Assignment brief and instructions. PSYU2246/PSYX2246  Session 1 2021

ASSIGNMENT (assessment allocation: 15%)

DUE DATE

The assignment is due at 5pm on Thursday, 1 April 2021.  Late penalty accrues at the rate of 5%, i.e., 0.75 marks (out of 100) per day, including weekends.  It is to be submitted via the Turnitin link on the iLearn unit homepage.  The Turnitin link will be open from the beginning of that week, so you are encouraged to submit before the deadline (and avoid congestion at 5 pm 1 April).

INSTRUCTIONS

Target article

Röer, J. P., & Cowan, N. (2021). A Preregistered Replication and Extension of the Cocktail Party Phenomenon: One’s Name Captures Attention, Unexpected Words Do Not. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 47 (2), 234-242.

Röer & Cowan (2021) investigated the “cocktail party phenomenon”, which illustrates the ability of the attentional system to detect highly relevant stimuli, even though they are presented in an ignored auditory channel.  Answer the following 4 questions relating to this article.  Each answer should be a couple of sentences (not bullet points) within the word limit given for each question.  Your answer should be expressed succinctly in your own words, and not a verbatim copy of the text.

Questions

1. Describe what a “cocktail party phenomenon” is, as investigated in the present study.  With regards the three main purposes of this study described towards the end of the Introduction, what is new about this study that was not addressed in the previous studies of the cocktail party phenomenon?   (4 marks, limit 100 words)   
2. Summarize the experimental design in sentences (not bullet points).  You must mention: a) the participants, b) what the participants were asked to do (i.e., what was the main experimental task), c) what were the two independent variables (IV) – i.e., what were manipulated – and the levels (conditions) within each IVs, making clear how they were manipulated, d) the dependent variable used to measure the cocktail party phenomenon. (4 marks, limit 200 words).
3. Describe how the classic cocktail party phenomenon relates to the individual difference in working memory (make clear which graph/table you are referring to, and the statistical support for the relationship).   (3 marks, limit 50 words)
4. In addition to the results you described in Q3, the authors also reported an analysis of shadowing errors.  Describe the main pattern of results depicted in Figure 1, and the authors’ interpretation of what they tell us about the role of the attentional system in the cocktail party phenomenon (4 marks, limit 130 words)

Note on Bayesian statistics: Bayes factor (BF) is a measure of relative amount of evidence for two mutually exclusive hypotheses.  BF₁₀ is the ratio of evidence for Hypothesis 1 (H₁, alternative hypothesis) against Hypothesis 0 (H₀, null hypothesis), and can vary between 0 to infinity.  BF₁₀ of 1 means equivalent amount of evidence for the two hypotheses, BF₁₀ between 1 to 3 is considered to provide anecdotal evidence (not much to write home about) for H₁ (and against H₀); BF₁₀ of 10 or more is considered to provide strong evidence for H₁ (and against H₀).   BF₁₀ = 1/BF₀₁, so BF₁₀ of .1 is equivalent to BF₀₁ of 10 (i.e., strong evidence for H₀ and against H₁).   Detailed instruction on the assignment submission is on the following pages.  Please read.

Get expert help for Assignment brief and instructions and many more. 24X7 help, plag free solution. Order online now!