Selective Attention

I want to open by introducing what selective attention is and how everyone experiences this daily. Without an explanation of what selective attention is, my story later in this blog will leave you perplexed and with questions.  Selective attention is “the capacity for or process of reacting to certain stimuli selectively when several occur simultaneously”. It is the process of attending to one or a few sensory inputs as there are millions around you that you ignore. A simple example of this is someone who drives and has other distractions all around them. There focus is the road, but the light is on in the backseat, there are other cars beeping at the, and their phone is ringing. All those things that are occurring around you as the driver are sensory inputs. Selective attention allows people to focus on the most important sensory input as in this instance, the road.

 

Another way to look at Selective attention is by thinking about what we know and what we don’t know. As expressed by Dr. Wede in class, the mind can only process so fast and store so much.  People receive information in so many ways all the time and probably don’t even realize to the extent that it comes. Information can come from speech, lights, other random sounds, movement, and more. Selective attention gives our minds the ability to take in the important information or what we as the person getting the attention want. This is all due to that fact that we as humans can not take all information in that we receive in multiple ways.

 

Now that you know about selective attention from what I have said above, my personal experience with selective attention will make much more sense. A couple of weeks ago me and my girlfriend were watching tv together. As we were watching she started to talk to me, and at that time I was focused on the show and not so much her as bad as that sounds. Well she continued to talk as I continued to watch until she asked a question and I gave no response. Of course, she knew that I was not listening to her directly when I gave no response. Later that evening she got her revenge.  She pulled a prank on me by telling me that she had to leave Penn State to go home because of a family issue and that she tried to explain this to me earlier.  At the earlier time my selective attention was focused on the television and not her, and that is why I did not hear her talking earlier in the day.  This is my personal experience with selective attention and how people see this every day.  Below is a link to a cartoon video of selective attention to help you further understand.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/selective-attention-definition-examples-quiz.html

 

Sources

Cherry, K. (2019, May 6). How We Use Selective Attention to Filter Information and Focus. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-selective-attention-2795022

2 thoughts on “Selective Attention”

  1. Hi, I enjoyed reading your post especially because I was able to relate myself to your personal experience. I also often miss what people say because usually, I’m focused on something. For instance, when I’m in a lecture and a person next to me ask some questions, I struggle to answer him/her. And of course, this is frustrating because at the same time I want to socialize and find some study mates! It is so surprising that we are missing out so many information around us even though we tend to think we are not. After learning about the selective attention in this class, I started to keep myself away from the phone while I am driving or studying. Moreover, I realized how fascinating my brain is because when we work on clicker questions in the group, the classroom gets noisy very quickly, however, I usually don’t have troubles with solving problems with others. In addition to that, I wonder if selective attention is some product of evolution.

  2. I thought that your personal experience with selective attention was really funny, but also a great example of selective attention. I have definitely moments of selective attention during times in my life. The most common time I realize my selective attention is when I’m driving a long distance somewhere and I only focus on the road in front of me. I find myself driving long distances somewhere and not even notice at all the random things going on around me on the road. Sometimes I realize that I zone out while driving and only focus on what’s in front of me to the point of not even remembering or noticing how I got to my destination. I have also definitely been in the situation where I’m watching something or listening to someone else and totally tune out another person who is trying to talk to me which is exactly what happened in your story with your girlfriend. I catch myself having selective attention a lot of times throughout the day, but I think it’s just an easy thing to fall into.

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