Selective attention

Selective attention example

Think of a housewife telling her husband the things that need to be done around the house while he's watching a football game on TV oblivious to what's she's saying. He's got selective attention.

change blindness example

This was seen in a scene where person A was getting directions from a bystander, then was interrupted by construction workers, then was replaced with person B. The bystander doesn't notice the switch from person A to person B 40% of the time.

selective inattention or inattentional blindness example

This was seen in an experiment where a person in a gorilla suit walked among people passing a basketball. The observers were to count basketball passes so they focused on that task. Most people never saw the gorilla.

choice blindness example

This was seen in an experiment where women were shown two pictures and asked to choose the most attractive person. Then they were tricked and shown the one they'd rejected and asked, "Why'd you choose this person as more attractive."

cocktail party effect

a person's ability to single out one voice amidst many others, then to "change channels" to another voice.

choice blindness

people are unaware of the choices or preferences they make.

change blindness

people won't notice a change in "scenery" after a brief interruption.

The ability to screen out sensory information and focus on only a small portion of it is called

selective attention

pop-out

something is noticeably different from the others and thus, pops out to the viewer. Imagine a picture of a hundred white cats and one black dog. The black dog would pop out to you.

selective inattention or inattentional blindness

the ability to purposefully block out all but one bit of sensory input - to focus on one thing only.