# data[].attributes.body
1. When the the participant directs attention to the message in one ear, almost all of the verbal content of the rejected message is blocked.
2. This rejection is apparent even when the message is repeated many times there is no trace of a short list of simple words presented many times being remembered.
3. Subjectively important messages, such as one's own name, can penetrate the block, so we may hear instructions containing our own name even in the rejected message.
4. It is very difficult (though perhaps not impossible)to make neutral material important enough to penetrate the block.

# data[].attributes.body
Participants heard a short list of simple words repeated 35 times in the unattended ear whilst they shadowed a prose message in the attended ear. The word list was faded in after shadowing began and faded out as the attended message ended. Independent variables were: the shadowed message, the rejected message and a control. The dependent variable was measured in 2 ways: the participant was asked to recall all they could from the unattended message and were then given a recognition test.

# data[].attributes.body
Messages were constructed which had digits interspersed with the words towards the end of the passage. Similar messages had no digits. Participants heard either 2 experimental messages or 1 experimental and 1 control. The participants always shadowed an experimental message but 1 group was told before that they would be asked questions about the content of the shadowed message and the other was told that they should remember all the numbers they could.

# data[].attributes.body
Participants shadowed 10 short passages of light fiction, each being a different condition having a different set of instructions either at the start or within the passage, or both. The participants were told that their responses would be recorded and that the object was to try and score as few mistakes as possible. 3 of the 6 conditions with instructions during the passage had instructions which began with the participant's own name. All participants experienced all of the 10 conditions.

# data[].attributes.body
All 3 studies used a dichotic listening task. The messages were recorded onto tape in the same male voice at rates of 130 or 150 words per minute. Two controls were that the rejected message was played at a volume that seemed to the individual participant to be the same as the shadowed message, and the two messages were always played through headphones directing the separate messages to each ear individually.

# data[].attributes.body
Study 2 had 12 participants and study 3 had 2 groups of 14. The number for study 1 is not recorded. All participants were undergraduates or research workers and included males and females.