April 18, 2008
April 18, 2008 Present: Laura, Shayla, Jessica W., Jessica H., Luke, Sergio, Kristen
Our group has really done a great job meeting during our scheduled times. We discussed our final presentation and have decided to have our assignments due by next Wednesday rather than on Friday. This way we have plenty of time to get our final presentation together. We talked about summary #2 and everyone talked about something new that they learned. Jessica W. learned that it is impossible to control being distracted by sudden movements because it is natural and instinctual. It is a conditioned reaction. A study was done and there were three squares on a screen and one randomly flashed. The participant was viewed and every time the square flashed, their attention automatically focused on the square that flashed. Luke’s articles supported his previous articles from Summary #1. He knows that you can’t ignore flashing lights. It’s an unconscious reaction and you can’t tune it out. Our eyes are attracted to flashing and attractive colors. Sergio found some very interesting articles. One dealt with the midshipman fish which uses the cocktail party effect in their breeding process. The midshipman fish male hums at a frequency of 100Hz which is what the female responds to. The female fish lays her eggs and the male fertilizes them and then they leave. But the catch is that the female blocks out every other male fish and focuses only on that one male fish that she is attracted to. Jessica H found that music influences your mood. Low music makes you not want to study because it causes low arousal. By studying to upbeat music with a nice arousal level, makes it easier to study. But if you are easily aroused then don’t listen to upbeat music because it will raise your arousal level and you will work at a lower level. And you will be easily distracted. You should not study to sad music because it throws you out of your groove and makes you sad, which lowers your arousal level. Kristen found that visual distractions like navigational technology in vehicles like; TV’s, TomTom’s, Hands free cell phones, back up cameras, and all other new technology that is suppose to help Americans be a more careful driver. In all reality they are distracting us. It impairs our driving just as much as being legally drunk. We are tend being distracted by these technologies and automatically block them out. Laura’s article deals with talking on the cell phone while driving which is equally as bad as drinking and driving. Australia has banned use of cell phones in vehicles. The hands free cell phones are still just as distracting and the hand held phones because they tend to block out certain things due to concentrating on their conversation. I found basically the same information in these past three articles as the first three articles. Although, some things that help distractions by noise for adults is having lots of architectural structures in an area with lots of space. This is not the case with children though, they tend to do better in small spaces or in groups. We all found it easier to find articles because we broadened our topic. We talked about what we need to do in order to finish our project. We all have certain deadlines that we have to meet so that we are all contributing to this presentation equally.
Notes taken by Shayla
