Basic Cognitive Psychology (selective attention: dichotic listening)

Basic Cognitive Psychology
(selective attention: dichotic listening)
• attention is focused on one ear (usually the right) by having
participants “shadow” the speech in that ear (repeat aloud)
– failed to notice
• when language of unattended speech changed
• word lists repeated 35 times
• what can be reported from the unattended ear?
– speech versus noise
– gender of talker
– their own name
– “something odd” if speech played backwards

Applied Cognitive Psychology
(dual task: cell phones and driving)
• Simulated driving with video
game (Strayer and Johnston,
2001)
– Compared listening versus
conversation
– Conversation (word generation)
impaired driving
• attentional bottleneck in planning
what to say
• Simple shadowing did not impair
driving
• “hands free” didn’t help
– What about conversation with
people in the car?
• people in the car know when to
be quiet

• Location
– Laboratory vs. field research
• Control
• Ecological validity (realistic)
• Basic / applied
• Situations / risk
• ethics
– Dutton and Aron’s (1974)
romance in high places
• Quantitative versus Qualitative
research
– Analytical narratives
• Case studies
• Observation studies

• Asking empirical questions
– Answerable with data
– Terms precisely defined
• Operational definitions
– Defining concepts in terms of a set of operations to be
performed
• Operationalize Hunger
– induce hunger: not feeding rat for 12 hrs.
– measure hunger: press lever for food
–Objective
– Replication
– Converging operations
• different operational definitions producing similar results
– operational definitions for:
• Memory, attention, awareness, perception

• Developing Research
– From Observations and serendipity
• Hubel and Wiesel (1959)
– From Theory
• A theory (subject to revision)
– Summarizes existing knowledge concisely
– Provides relationships between variables
– Provides explanation
– Makes predictions
• A construct
– Hypothetical factor, not observed directly
– Interference/inhibition, cognitive dissonance
• Deduction
– Reasoning from a set of statements towards the prediction
• Hypothesis (the prediction)
• Induction
– Reasoning from specific events to a theory

• Can only disprove theories (never prove, just find
support for)
– Logical fallacy of affirming the consequent
• all crows are black: If a bird is a crow, then it will be black
• you see a black bird
• fallacy: therefore, it must be a crow
– Logically correct modus tollens
• If a bird is a crow, then it will be black
• you see a yellow bird
• correct: therefore, it cannot be a crow
– Is one negative result grounds for disproof?

• Attributes of good theories
– Maggie the mathematical dog
– Productivity
– Falsification
– Parsimony (minimum constructs)

• Developing research from other research
– Programmatic research
• Unanswered and what next questions
– suggestions in discussion section
– alternative explanation
– individual differences
– age and SES groups
– different cultures
– adapting procedures to other research areas
• Replication and extension (partial replication)
– Exact replication (last resort)
• Creative thinking in science
– Figuring out new paradigms (maze learning)
• “chance favors the prepared mind”
– Narrow use of a paradigm can block creativity
• Centrifugal swing