Contextual cues in selective listening
Anne Treisman presented two messages dichotically, one to each ear, and asked listeners to shadow whatever they heard on one ear. Partway through, the two passages were switched to the opposite ears. Listeners occasionally repeated a word or two from the wrong ear at the break, but never followed it for longer than that. The more predictable the passage, the more likely they were to do this. Treisman's suggested explanation is that the selective filter Broadbent described may act by raising the thresholds for signals from the rejected source, instead of working as an all-or-none barrier.
Anne Treisman presented two messages dichotically, one to each ear, and asked listeners to shadow whatever they heard on one ear. Partway through, the two passages were switched to the opposite ears. Listeners occasionally repeated a word or two from the wrong ear at the break, but never followed it for longer than that. The more predictable the passage, the more likely they were to do this. Treisman's suggested explanation is that the selective filter Broadbent described may act by raising the thresholds for signals from the rejected source, instead of working as an all-or-none barrier.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-22 in the Crossref record for the paper, DOI verified against title, author, journal, volume 12(4), page range 242-248 and October 1960.
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Treisman, A. M. (1960). Contextual cues in selective listening. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(4), 242-248. doi:10.1080/17470216008416732