Visual Cocktail Party Phenomenon Julie Witherup Amanda Caddell Angie French Kevin Utt

Introduction Moray (1959) Cocktail Party Phenomenon Can select to listen to information from one source in a busy environment But can pick up “relevant” information from unattended sources

Introduction (cont.) Neisser and Becklen (1975) Selective “looking” People watch game and count passes Miss person walking through middle

Research Idea The person in Neisser and Becklen could be considered an unattended channel So if the person is made relevant, should not the person be easier to detect?

Hypothesis Participants will detect a visually relevant person more often than a less visually relevant person in a Neisser and Becklen type video

Method Participants 26 students 25 Caucasian 1 Japanese 31% freshman 23% sophomores 23% juniors 23% seniors

Equipment Video production Digital Camcorder: Sony digital handycam, model number DCR-TRV17 Video edited by: QuickTime Pro by Apple Computers, Inc. Apparatus Video presented on: Gateway computer model # E-3400 Windows 98 QuickTime version 6.5 Screen size 15” diagonal

Stimuli Recording All done in same room with camera same position – done in one setting to make sure Background kept the same in all cases Three stages Game in black T-shirt Game in white T-Shirt First one then the second person walked across the cameras field of view

Stimuli (cont.) Production--3 video clips superimposed Resulting 2 Videos Personally relevant person Less personally relevant person Clip 1White Clip 2Black Clip 3KnownUnknown

Procedure Randomly assigned Condition 1: Relevant Person Condition 2: Less Relevant Person Video Questionnaire How many bounce passes? Demographics Questions relevant to condition Relevant—“How often do you eat in the UG?” Less Relevant—”How often do you go to the Career Center?” Did you see someone walk through the players? If so, who was it?

Results Chi Square Analyses Comparing the frequency of whether participants detected a person walking across the screen in each condition YesNoTotal Relevant % % 13 Less Relevant % % 13 Total  ² (1) = 1.39, ns

Chi Square Analyses Comparing the frequency of whether participants identified the person walking across the screen in each condition RelevantOtherNo OneTotal Relevant4 30.8% 1 7.7% % 13 Less Relevant % 13 Total  ² (2) = 6.19, p <.05

Discussion No significant relationship on the number of times the person was detected However, relevance did seem to influence the number of times the person was correctly identified Even when seen, there were no attempts at identification of the less relevant person

Limitations Counterbalancing of the attention task Personally relevant individual may not have been equally relevant to all participants The two people’s paths were not identical

Future Directions Use a a person that is truly significant to each individual for the relevant condition, e.g., coach

References Moray, N. (1959). Attention in dichotic listening: Affective cues and the influence of instructions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 11, Neisser, U. & Becklen, R. (1975). Selective looking: Attending to visually specified events. Cognitive Psychology, 7,