How much of an unattended message do we process when we focus our attention on something else?
Classic study: Moray (1959), Attention in dichotic listening. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and theories of attention.
An OCR A-Level Psychology answer to the classic cognitive study, Moray (1959) on attention in dichotic listening. Covers the aim, the three dichotic-listening experiments, the shadowing and own-name findings, the link to Broadbent's filter model, evaluation, and links to Simons and Chabris and the cognitive area.
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What this dot point is asking
Moray (1959) is the classic study in the cognitive area for the theme "attention", paired with Simons and Chabris. You must know its aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluate it, and explain what it tells us about the cognitive area and theories of attention.
The answer
Aim and method
Results and conclusions
This broadly supports Broadbent's filter model while showing the filter is not absolute, anticipating Treisman's attenuation model.
Evaluation
- Control and reliability. A highly standardised lab technique (dichotic listening, shadowing) gives strong internal validity and replicability.
- Ecological validity. Low: shadowing a message through headphones is artificial and unlike everyday listening, where we shift attention freely.
- Sample. Small numbers of participants, limiting generalisability.
- Theoretical value. The own-name finding was important evidence that early-filter theory is incomplete, driving the development of attenuation theory.
Examples in context
Example 1. Why this study defines the cognitive area. The cognitive area studies internal mental processes such as attention by inferring them from controlled behaviour. Moray uses shadowing to make attention observable, then infers how the unattended message is processed from what participants can later report. This experimental inference of an internal process is precisely the cognitive-area approach.
Example 2. The contrast with Simons and Chabris. Moray is paired with Simons and Chabris (1999), who studied visual inattentional blindness (the invisible gorilla). Where Moray shows we filter out most unattended sound but salient information can break through, Simons and Chabris show that focusing visual attention can make us miss an obvious unexpected event entirely. Comparing auditory and visual attention is the classic-contemporary comparison the exam asks for.
Try this
Q1. Define dichotic listening. [1 mark]
- Cue. A technique in which a different auditory message is played to each ear at the same time.
Q2. State what proportion of participants detected their own name in the rejected ear. [1 mark]
- Cue. About a third (around 33 per cent).
Q3. Explain how the own-name finding challenges Broadbent's filter model. [3 marks]
- Cue. A strict early filter blocks unattended input by physical features before meaning is processed, so it cannot explain how a meaningful word like one's own name reaches awareness; this supports an attenuation model where the channel is weakened, not blocked.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of OCR exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
OCR 201910 marksDescribe the three experiments carried out by Moray (1959). [10 marks]Show worked answer →
A description item covering all three experiments (AO1).
Experiment 1: participants shadowed (repeated aloud) a message played to one ear while a different message played to the other (rejected) ear. Afterwards they were tested on the rejected message. Participants could report almost nothing of the rejected message, even when a word list was repeated 35 times in that ear.
Experiment 2: instructions (including the participant's own name) were inserted into the rejected message. About a third of participants (around per cent) detected their own name in the unattended ear, showing some "important" material can break through (the cocktail-party effect).
Experiment 3: participants shadowed one message and were told digits might appear and to remember them; digits were inserted into both messages. Whether instructions were attached to the shadowed or rejected message made little difference to recall, suggesting attention is hard to direct to a specific category in the rejected channel.
Markers reward the dichotic-listening and shadowing technique, the three procedures, and the key findings (almost no rejected-message memory; own name detected by about a third; little category-based selection).
OCR 202112 marksDiscuss the extent to which Moray's (1959) study supports a filter theory of attention. [12 marks]Show worked answer →
Tests understanding of the findings and a theoretical evaluation (AO1 and AO3).
Support: participants remembered almost nothing of the rejected message, consistent with Broadbent's filter model, in which an early filter blocks unattended information based on physical features so it is not processed for meaning.
Challenge: about a third of participants noticed their own name in the rejected ear, which a strict early-filter model cannot easily explain, because detecting your name requires processing meaning. This supports later, more flexible models (such as Treisman's attenuation model), in which the unattended channel is weakened rather than fully blocked, so highly salient information can still get through.
A strong answer concludes that Moray broadly supports filtering but shows the filter is not absolute, prompting attenuation theory. Markers reward the link to Broadbent, the own-name challenge, and a judgement about how well filter theory fits.
Related dot points
- Contemporary study: Simons and Chabris (1999), Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and Moray.
An OCR A-Level Psychology answer to the contemporary cognitive study, Simons and Chabris (1999) on sustained inattentional blindness (the invisible gorilla). Covers the aim, the basketball-counting method, the gorilla and umbrella-woman conditions, the noticing rates, evaluation, and links to Moray and the cognitive area.
- Classic study: Loftus and Palmer (1974), Reconstruction of automobile destruction. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and eyewitness memory.
An OCR A-Level Psychology answer to the classic cognitive study, Loftus and Palmer (1974) on the reconstruction of automobile destruction. Covers the aim, two laboratory experiments, the leading-question and broken-glass findings, reconstructive memory, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and eyewitness testimony.
- Contemporary study: Grant et al. (1998), Context-dependent memory in the learning and retrieval of meaningful material. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and Loftus and Palmer.
An OCR A-Level Psychology answer to the contemporary cognitive study, Grant et al. (1998) on context-dependent memory. Covers the aim, laboratory-experiment method with matching and mismatching noise conditions, the context-dependency findings, evaluation, real-world application, and links to Loftus and Palmer and the cognitive area.
- Research methods and techniques: experiments, self-report, observation and correlation; variables and operationalisation; experimental designs; hypotheses; and the strengths and weaknesses of each method.
An OCR A-Level Psychology answer to research methods and design, covering laboratory, field and quasi-experiments, self-report, observation and correlation, independent and dependent variables, operationalisation, experimental designs, directional and non-directional hypotheses, and the strengths and weaknesses of each technique for Component 1.
- Sampling methods, ethical considerations, reliability and validity, levels of measurement, and recording, analysing and presenting data.
An OCR A-Level Psychology answer to sampling and data handling, covering random, stratified, systematic, opportunity and self-selected sampling, BPS ethics, reliability and validity, levels of measurement, and how to record, analyse and present qualitative and quantitative data for Component 1.
Sources & how we know this
- OCR Level 3 Advanced GCE in Psychology (H567) specification — OCR (2015)