mass-communication-theory

264 Section 4 Contemporary Mass Communication Theory
information, maybe all we need to do is concentrate harder; but have you ever
tried to force yourself to remember something on an exam? Did it work? If cognitive
theorists are right, we need to be much more distrustful of the experiences our
consciousness weaves together for us based on the very limited and attenuated flow
of information that reaches it. Research is beginning to reveal just how easily and
often consciousness fails to provide accurate or even useful representations of the
social world.
Some cognitive psychologists argue that many of the processing mechanisms
we use to screen in and screen out information must have developed when early
human beings were struggling to adapt to and survive in a hostile physical environment
(Wood and McBride, 1997). In that environment, it was critical that potential
predators and prey be quickly identified so swift action could be taken. There was
no time for conscious processing of such information and no need for conscious
reflection before action. If you sensed a predator nearby, you ran away. If you
sensed nearby prey, you attacked. Those who didn’t either died at the hands of predators
or died of starvation. Humans who developed the requisite cognitive skills
survived.
These cognitive processing mechanisms became critical to adapting to and surviving
in close social relationships with other human beings. For example, much of
the cognitive processing capacity of the human brain is effectively devoted to taking
in and unconsciously interpreting subtle body and facial movements enabling
us to sense what others are feeling and anticipate how they are likely to act. We
don’t think about the information these cognitive processes produce. We experience
this information as an intuition—we have a sense that others feel certain
ways or will act certain ways. These processing mechanisms might have been more
important to survival than processing information about prey and predators
precisely because human beings are relatively weak and defenseless compared with
many predators. Humans quickly die when food supplies fluctuate or temperatures
vary. Human children require nurturing for much longer periods than do the
young of other mammals. As a result, it is essential that humans form communities
in which they can band together to survive. But living in communities requires cognitive
skills far more sophisticated than those needed to sense predators and prey.
How relevant is this theory for understanding how we deal with sensory information?
Think about it for a moment. As you sit reading this book, consider your
surroundings. Unless you are seated in a white soundproof room with no other
people present, there are many sensory stimuli around you. If you have been sitting
for some time, your muscles might be getting stiff and your back might have a
slight ache. Those around you might be laughing. A radio might be blaring. All
this sensory information is potentially available, but if you are good at focusing
your attention on reading, you are routinely screening out most of these external
and internal stimuli in favor of the printed words on this page.
Now consider what you do when you watch a television program. Unless you
have a VCR or a DVR player and can review scenes in slow motion, you can’t pay
attention to all the images and sounds. If you do watch them in slow motion, the
experience is totally different from viewing them at normal speed. Viewing television
is actually a rather complex task using very different information-processing
skills than reading a textbook. You are exposed to rapidly changing images and
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