Visual Cocktail Party Phenomenon

1
Visual Cocktail Party Phenomenon

• Amanda Caddell
• Angie French
• Kevin Utt
• Julie Witherup

2
Introduction

• Moray (1959)
• Cocktail Party Phenomenon
• Neisser and Becklen (1975)
• Selective looking

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Hypothesis

• Participants will selectively attend to a
  visually relevant person more than a less
  visually relevant person

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Method

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

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• Equipment
• Video production
• Sony digital handycam, model number DCR-TRV17
• Quicktime Pro by Apple Computers, Inc.
• Apparatus
• Gateway computer model E-3400
• Windows 98
• Quicktime version 6.5
• Screen size 13

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• Stimuli
• Production--3 video clips superimposed
• Clip 1 white t-shirts
• Clip 2 black t-shirts
• Clip 3 Betsy or Erica
• 2 Videos
• Personally relevant person (Betsy)
• Less personally relevant person (Erica)

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• Procedure
• Randomly assigned
• Condition 1 Betsy
• Condition 2 Erica
• Video
• Questionnaire
• Questions relevant to condition
• BetsyHow often do you eat in the UG?
• EricaHow often do you go to the Career Center?

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Results

• Chi Square Analyses
• Comparing the frequency of whether participants
  detected a person walking across the screen in
  each condition

Yes No Total
Betsy 8 61.5 5 38.5 13
Erica 5 38.5 8 61.5 13
Total 13 13 26
?² (1) 1.39, ns
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• Chi Square Analyses
• Comparing the frequency of whether participants
  identified the person walking across the screen
  in each condition

Betsy Other No One Total
Betsy 4 30.8 1 7.7 8 61.5 13
Erica 0 0 13 100 13
Total 4 1 21 26
?² (2) 6.19, p lt .05
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Discussion

• Participants selectively attend to the personally
  relevant individual
• Related to Morays findings

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Limitations

• Small, homogeneous sample
• Counterbalancing of the attention task
• Personally relevant individual may not have been
  equally relevant to all participants

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Questions
13
References

• Moray, N. (1959). Attention in dichotic
  listening Affective cues and the influence of
  instructions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental
  Psychology, 11, 56-60
• Neisser, U. Becklen, R. (1975). Selective
  looking Attending to visually specified events.
  Cognitive Psychology, 7, 480-494