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Divided attention
Divided attention refers to a condition under which an individual is required to attend to more than one informational source and/or perform more than one task at a given time.

Background
According to model of working memory, humans have a temporary memory system of limited capacity, with complex processes for attentional control. The central executive consists of a phonological loop, which holds verbal and acoustic information, and a visuo-spatial sketchpad, which holds visual information, while an episodic buffer temporarily stores features of both. Information that is held in working memory is encoded for permanent storage in long-term memory. Divided attention is typically studied using a dual-task paradigm, which requires a participant to either attend to two different sources of information or perform two unrelated tasks at the same time. Many experiments have demonstrated that divided attention impairs the ability of the individual either to perform a primary task or to encode information for later retrieval

The Effect of Divided Attention
Divided attention is of special interest to students as it applies to studying academic material. Research at the University of California used a variety of dual tasks to examine their effects on students studying a list of words. This research was unique in two ways. First, the words were assigned numerical values so that students knew which ones were most important. Second, it compared the effect of performing two conflicting tasks with the effect of background music during study. In the digit detection task, students had to press a space-bar when they heard a sequence of three odd digits. In the tone detection task, students had to indicate whether they heard a low- or high- pitched tone, with conditions varying in difficulty. The study found that neither unfamiliar nor familiar background music affected the ability to remember the studied words. Although having to simultaneously perform a digit task affected digit detection task performance and word recall, there was no significant effect on the ability to recall the most important words. A second study used a tone detection task, with similar results, and with no effect of difficulty level. This indicates that performing dual tasks had more overall effect on studying than unrelated background music. Furthermore, students were able to selectively attend to the most important words even when their attention was divided. The researchers suggested that further study should examine conditions under which the student must decide which information is most important, in addition to self-regulated study choices (where the student decides which task to pay attention to).

Current Proposal and Hypotheses
The proposed experiment aims to increase the relevance of this research design to real-life study situations, where all presented information is of potential importance. Students will be studying written information for a course that is relevant to their academic major, while sitting in a lecture class. The study will examine the effects of dividing attention between related and unrelated information presented in audio and visual modalities. More difficult conditions will include tasks that will require increased attendance to either the lecture material or the written material.

It is hypothesized that students will correctly recognize different amounts of information from lecture material and written study material after studying under the following conditions:
 * 1)   while listening to a lecture on related material;
 * 2)   while listening to a lecture on unrelated lecture;
 * 3)   while listening to a related lecture and performing an audio semantic detection task;
 * 4)   while listening to an unrelated lecture and performing an audio semantic detection task.
 * 5)   while listening to a related lecture and performing a written semantic detection task;
 * 6)   while listening to an unrelated lecture and performing a written semantic detection task.

Methods
Participants. Participants will consist of undergraduate psychology students currently enrolled in a neurobiology class who volunteer for extra credit.

Materials. Written materials will consist of a study sheet listing ten words and definitions related to Memory and Cognition. Related lecture material will consist of an explanation of Baddeley’s Model of Working Memory. Unrelated material will consist of an explanation of how to conduct ethnographic research. The test will consist of ten multiple choice questions based on the ten definitions on the study sheet, each with four choices, and ten questions related to the lecture material. One condition will also require a highlighter.

Procedure. Volunteers will sign an informed consent form. They will be told that there will be a test, but that scores will be anonymous and confidential and not reflected on their grade for the course, and they will receive extra credit for participating regardless of the score. All students will be randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Each condition takes place in a lecture hall where a professor is lecturing while the participants are seated with the written materials in front of them. Conditions 1, 3, and 5 will take place in the Related lecture hall, and Conditions 2, 4, and 6 will take place in the Unrelated lecture hall."Condition 1 (Related Dual Information). The students listen to the Working Memory lecture while studying the Memory and Cognition definitions.""Condition 2 (Unrelated Dual Information). The students listen to an Ethnography lecture while studying the Memory and Cognition definitions.""Condition 3 (Related Dual Task, Focus on Audio). The students listen to the Working Memory lecture while studying the Memory and Cognition definitions and counting how many times the lecturer says the word “the”.""Condition 4 (Unrelated Dual Task, Focus on Audio). The students listen to an Ethnography lecture while studying the Memory and Cognition definitions and counting how many times the lecturer says the word “the”.""Condition 5 (Related Dual Task, Focus on Written Material). The students listen to the Working Memory lecture while studying the Memory and Cognition definitions and highlighting the word “the”.""Condition 5 (Unrelated Dual Task, Focus on Written Material). The students listen to an Ethnography lecture while studying the Memory and Cognition definitions and highlighting the word “the”."

Predictions and Implications
It is predicted that students who are exposed to two different but related informational sources will be able to attend to both, and will do equally well on a test on the written and audio material presented. This is because students will see one source of information as reinforcing the other, and will be able to effectively shift their attention between the lecturer and the written material. Students may do worse when the information is unrelated because having to think about two different topics while shifting attention will be more demanding on the central executive. On the other hand, students may do worse when the information is related because students will be unable to decide which source is more important when they are similar in content.

When students are required to tally how many times the professor says the word ‘the’, this will force them to pay more attention to the audio information than the written information, negatively affecting their ability to encode the written information. Therefore, they will have higher scores on the portion that tests the audio information than the portion that tests the written information. On the other hand, students who are required to highlight the word ‘the’ will be forced to pay more attention to the written information, negatively affecting their ability to encode the audio information. Overall, students in dual task conditions will do worse than the students in the simple dual information conditions because they must focus on two tasks in addition to two sources of information. Overall scores will be the worse in the conditions requiring a dual task in addition to attending to unrelated dual information sources, due to the overwhelming demands this will place on the central executive.

In real-life situations, students are often pressured for time and find themselves in predicaments where they must study for a test or do homework during a scheduled lecture. These findings will have important implications for students when deciding on what kinds of information and tasks can be effectively combined. Whether or not the study materials are related to the lecture material may be important in determining the student’s ability to attend to both. Additionally, the level of engagement in the lecture may be important in determining the student’s ability to encode the written information, while the level of engagement in written homework or study materials may be important in determining the student’s ability to encode the audio information.

The findings may not be in accordance with the predicted directions. However, this study is an important step in designing experiments that are more relevant to real-life academic study situations. Furthermore, it addresses an important distinction (often muddled in the divided attention literature) between the effects of divided attention that are produced in conditions where there are different informational sources distraction, as opposed to conditions where the individual must engage in different tasks.