When people are exposed to multiple stimuli at one time, they are able to filter the stimuli to only focus on certain stimuli. This ability is referred to as the cocktail party effect.

Cocktail party effect

Repeating what is heard. Often used in experiments related to attention, to see how people perceive different audial stimuli in different situations.

Shadowing

Presenting audial stimuli to both ears at one time. Often used in experiments regarding attention

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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

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

Divided attention

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

-  Salience: How obvious is it?
-  Expectancy: Are you looking for it?
-  Value: How much do you care about it?
-  Effort: How much energy does it take?

Mechianisms of Selective Attention

Dichotic Listening

There exists different models to map the process of attending to something. These include:
- The filter model of attention (early)
- Treisman's attenuation model (intermediate)
- Late selection models

Models of attention selection

People ignore distracting stimuli through two factors:
- Perceptual load
- Processing capacity

Load theory of attention

Inattentional blindness is a psychological phenomenon where an individual fails to perceive a fully visible, yet unexpected, stimulus because their attention is engaged on a different task or object. This occurs because attentional resources are limited, and focusing on a primary task can effectively prevent other prominent stimuli in the visual field from being consciously processed.

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