Auditory Attention
Auditory attention refers to the cognitive process of selectively focusing on auditory information while filtering out irrelevant sounds. It involves the ability to concentrate on specific auditory stimuli, such as speech or music, while ignoring competing sounds. This process is essential for effective communication, language processing, and auditory perception.
6 Key excerpts on "Auditory Attention"
eBook - ePubCompanion Encyclopedia of Psychology
Volume One
- Andrew M. Colman, Andrew M. Colman(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Second, it is important to distinguish between attentional processes in the various sense modalities. For example, it may be easier to focus attention on a single stimulus input in some modalities than others, and so we really need to consider the various modalities separately. However, only the visual and auditory modalities have been investigated with any thoroughness, and so our coverage will concentrate on those modalities. Focused Auditory Attention One of the key issues with respect to focused Auditory Attention is whether it is possible to attend to one auditory message while successfully ignoring other auditory messages that are presented at the same time. This issue was first examined systematically by Cherry (1953), who devised the dichotic listening task. Subjects performing this task listen through headphones which deliver one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear. They are instructed to repeat back (or shadow) the message presented to one ear while ignoring the message presented to the other ear. Cherry found that the subjects found it reasonably straightforward to follow the instructions even when the two messages were spoken in the same voice, suggesting that auditory selective attention can be very efficient. Cherry's (1953) most powerful evidence that people can select one of two auditory messages and ignore the other one came when he questioned the subjects afterwards about their knowledge of the unattended message. Rather surprisingly, most subjects had no awareness of the meaning of the to-be-ignored message, and could not repeat a single word or phrase from it. Some subjects were given a to-be-ignored message in reversed speech. Most of them claimed that the message had been in normal speech, but a few subjects argued that there had been "something queer about it"...
eBook - ePubAttention, Perception and Memory
An Integrated Introduction
- Elizabeth Styles(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...However, attentional processes are also involved in allowing us to selectively listen to one source of sound rather than other. Walking in the garden you can intentionally control what you listen to. You may listen to the birds, then switch attention to listening to the wind in the trees, then back to your friend’s chatter. Most of the time one sound source is the focus of attention, and is in the foreground, which other sources merge into the background. As you switch between the sounds, what appears to be in the background or foreground changes places. However, if there is a sudden noise, for example an apple falling to the ground, this will automatically capture your attention. We have already looked at endogenous and exogenous control of attention in Chapter 5, concerning visual attention. While there are some important differences between hearing and vision, these modalities interact in some interesting ways. For example, if you are trying to hear what someone is saying to you in a noisy environment it helps if you can see their lips moving, so attending to sounds can be improved if we also attend to visual properties of the same object. Auditory Attention When we search a visual scene, we can move our eyes and head to bring the fovea to focus on the part of the environment that we wish to attend to. If we want to ignore a visual stimulus we can shut our eyes, or look away. However, this is not the case with the auditory environment. The cochlea has no equivalent of the fovea, and we cannot shut our ears or move them around. So how are we able to selectively attend to objects or locations in the auditory environment? Scharf (1998) suggests that the auditory system is ‘an excellent early warning system, one that is ready to receive and process stimuli from all directions regardless of an organism’s current orientation’...
eBook - ePub- Jackie Andrade, Jon May(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
...Section C Attention DOI: 10.4324/9780203488294-3 C1 Auditory Attention Keynotes Selective Auditory Attention Mechanisms of selective attention allow us to concentrate on one auditory message while ignoring other messages that differ in terms of speaker’s voice and location, thus solving the so-called cocktail party problem. Our ability to hear someone mention our name even when we are attending to another conversation suggests that even the ignored message or conversation undergoes some processing. Dichotic listening experiments have explored the extent of this processing. Theories of selective attention Early research suggested very little processing of the unattended message in dichotic listening experiments, leading Broadbent to argue that selection occurs early, at the level of sensation rather than perception. Tests of Broadbent’s model revealed more extensive processing of the unattended message, leading to proposals of late selection or a flexible bottleneck in processing. Jones has emphasized the effect of the nature of the distracting material on our ability to selectively attend, arguing that attention involves maintaining target and distractor information in separate streams. Related topics Sensation (B1) Auditory perception (B2) Divided attention and dual task performance (C3) Selective Auditory Attention Cherry (1953) used simultaneous presentation of two messages to investigate the problem known as the cocktail party phenomenon. This is the problem of how we are able to follow one conversation while ignoring other conversations going on around us. We are not able to close our ears to the unwanted conversations, so we must be able to select the important information in some way and filter out the rest...
- Teralandur K. Parthasarathy, Teralandur K. Parthasarathy(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...There has been considerable interest in recent years in these secondary and tertiary auditory areas and the possibility that they are associated with separate streams of processing (Hart, Palmer, & Hall, 2004). One widely proposed scheme holds that there are distinct streams for identification of auditory objects and spatial location (e.g., Kaas & Hackett, 2000), in a manner similar to the processing streams identified invisual cortex (e.g., Baizer, Ungerleider, & Desimone, 1991). These conclusions are based on studies demonstrating modality-specific electrophysiological responses in animals (e.g., Tian, Reser, Durham, Kustov, & Rauschecker, 2001). More recently, similar findings have been reported with modality-specific activations in humans, using various imaging methodologies (positron emission tomography, PET; functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) (e.g., Warren & Griffiths, 2003; see also Arnott, Binns, Grady, & Alain, 2004 for a meta-analysis review). Central auditory processing disorder is presumably a result of pathology in these modality-specific areas, but this has seldom been demonstrated in children receiving this diagnosis. Research on the biological basis of attention and its deficits does not have as clear-cut a criterion as modality specificity for a guide. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is currently diagnosed on the basis of observed symptoms, and attention is identified by theoretical inference. Both of these are controversial and are still evolving. For example, disagreement between parent and teacher reports on symptoms is common (Mitsis, McKay, Schulz, Newcorn, & Halperin, 2000; Wolraich et al., 2004). Likewise, there are a number of competing explanations of ADHD (Sergeant et al., 2003). Cerebral glucose use in hyperactive adolescents and in adults with a history of hyperactivity in childhood shows left frontal lobe dysfunction during an auditory CPT (Zametkin et al., 1990, 1993)...
eBook - ePubAttention
A Neuropsychological Approach
- Antony Ward(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...Given its youth, there is no doubt that this area of work will experience considerable progress in the years ahead. Should any of the readers of this book come to be involved in that endeavour, having been inspired by these pages, then it will have admirably served its purpose. It is also the author’s hope that this introduction to the neuropsychology of attention will prove useful to clinicians working with the various types of patient who suffer from the disorders that will be considered. What is attention? Cognitive theories of attention can seem very complex and abstract. In reality, these theories are trying to describe quite simple aspects of behaviour that we can all understand. To help the reader, therefore, each of the following sections briefly considers everyday examples of behaviour, which are thought to involve the aspects of attention being described. Subsequently, the theoretical accounts psychologists have given for those behaviours will be reviewed. The various theories of attention can be covered under the headings of selection, dividing attention, control, and vigilance. Selective attention The quote given at the start of this chapter seems to have become de rigueur as a way of opening discussions such as this on the nature of attention. James’ view is that the term “attention” refers to the process by which we are able to focus on a particular aspect of our environment. Thus that aspect becomes the only thing we are aware of at that particular moment in time. Probably one of the best examples of this in the modern world is the experience of watching television. When we are engrossed in a favourite television programme we may be unaware of other things happening in the room around us. We may not hear someone in the room asking us a question, or may be unaware of events taking place outside. However, at any given time we can change the focus of our attention...
eBook - ePub- Alan J. Parkin(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...3 Attention “You can’t do two things at once” is a familiar piece of advice but is it really true? The answer would appear to be “sometimes”. We cannot have two conversations at once or watch two TV programmes simultaneously. But we can talk while we drive and listen to music while we exercise. Also we can be distracted by things we are not currently listening to if they are relevant. These examples show us that the idea of attention is not a simple matter of “concentration”. Rather, attention is a multi-dimensional concept used to describe different features and ways of responding in the human cognitive system. Sometimes we can divide our attention between simultaneous tasks, but when we are behind the wheel of a car it can be dangerous. Selective attention Within cognitive psychology, most research has been aimed at understanding the process of selective attention. The modern origins of this research enterprise go back to the early 1950s and the work of a British engineer called Colin Cherry (Cherry, 1953). The motivation for Cherry’s work was something he termed the cocktail party problem —the fact that humans can attend to one conversation selectively even though there may be many others going on around them. To examine this problem Cherry devised the dichotic listening task. This involved the presentation of two messages, one to each ear, using headphones. Participants in the experiment were instructed to shadow one message by repeating it out aloud. The demand for shadowing was assumed to prevent participants paying any attention to information presented on the unattended ear. As part of his investigation, Cherry set out to discover what sorts of data were available about information that was not being attended to. In the experiments, participants shadowed a verbal message on the right ear while simultaneously being presented with different types of information to the left ear...
