selective attention
Focusing amid distractions
Selective attention is the mental process of focusing on certain stimuli while filtering out others.
When you concentrate on a conversation at a noisy party, you're using selective attention to isolate one voice from the surrounding din.
The concept explains both our ability to focus and our blindness to things outside that focus: I was so absorbed in my book that I didn't hear you come in.
- ADHDNeurodevelopmental focus impairment
- focusConcentrated attention point
- laser focusIntense, undivided concentration
- concentrationSustained single-minded attention
- honing inProgressively narrowing focus
multitasking · dichotic listening · filtering · cherry picking · inhibition · parietal lobe · bottom-up · spotlight · prioritization · top-down · working memory · zeroing in · thalamus · meditation · prefrontal cortex · vigilance · alertness · scanning
- cognitionthinking, reasoning, thought, cognition, remembering
- attentionfocus, focused, attentiveness, vigilant, concentration
- focusfocus, concentration, focal point, concentrate, mindfulness
- mental sharpnessmental agility, mental clarity, mental focus, acumen, sharp mind
- Psychology ResearchStanford prison experiment, Pavlov's dogs, marshmallow test, classical conditioning, operant conditioning
- cognitive biasesconfirmation bias, anchoring bias, negativity bias, framing effect, optimism bias
selective attentioninattention
Lack of focus
inattentiveness · distraction · mind-wandering · zoning out · absent-mindedness
selective attentioninattention
Lack of focus
distraction · absent-mindedness · zoning out · obliviousness · daydreaming
attend, attention, select, selection, selected, selective, selecting, unselected, selectively