Change deafness, dual-task performance, and domain-specific expertise.
In a change deafness manipulation using radio broadcasts of sporting events, we show that change deafness to a switch in talker increases when listeners are asked to monitor both lexical and indexical information for change. We held semantic content constant and demonstrated a change deafness rate of 85% when participants listened to the home team broadcast of a hockey game that switched midway to the away team broadcast with a different announcer. In Study 2, participants were asked to monitor either the indexical characteristics ( listen for a change in announcer) or both the indexical and semantic components ( listen for a change in announcer or a goal scored). Monitoring both components led to significantly greater change deafness even though both groups were alerted to the possibility of a change in announcer. In Study 3, we changed both the indexical and the semantic components when the broadcast switched from a hockey game to a basketball game. We found a negative correlation between sports expertise and change deafness. The results are discussed in terms of the nature of perceptual representation and the influence of expertise and evolution on attention allocation.
Department of Psychology, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, USA.
John G
JG
Neuhoff
Department of Psychology, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, USA.
Katharina S
KS
Bochtler
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003638:Deafness / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011361:Professional Competence; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D013177:Sports / Q000523:psychology; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
Change deafness; auditory attention; evolution; expertise; perceptual representation; sports