Visual Cocktail Party Phenomenon

1
Visual Cocktail Party Phenomenon

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

2
Introduction

• Moray (1959)
• Cocktail Party Phenomenon
• Can select to listen to information from one
  source in a busy environment
• But can pick up relevant information from
  unattended sources

3
Introduction (cont.)

• Neisser and Becklen (1975)
• Selective looking
• People watch game and count passes
• Miss person walking through middle

4
Research Idea

• The person in Neisser and Becklen could be
  considered an unattended channel
• So if the person is made relevant, should not the
  person be easier to detect?

5
Hypothesis

• In a Neisser and Becklen type video, participants
  will detect and identify a visually relevant
  person more often than a less visually relevant
  person

6
Method

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

7

• Equipment
• Video production
• Digital Camcorder Sony digital handycam, model
  number DCR-TRV17
• Video edited by QuickTime Pro by Apple
  Computers, Inc.
• Apparatus
• Video presented on
• Gateway computer model E-3400
• Windows 98
• QuickTime version 6.5
• Screen size 15 diagonal

8

• Stimuli 2 videos
• Recording
• Filmed in same room to ensure identical
  background camera remained in same position via
  tripod
• Filmed in one session, but three separate stages
• Three stages
• Game in black T-shirt
• Game in white T-Shirt
• First person filmed walking across camera field
  of view, then the second person

9

• Stimuli (cont.)
• Production--3 video clips superimposed
• Resulting 2 Videos
• Personally relevant person
• Less personally relevant person

Video 1 Video 2
Clip 1 White White
Clip 2 Black Black
Clip 3 Clip 4 Known Unknown
10

• Procedure
• Randomly assigned
• Condition 1 Relevant Person
• Condition 2 Less Relevant Person
• Video
• Questionnaire
• How many bounce passes?
• Demographics
• Questions relevant to condition
• RelevantHow often do you eat in the UG?
  (Likert Scale)
• Less RelevantHow often do you go to the Career
  Center? (Likert Scale)
• Did you see someone walk through the players?
• If so, who was it?

11
Results

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

Yes No Total
Relevant 8 61.5 5 38.5 13
Less Relevant 5 38.5 8 61.5 13
Total 13 13 26
?² (1) 1.39, ns
12

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

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

• No significant relationship on the number of
  times the person was detected
• However, relevance did seem to influence the
  number of times the person was correctly
  identified
• Even when seen, there were no attempts at
  identifying the less relevant person

14
Limitations

• Personally relevant individual may not have been
  equally relevant to all participants
• Personally relevant and less relevant individuals
  may have looked too much alike
• The two peoples paths were not identical
• Counterbalancing of the perceptual task

15
Future Directions

• Use a person that is truly significant to each
  individual for the relevant condition
• e.g., athletic coach

16
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