Selective Attention Case Study

Selective attention is regarded to the process in which one blocks out several stimuli while selectively paying attention to one. An example of a real life scenario of selective attention would be standing in a crowd where there are multiple conversations going on between different individuals, but you block out the other conversations and only pay attention to what your friend is saying. Donald Broadbent came up with a model which describes how selective attention works called Broadbent’s filter model. According to the Broadbent’s filter model all stimuli even the ones which we do not want to pay attention to enters a sensory buffer, after which based on the physical characteristic such as the voice of the speaker, the selected stimuli is passed on for information processing` while other stimuli, such as unattended messages decay. A theory which also explains selective attention is the Treiman’s attenuation theory. In the Treiman’s attenuation theory, all messages are handled in an organized structural way. There are many different analysis for the messages coming in,
An example of a real life scenario of divided attention would be driving with someone else in the passenger seat while that person is having a conversation with you. In this scenario not only are you paying attention to the road but you are also listening to what the passenger has to say. Attentional resource suggests that attention is quantified, in other words, we are limited to the amount of resource of attention. There are various functions which employ various quantities of this resource in various ways, this enables us to carry out different functions as long as we have the resource for it. This provides an explanation as to why it may be easier to talk to someone while driving rather than texting and driving since texting requires more attention than one might have resources