Dual task experiment proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Dual task experiment proposal - Essay Example Therefore determination of the effectiveness of dual or multiple tasks over single task is very important in many areas. It is interested to know whether someone can perform multiple and single auditory tasks with similar effectiveness. The objective of this study is to measure the effectiveness of dual auditory tasks against single auditory task. The hypothesis is effectiveness of a single auditory task is significantly higher than that of the dual auditory tasks. It is expected to find out the human ability to correctly understand and interpret two verbal messages when heard simultaneously compared to separate events. In general these findings will be helpful to understand the divided attention in auditory tasks and thereby minimize human errors in critical situations. Equipment: This experiment requires two IPod players, one with a 3-minute news broadcast containing 5 news items and one with a 3-minute meaningful song consisted of 4 stanzas, which had not been heard by the subjects before (both in English). Subjects are 60 undergraduates 30 males and 30 females between the ages 18 to 25, randomly selected from Johns Hopkins undergraduate students. Persons having any type of hearing loss or mental illness or who cannot understand the English language are excluded. Fifteen males and 15 females are selected randomly from the total sample for the controlled group and the rest is considered as the experimental group. All the participants are given a reference number. Procedure: This experiment is performed in a classroom with a quiet environment. Firstly, the controls are advised to seat in the class room and a question paper is given to list out news items and the meaning of the each stanza in the song. Then the song is played for 3 minutes and at the end 5 minutes time is allocated to write the meaning of the stanzas. Then the news broadcast is played and another 5 minutes time is provided to