity Controlled extraneous variables Face validity Construct validity

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Low ecological validity Demand characteristics Social desirability bias Low population validity

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Replicable Highly controlled Lab experiment Good data collected

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Small sample size Unequal gender ratio

   Research Method

Data Type

Validity

Reliability

How it is

Ethical Issues?

Sampling Bias

Weakness

How it isn’t

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Fully ethical Confidentiality Right to withdraw Informed consent Protection of participants Debrief No deception

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Ethical guidelines didn’t exist when they did the experiment

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Males and females Equal groups of participants in study 3 Variation in what each sample did

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Don’t know how many people in study 1 Small sample sizes Unequal gender ratio Not representative

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 Ethnocentrism 

Cognitive processes depend on the physiognomy of our brains so culture won’t make too much of a difference Attention present in everyone

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Only looks at English speakers All from the West Brains can be shaped by language Cultural differences in how you do in a test

How does Moray link to the key theme of attention Attention is the process of directing and focusing certain psychological resources to enhance perception, performance and mental experience. It is something that we all biologically possess and with time our attention develops and becomes better. We use our five senses to seek information. Attention can only last a certain amount of time, and research has shown that our attention can only deal with a certain amount of information to be processed at any one time. Moray was investigating Cherry’s dichotic listening findings in relation to the amount of information recognised in the rejected message, the effect of hearing one’s own name in the unattended message and the effect of instructions to identify a specific target in the rejected message. He was also looking at the Cocktail Party effect. Results showed that words were recognised more in the shadowed message than the rejected message which shows that you pay more attention to what you are meant to. Results also showed that people pay more attention if they are given instructions with their names in. Finally, their results were not significant as the participants couldn’t be primes to respond to digits. How does Moray link to the cognitive area The cognitive area attempts to explain human behaviour by focusing on our internal mental processes and how they influence our behaviour. Internal mental processes are simply the things that we do in our head such as memory, thinking, reasoning, problem solving and language. Moray was investigating Cherry’s dichotic listening findings in relation to the amount of information recognised in the rejected message, the effect of hearing one’s own name in the unattended message and the effect of instructions to identify a specific target in the rejected message. He was also looking at the Cocktail Party effect. These results link to the cognitive area because it shows that selective attention by trying to find out what types of ‘unattended’ material could break through the attentional barrier or if anything would....