Smith College

- Selective attention
- Distractions
- Divided attention
- Attentional capacity
- Attentional capture
- Eye movement
- Stimulus salience
- Binding

Focuses of Research on Attention

Attentional capacity

Selective attention is the psychological process of focusing on a specific subset of available sensory information while ignoring other distracting stimuli. Because it acts as a filter for incoming sensory data, selective attention helps explain why some environmental stimuli are consciously perceived and others are not.

Selective Attention

A stimulus that interferes with the processing of another.

Distractions

Paying attention to more than one thing at a time. In a sense attention is being divided among different stimuli.

Divided attention

When the focus of someone's attention quickly changes, often due to some significant stimuli (i.e. loud noise, bright light, etc)

Attentional capture

- Overt and Covert attention
- Fixation
- Saccadic eye movement
- Visual scanning

Focuses of research on eye movement

The physical properties of the stimulus, such as color, contrast or movement, that influence attention.

Stimulus salience

How features (color, motion, shape, etc.)  come together through attention to form a perception of an object.

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