In this video, we discuss the role that attention plays in determining our ability to attend to things and in what we pay attend to in the first place. We discuss a major theory of how attention works as well as several limitations to our attentional abilities through demonstrations.
Selective Attention: The ability to select one sensory input and ignore or minimize others; adaptive in that it prevents sensory overload, such that we do not have to attend to every stimulus in our environment.
Broadbent’s Filter Theory of Attention: Theory which states that attention is a bottleneck through which information passes, allowing us to take some and ignore the rest.
Cocktail Party Effect: A limitation of Broadbent’s Filter Theory of Attention which shows that attention cannot always be controlled; phenomenon in which you might instinctively hear and subsequently attend to your name spoken in a conversation that didn’t involve you.
Inattentional Blindness: A failure to notice something that is completely visible because of a lack of attention.
Change Blindness: A failure to notice a change in one’s environment because of a lack of attention.