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Hypothesis =>

People do pay more attention to conversations when they hear something related to them that they are not directly involved in than when they are involved in random conversations.

Cocktail Party Effect

$1.25

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Vol XCIII, No. 311

Question

Introduction

Do people pay more attention to conversations when they hear something related to them that they are not directly involved in than when they hear random conversations?

What is the "cocktail party effect?"

Results & Analysis

"Wait, I just

heard my

name!"

Listening attention

divided upon hearing

his or her name in

an environment with mixed conversations and noises.

So...

When do people tend to pay attention even in a loud environment?

Out of the 15 subjects I have tested, 12 people talked about how they heard only the information that was related to them and nothing else. This proves that people have the ability to focus on one thing at a time, and this is necessary in life sometimes because multitasking can lead to serious consequences. Neuroscientists that have been studying this topic for a long time have found out that only 2% of the world’s population actually can do multiple tasks at a time without struggling. Many people believe that they can do this, but research has shown that in reality, it is extremely difficult to focus on multiple different things at a time and being able to be successful in completing all the tasks.

=> Experiment

Donald Broadbent’s “filter of attention” explains this by stating that attention is a “bottleneck through which information passes.” It is proven that the senses take in billions of bits of information every second, but only 40 of them are taken into and processed in the brain, being “filtered out.”

Procedure

MATERIAL

What do I need for this experiment?

What do I have to do for this experiment?

  • A crowded, noisy area- library/cafe/student hall/lounge
  • 15 subjects
  • Organizing chart
  • Paper
  • Recorder

1. Go to a crowded and loud area. Try to blend in as much as possible. Try to look for potential subjects.

2. Sit near the subjects you have chosen to experiment on, and start having a conversation.

3. Perform one of the four following situations:

• positive conversation; randomly drop in subject’s name

• positive conversation; completely about the subject

• negative conversation; randomly drop in subject’s name

• negative conversation; completely about the subject

4. Ask each subject to record what they have heard. Also, ask them which word caused them to pay attention to the conversation.

5. Analyze the data, and sort them out to figure out what the words and phrases the subjects paid attention to all had in common.

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