Andrew R. A. Conway
Cognitive psychologist and first author of the 2001 study showing that low working memory capacity went with noticing one's own name in a message being ignored: 65 per cent of low-span listeners against 20 per cent of high-span listeners.
Who they are
Andrew Conway is Professor of cognitive psychology at Claremont Graduate University. His research interests are individual differences in intelligence, working memory capacity and cognitive control, and how those abilities are measured and relate to real-world tasks such as learning, reading and listening comprehension, and decision making.
Key papers
Conway, A. R. A., Cowan, N., & Bunting, M. F. (2001). "The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: the importance of working memory capacity." Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(2), 331-335. doi:10.3758/BF03196169.
Key ideas
The 2001 study asked whether the listeners who notice their name are those with lower working memory capacity, which would suggest trouble blocking out distracting information. It tested 40 undergraduates, 20 from the upper and 20 from the lower quartile of operation span scores. Of the low-span group, 65 per cent reported hearing their name in the message they were ignoring, against 20 per cent of the high-span group. Low-span listeners also made more shadowing errors overall, and their errors rose more after their name was presented.
The authors argued that high-span individuals are better at inhibiting irrelevant information. The study does not establish whether working memory capacity drives inhibitory ability or the reverse. A 2014 study found a pattern in older adults that this account alone does not predict.
See The Cocktail Party Effect and Working Memory.
Sources
- Conway, Cowan and Bunting (2001), abstract and results as reported in the paper.
- Biographical details are from an interview page of the International Society for Intelligence Research.