Cherry's dichotic listening studies suggest that the brain can efficiently select auditory messages by:

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In Cherry’s dichotic listening paradigm, participants receive two different auditory streams presented to each ear simultaneously. The core finding is that attention tends to select information based on salient physical attributes of the input.

Option: 'Their location in space' — This choice aligns with the idea that auditory information occupies a spatial tag based on which ear or spatial location it is coming from, and listeners can more readily attend to the stream that is spatially distinct. In early dichotic listening studies, spatial separation helps the listener focus processing on one channel while filtering the other, illustrating the role of spatial localization in selective attention.

What this implies about the other potential options (had they been provided): if a choice claimed that selection relied solely on semantic content, lexical meaning, or the content of the message rather than perceptual properties, that would conflict with the classic Cherry finding that physical characteristics like location drive early selection in auditory attention. If a option suggested that all streams are processed equally or that attention is purely voluntary without any perceptual bias, those would contradict the robust evidence that unattended input is largely filtered out based on perceptual cues.

Because no additional answer options are supplied here for comparison, we focus on the supplied correct-appearing choice and explain how spatial cues facilitate the dichotic listening selection process. Remember that Cherry’s work emphasizes the limits of interference from unattended channels and highlights how physical attributes, particularly spatial location, guide selective processing in early stages of perception.

PSYC20007_2025_SM2 Week 5: Attention: Historical Origins; Early and Late Selection

Cherry's dichotic listening studies suggest that the brain can efficiently select auditory messages by:

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