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xx TO THE STUDENT Stimulus similarto rat (such as rabbit)Conditioned fear(generalization)Conditionedresponse(fear)Conditionedstimulus(rat)afraid of other white furry animals. THINKING LIKE A PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENTIST What Ever Happened to Little Albert? Research by Hall Beck and Sharman Levinson in 2009 shed new light on one of the longstanding mysteries of American psychology: 5 what happened to Little Albert, the 11-month-old boy in Watson and Rayner%u2019s experiments? In establishing how widespread curiosity about Little Albert has been, Hall and Levinson even cite a previous edition of this book, where we speculated that Little Albert might still be alive, an old man with a lingering fear of rats. We are used to thinking of experimental research done in the here and now, but Beck and Levinson demonstrated that research techniques can also be used to deepen our understanding of the history of psychology. Beck and Levinson approached the Little Albert mystery by gathering information from a wide variety of sources. They looked for clues about the identity of Little Albert in Watson and Rayner%u2019s published articles, expense reports, letters, and films they made of their research. They also scoured journals to learn what had been uncovered by others interested in the puzzle. To better understand a date discrepancy, they surveyed librarians to verify when the journal publishing the Little Albert study was actually received. They hoped to find evidence of Albert by examining the patient records of the hospital home at Johns Hopkins University, where they knew he lived, but the records had all been destroyed. As an alternative source, they sought out data from the 1920 national census and state birth certificates. They identified three babies who fit their criteria for possibly being Little Albert. BehaviorismJohn Watson and Rosalie Rayner set out to prove that all behavior was the result of environmental factors by classically conditioning a fear of rats and other small, furry animals in an 11-month-old boy known as Little Albert. (Continued ) RECOGNIZE the science of psychology through updated research and highlighted features. Psychology is a science! Learn how scientific methods are applied to topics in psychology by reading the Thinking Like a Psychological Scientist boxes. Sensation MODULE 7 101have had the experience of being so caught up in a book or a conversation that you missed somebody walking into the room or saying something to you. Perhaps you can also identify times when you were trying to study and were too easily distracted by stimuli in your environment. Selective attention (or lack of it) plays an important role in our lives. And our ability to pay attention affects many parts of our lives %u2014 including how we drive. Check out Psychology in the Real World: How Good Are We at Multitasking? to learn more. (a) (b)Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images W.E. HillFIGURE 7.2 Selective Attention: What Do You See? You can perceive the famous drawing in photo (a) in one of two ways: as an old woman (with thin lips, a big nose, and her chin tucked down against her chest) or as a young woman (looking back over her right shoulder and wearing a black necklace, with her jawline and left ear clearly visible). You can attend to one or the other, and even learn to switch back and forth quickly, but you can%u2019t see both at once. What do you see in photo (b)? PSYCHOLOGY IN THE REAL WORLD How Good Are We at Multitasking? Most of us believe we are pretty good multitaskers. But are we? Not when multiple tasks demand our attention to be done well. In fact, when we think we are multitasking %u2014 doing several things at once %u2014 we are actually task switching %u2014 toggling our attention back and forth between tasks. Our attention switches between tasks much more often than most of us think. When participants in one study had access to both TV and the Internet for about a half hour, they thought their attention shifted between the two 15 times. But, based on where their eyes were looking, they actually shifted their attention 120 times, on average! 3 We simply aren%u2019t aware of how often we refocus. When we toggle between tasks, we create gaps in our attention. Sometimes those gaps are not a big deal (as when you check a text and miss a line of dialogue in a show you are watching). But those shifts in attention can have serious consequences when you are driving a car. Every time we shift attentional gears, and especially when we shift between complex tasks such as noticing and avoiding cars around us, we pay a toll %u2014 a slight and sometimes fatal delay in reacting. 4 Many things can draw our attention from the road when we are driving %u2014 the podcast or audio book we%u2019re listening to, a conversation with the friend beside us, or an incoming text or notification on our phone. Since driving is usually rather routine and boring, it%u2019s easy to forget that the instant you look at your phone may be the instant a car makes an unexpected turn in front of you or a child darts into the street. A study done with car-mounted video cameras showed that three out of five accidents happened just after drivers were distracted by something in the car. 5 Professional truck drivers in one study were 23 times more likely to have a collision when they were texting than when they were not. 6 Truck drivers should know better. So should you and I. THINK ABOUT . . . Psychology in the Real World 1. What is the difference between multitasking and task switching? 2. In one study, people thought they shifted attention between TV and the Internet 15 times. How often had they really shifted? 3. Driving is usually pretty routine. Does that make it more or less likely a driver will be distracted? Explain. Challenge yourself to Think About the ideas presented in each high-interest box by contemplating the answers to the openended questions posed at the end. %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.