Can he do that without being distracted by the information in the other ear? The typical dichotic listening task would have John repeat the story presented to one ear as he hears it. For example, let’s say that a story about a camping trip is presented to John’s left ear, and a story about Abe Lincoln is presented to his right ear. In order to control which message the person attends to, the individual is asked to repeat back or “shadow” one of the messages as he hears it. Dichotic listening simply refers to the situation when two messages are presented simultaneously to an individual, with one message in each ear. In particular, they used dichotic listeningand shadowingtasks to evaluate the selection process. This cocktail party scenario is the quintessential example of selective attention, and it is essentially what some early researchers tried to replicate under controlled laboratory conditions as a starting point for understanding the role of attention in perception (e.g., Cherry, 1953 Moray, 1959). How does it all work? Dichotic Listening Studies We have an amazing ability to select and track one voice, visual object, etc., even when a million things are competing for our attention, but at the same time, we seem to be limited in how much we can attend to at one time, which in turn suggests that attention is crucial in selecting what is important. This situation highlights an interesting set of observations. On the other hand, if someone behind you mentions your name, you typically notice it immediately and may start attending to that (much more interesting) conversation. You also are probably not aware of how tight your shoes feel or of the smell of a nearby flower arrangement. However, once you are engaged in conversation with someone, you quickly become aware that you cannot also listen to other conversations at the same time. There are so many conversations going on how is it possible to select just one and follow it? You don’t have to be looking at the person talking you may be listening with great interest to some gossip while pretending not to hear.īeyond just hearing your name from the clamor at a party, other words or concepts, particularly unusual or significant ones to you, can also snag your attention. Many people may be milling around, there is a dazzling variety of colors and sounds and smells, the buzz of many conversations is striking. A party provides an excellent example for our purposes. One way to get an intuitive sense of how attention works is to consider situations in which attention is used. A complete theory of auditory attention must account for the mechanisms by which selective attention is achieved, the causes of auditory distraction, and the reasons why individuals might differ in their ability in both cases.Selective attention is the ability to select certain stimuli in the environment to process, while ignoring distracting information. In parallel, the causes of auditory distraction-and how to try to avoid it where necessary-have also been subject to scrutiny. The scientific study of auditory attention has been driven by such practical problems: how people somehow manage to select the most interesting or most relevant speaker from the competing auditory demands made by the speech of others or isolate the music of the band from the chatter of the nightclub. Additionally, irrelevant or unwanted chatter or other background noise should not hinder concentration on matters of greater interest or importance-students should ideally be able to study effectively despite noisy classrooms or university halls while still being open to the possibility of important interruptions from elsewhere. Nevertheless, people somehow have to identify, from among the babble that surrounds them, the sounds and speech of interest and importance and to follow the thread of a chosen speaker in a crowded auditory environment. On the other, alarms are usually auditory for a reason. On the one hand, soft background music or environmental sounds, such as birdsong or the noise of waves against the beach, is often comfortingly pleasurable or reassuring. Unlike vision, it is not possible simply to “close our ears” and shut out the auditory world and nor, in many cases, is it desirable. Everywhere there is the sound of human speech-from the casual chatter of strangers and the unwanted intrusion from electronic devices through to the conversations with friends and loved ones one may actually wish to hear. Streets are cacophonies of traffic noise homes and workplaces are replete with bleeping timers, announcements, and alarms.
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