Elsevier

Cognition

Volume 4, Issue 3, 1976, Pages 215-230
Cognition

Skills of divided attention☆

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(76)90018-4Get rights and content

Abstract

Two subjects read short stories while writing lists of words at dictation. After some weeks of practice, they were able to write words, discover relations among dictated words, and categorize words for meaning, while reading for comprehension at normal speed. The performance of these subjects is not consistent with the notion that there are fixed limits to attentional capacity.

Résumé

On a demandé à deux sujets de lire des petites histoires tout en écrivant sous dictée des listes de mots. Après quelques semaines de pratique les sujets ont pu écrire les mots dictés, découvrir des relations entre ces mots et les classer selon leur sens tant en lisant à une vitesse normale et en comprenant ce qu'ils lisaient. La performance de ces sujets est en désaccord avec l'idée que la capacité d'attention à des limites fixes.

References (16)

  • S. Glucksberg et al.

    Memory for nonattended auditory material

    Cog. Psychol.

    (1970)
  • D.A. Allport et al.

    On the division of attention: A disproof of the single channel hypotheses

    Q. J. exp. Psychol.

    (1972)
  • W.F. Battig et al.

    Category norms for verbal items in 56 categories: A replication and extension of the Connecticut Category Norms

    J. exp. Psychol. Monograph

    (1969)
  • R.S. Corteen et al.

    Autonomic responses to shock-associated words in an unattended channel

    J. exp. Psychol.

    (1972)
  • J.E. Downey et al.

    Automatic writing

    Amer. J. Psychol.

    (1915)
  • W. James
    (1890)
  • H. Kucera et al.

    Computational analysis of present-day American English

    (1967)
  • J.L. Lewis

    Semantic processing of unattended messages using dichotic listening

    J. exp. Psychol.

    (1970)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (279)

View all citing articles on Scopus
☆

Some of these results were reported at the American Psychological Association, Chicago, August, 1975.

∗∗

The names of the two senior authors are listed in a randomly-chosen order; they contributed equally to this work. Reprint requests may be addressed to any of the authors at the Department of Psychology, Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.

View full text
Copyright © 1976 Published by Elsevier B.V.