On life, part 3 -- "Selective attention" does not exist
0 Comments Published Wednesday, 16 November 2005, 10:28 pm
The term "attention" involves focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events. Psychologists routinely refer to "selective attention", but the word "selective" is really redundant.
Attention is selection of inputs. If you pause to devote a little attention to the matter, you'll realise that selective attention is critical to everyday functioning. If your attention were distributed equally among all stimulus input, life would be utter chaos. If you weren't able to filter out most of the potential stimulation around you, you wouldn't be able to read a book, converse with a friend, or even carry on a coherent train of thought.
Sounds logical, eh?
Reference: Weiten, W. Psychology: Themes & Variations.
Attention is selection of inputs. If you pause to devote a little attention to the matter, you'll realise that selective attention is critical to everyday functioning. If your attention were distributed equally among all stimulus input, life would be utter chaos. If you weren't able to filter out most of the potential stimulation around you, you wouldn't be able to read a book, converse with a friend, or even carry on a coherent train of thought.
Sounds logical, eh?
Reference: Weiten, W. Psychology: Themes & Variations.
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