Word: moray
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...coming into one ear-such as a reference to the partygoer or his interests-it may switch its attention back and forth between the two ears as frequently as three times a second. "You don't actually listen to both at once," says Dr. Moray. "You make up gaps in the conversations by drawing on your past experience of language. This is particularly easy when a conversation is dull and repetitious. In the same way, if the listener is bored with the person to whom he is speaking, he may let his other ear range round other conversations...
Sonar for Boredom. Dr. Colin Cherry, 48, professor of telecommunication at London's Imperial College of Science and Technology, and Psychologist Neville Moray of Sheffield University got interested in the cocktail-party problem through their studies on the directional nature of human hearing. They kept their eyes and ears open at cocktail parties, but did their actual sound research in the laboratory-the cocktail parties were too noisy. They discovered that the seasoned partygoer does not face the person he is listening to, but turns only one ear toward him, while using the other ear as if it were...
...conversations are a mixture of basic cliches that do not tax the intelligence. "Once the brain perceives that something is part of a cliché" he says, "it switches off and starts groping for another message." When is it hardest for the partying human brain to function? Says Dr. Moray: "When one is bending over double, talking to a short girl...