Limitations of Previous Researches Essays

Limitations of Previous Researches Essays Limitations of Previous Researches Essay Limitations of Previous Researches Essay In summary, the previous researches on attentional systems have indicated that studying eye movement is a limited way of furthering knowledge about the process of attention. T has been established by a number of researches that orienting attention can occur even before the movement of the eye to the object. Moreover focusing on visual attention alone sacrifices the scientific insights that we might gain from studying more than one sensory modality.Visual attention has been well researched over the years and more so because of the fact that it is one of the major faculties that we have and much of its physiology is known. On the other hand auditory attention is unchartered territory given that it lacks neurological explanations unlike vision. We know of the anatomy of the ear but how the ear process sound and how it relays it to the brain has largely been understudied.The findings of past experiments on auditory attention have had been conflicting and was always measured in conjunction with visual cues, this is a pragmatic view since what has been done with visual attention could also possibly work with auditory attention. A true auditory covert attention experiment has not been fully investigated to date. The advent of technology and the advantages of using 3-dimensional sound have revived the interest in auditory attention experiments.The wide range of technologically advanced equipments we have at present allows us to investigate complex processes like auditory attention. And with the increasing complexity and present demands to the human attention it is desired that investigations into the workings of our mind and bodily senses be explored so as to generate knowledge that would help enhance our attentional capabilities. One major limitation of the researches that has already been conducted into covert spatial attention is that the equipment and experimental designs used do not measure true spatial performance.The equipments used in the past experiments were not sensitive enough and have thus limited the results of the study. Experiments are designed to control for various nonattentional effects, such as response priming and criterion shift, by having cue-target stimuli in different spatial dimensions. However, the experimental environment and methods employed in the previous studies were not able to adequately control for the possible effects of priming and memorization.Taking this into consideration, we intend to replicate these experiments in a vir tual environment, which would allow greater freedom to conduct more realistic spatial experiments without compromising on experimental control and equipment limitations. The use of virtual audio has been investigated by a number of researchers with a varying degree of success. One of the main limitations in using 3-D virtual audio in the past has been the inability of virtual audio to reduce the number of front-back confusions to that of free-field localization.Martin, McAnally Senova (2001) used a technique of recording golay responses in the inner ear canal via placement of miniature microphones in the participant’s ears. The use of this technique had the effect of reducing the number of front-back confusions to equivalent levels as that of free-field localization. A number of studies have used this technique to produce free-field equivalent virtual 3-D audio, and then apply the virtual audio in situations where free-field presentation of spatial audio is problematic, for example in the cockpit of an aircraft.The goals of the current research are threefold. First, due to the continued debate on the nature of pure auditory spatial attention, the confirmation of the research by Spence Driver (1994) into covert spatial orienting in audition is desirable; it would help establish that covert auditory spatial attention do exists. Secondly, the nature of endogenous processing in covert spatial orienting in audition is still unclear, due to the lack of a purely auditory cueing paradigm.While the nature of endogenous processing does not require a spatial stimulus to drive attention to the appropriate areas in space, a non-spatial stimulus has been used in previous research to indicate the area of space in which the mechanism is most likely to encounter the target stimuli. In the past this stimulus has taken the form of a visual indicator, and the use of a similar non-spatial auditory indicator may shed some light on any possible interference caused as a resu lt of any multi-modal effects.Finally, due to the limitations enforced on more complicated research into auditory attention by the nature of producing spatial audio, it is desirable to confirm the previous results obtained by Spence and Driver (1994) in a virtual auditory environment. If the use of virtual audio is equivalent to previous findings, then this would allow the future use of virtual audio without the concern that by doing so may confound any results obtained. Hence any findings derived from this study will help further the theoretical knowledge of auditory attention and aid in the practical use of multisensory equipments.