Attention Flashcards
Attention
The process of focusing on specific stimuli while ignoring others
Sustained attention
Maintenance of attention on one specific thing for extended period of times (studying for hours)
Selective attention
Choosing and attending to one specific stimuli while excluding other stimuli (choosing to pay attention to the teacher rather than people talking)
Cocktail party effect
Ability to understand a conversation even with many distracting sounds and side conversations happening in background
Cherry Theory
Cherry theorized that there were five potential ways a person could seperate the voice of the person they were speaking to from surrounding conversations
Cherry procedure
Participants wore headphones with two different voices, one on either side - they could focus on one and understand it
Ways a person can seperate voice
1. direction of voice
most subjects struggled to ignore voices from one ear when instructed to listen to the other
Ways a person can seperate voice
2. body language
viewing body language helps us piece together predictions for sentences - even when we dont hear everything that was said
Ways a person can seperate voice
3. differences in speaking voices
people notice when speed or pitch of a voice changes- listeners can pick out a message from a person based on differences in their voice
Ways a person can seperate voice
4. differences in accents
participants didnt notice when a person with an accent speaking switched languages
Brain factors to listen to a speaker
spatial continuity
although speakers failed to tell 2 messages apart in directional voice experiment- people can focus on a speaker better when they stay in the same place
Brain factors to listen to a speaker
Loudness
if speaker is talking louder, they are easier to hear
Brain factors to listen to a speaker
Continuity
When someone is speaking, if their frequency and intensity of speech remains constant it is easier for them to understand
