Cognitive area The cognitive area sees behaviour as being heavily influenced by ones cognitive processes. The area likens human cognitive processes to a computer. In that, data is input, processed, stored, and retrieved. The area looks specifically at the internal processes of individuals alongside their thinking patterns. Main topics within this area include memory and attention. It is important to note we cannot see our thinking or memory. And so, we can only see the end result of these processes as displayed through behaviours. This means psychologists have to use a variety of techniques to study cognitive processes.

Moray (1959) Auditory attention Area: Cognitive Area Theme: Attention

Background On a daily basis, our brains are bombarded with information from all of our senses. Attention is the cognitive process that enables us to select some of this information to concentrate on, whilst rejecting (and ignoring) other information. Key term: Selective (or focussed) attention “the capacity to focus or process a certain stimuli selectively, when several other stimuli occur simultaneously”

Colin Cherry introduced “Cherry’s Cocktail Party Effect” Colin Cherry introduced “Cherry’s Cocktail Party Effect”. Cherry suggests if you hear your name in another conversation, your attention will be drawn from whatever you are focusing on and onto the conversation where your name was mentioned. This suggests the possibility to have selective/focussed attention. One way to measure an individuals selective attention is to use shadowing. This is where one message is fed into one ear, and another into the other. Another name for this is a dichotic listening task.

According to Cherry (1953), those who ‘shadowed’ a message in one ear, were unaware of the content in the other ear.

Method: Laboratory experiment Tape recorder with two amplifiers to allow two outputs – one to each ear through a set of headphones The messages were equal levels of loudness, judged by each participant Before each experiment the participants were given four passages of prose to shadow for practice All passages throughout the study were recorded by one male speaker Evaluate this:

Aims: Experiment 1: Moray aimed to test Cherry's findings – do individuals have selective/focused attention? Experiment 2 & 3: Moray aimed to investigate other factors that can affect attention in dichotic listening task.

Experiment 1 Method: Repeated measures design IV = dichotic listening task and recognition task DV = number of words recognised correctly in rejected message Sample = undergraduates, research workers, male and female. Number unknown

Experiment 1 Procedure: In experiment 1, a short list of simple words was repeatedly presented to one of the participants ears, whilst they shadowed a prose message presented to the other ear. The list was repeated 35 times. The participant was asked to recall the content of the rejected message (list of words). About 30 seconds later they were given a recognition test using similar material, yet not presented in the list nor the passage, as a control.

Experiment 1 Results: The mean number of words recognised (out of 7) Shadowed message (prose) 4.9 Rejected message (list of words) 1.9 Similar words from either 2.6 Overall, there was no trace of material from the rejected message being recognised. The difference between the new material and the shadowed message material was significant. The 30 second delay was unlikely to have caused forgetting, because words from early in the shadowed message were recognised.

Experiment 1 Conclusion: In a situation where a participant directs his attention to a message in one ear, and rejects a message in the other ear, almost none of the verbal content of the rejected message is able to penetrate the attention block.

Experiment 2 Method: Independent measures design IV = whether or not instructions were prefixed by participants own name DV = the number of affective instructions Sample = undergraduates, research workers, male and female. Total 12

Experiment 2 Procedure: Experiment 2 was conducted to find out the limits of attentional block. Participants shadowed ten short passages of light fiction. They were told that their responses would be recorded and that they should aim to make as little mistakes as possible. The individuals were told to ignore the rejected message. In the rejected message, Moray wanted to know would the participants attention go towards the rejected message if it included their name.

Experiment 2 Results: In affective condition (instructions with name) 20 out of 39 messages were heard In non-affective conditions (instructions without name) 4 out of 39 messages were heard (3 results were rejected as participants started paying attention to rejected messages). Results were significant.

Experiment 2 Conclusions: Subjectively 'important' messages, such as a person's own name, can penetrate the block.

Experiment 3 Method: Independent measures design IV = whether digits were inserted into one or two messages, and whether participants had to answer questions about the shadowed message at the end of each passage or just recall numbers DV = the number of digits correctly recalled Sample = undergraduates, research workers, male and female. Total 28 (two groups of 14)

Experiment 3 Procedure: In experiment 3, participants were required to shadow one of two simultaneous dichotic messages. In some of the messages digits were added towards the end of the message in either both messages or in one. The position of the numbers in the messages and whether they were relative to each other in the two messages varied. One group was told they'd be asked questions about the content of the shadowed message at the end. The other group as asked to remember as many numbers as they could.

Experiment 3 Conclusion: While perhaps not impossible, it is very difficult to make 'neutral' material important enough to break through the block set up in dichotic shadowing.