Your Name in a Loud Room
Written by Studio AM.
Your result
- Words per minute
- Score
- Pace
Words per minute mean something only with the score beside them. They describe this passage on this read. With fewer than 3 right, try the next slower pace.
Choose a pace and select Start. The passage is paced and timed, then the questions check what you understood. How pace mode works
Reading time 0:00
At a crowded party, you may follow one voice while other conversations become background noise. Then someone elsewhere says your name, and your attention shifts. A familiar word can sometimes break through while you are listening to something else.
In the 1950s, researcher Colin Cherry studied how people followed competing streams of speech. He played a different recording into each ear and asked listeners to repeat one message aloud. They could usually report little about the words in the ignored recording, even though sound had reached both ears.
Neville Moray later used a similar method. About a third of his listeners reported noticing their own name when it appeared in the ignored message. Most did not notice it, so the result varied between people.
The two findings fit together. Attention helps us select one channel of sound, but personally important information can sometimes draw us toward another. This is why following one conversation and occasionally noticing your name across the room are compatible experiences.
The passage is hidden while you answer. It comes back with your result.
Questions
Choose an answer. The explanation appears after you answer.
-
Question 1 of 4
What is the passage mainly about?
The answer is B: Attention selects one conversation, but important information can sometimes interrupt it.
The passage combines selective listening with occasional capture of attention by one's own name.
-
Question 2 of 4
According to the passage, what could Cherry's listeners report about the ignored ear?
The answer is C: Little about the words in that recording.
Cherry's listeners generally recalled little of the ignored verbal content; the name result came from Moray's later study.
-
Question 3 of 4
In this passage, a "channel" is
The answer is D: one stream of sound among several you could listen to
The experiment presents two separate streams of sound, which the final paragraph calls channels.
-
Question 4 of 4
What can be inferred from the fact that most listeners did not report their name?
The answer is C: Noticing personally important words while distracted is not automatic for everyone
Only about a third reported the name, showing that this shift of attention did not occur for every participant.
Score: none answered yet.