This document discusses selective attention and models of attention. It defines selective attention as focusing on relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli. Two types of selective attention are visual and auditory attention. Models of selective attention discussed include the spotlight model, zoom-lens model, Broadbent's filter model, and Treisman's attenuation model. Broadbent's model proposed stimuli are filtered based on physical characteristics, while Treisman's model proposed unattended stimuli are attenuated, not eliminated. Experiments using dichotic listening tasks provided evidence unattended messages can still be processed for meaning.

1. AAC602 APPLIED BEHAVIOUR CHANGE
Selective Attention
Dr. Arpita Sharma Kandpal
Assistant Professor, Dept of Agril Comm, College of Ag, GBPUA&T, Pantnagar

2. Selective attention
 Selective attention is a type of attention.
 It helps you focus on a particular task for a certain period of time.
 Since our attention is limited in terms of capacity and duration, selective
attention allows us to focus on things that are relevant at the moment.
 In short, we center our attention on certain components of the environment by
ignoring the rest or pushing them into the background.

3. Types Of Selective Attention
 There are two key types of selective attention we use to navigate our environment at any given moment.
1. Visual
To understand how selective visual attention works, let’s look at these two major models:
 Spotlight Model
• According to this model, visual attention works like a spotlight—we select information by concentrating on a focal point.
• The area surrounding the focal point is called the fringe. The fringe is visible but doesn’t fall under your direct focus.
• The area outside the fringe is the margin which has little to zero focus.
• For example, when you use a magnifying glass, you focus only on the relevant or important text. However, certain areas, such as the white space on
the sides, are still visible even if you choose not to focus on them. These are the fringe and margin areas.
 Zoom-Lens Model
Similar to the Spotlight model, the Zoom-Lens model suggests that we can increase or decrease our focus just like a zoom lens of a camera. But the focus is
larger because you can zoom out and choose to focus on more information.
2. Auditory
 Imagine that you’re eating dinner and catching up with an old friend at a restaurant. Despite the clanking of cutlery and the sound of others talking,
you manage to chat. The ability to focus your attention while filtering out the unnecessary noise is known as the ‘cocktail party effect’, first described
by cognitive scientist Edward Colin Cherry in 1953. Cherry discovered that some people could focus on a single talker or conversation in a noisy
environment by tuning out other sounds. Business conferences are a great space to observe the cocktail party effect and understand the power of
auditory selective attention theory.

4. Broadbent Filter Model
 Selective attention is the process of directing our awareness to relevant stimuli
while ignoring irrelevant stimuli in the environment.
 Selective attention allows us to tune out insignificant details and focus on what is
important.
 This limited capacity for paying attention has been conceptualized as a bottleneck,
which restricts the flow of information. The narrower the bottleneck, the lower the
rate of flow.
 Broadbent's and Treisman's Models of Attention are all bottleneck models because
they predict we cannot consciously attend to all of our sensory input at the same
time.

6. Broadbent's Filter Model
 Broadbent (1958) proposed that physical characteristics of messages are used to
select one message for further processing and that all others are lost.
 Information from all of the stimuli presented at any given time enters an unlimited
capacity sensory buffer.
 One of the inputs is then selected on the basis of its physical characteristics for
further processing by being allowed to pass through a filter.

8.  According to Broadbent the meaning of any of the messages is not taken into
account at all by the filter.
 All semantic processing is carried out after the filter has selected the message to
pay attention. So whichever message(s) restricted by the bottleneck (i.e. not
selective) is not understood.
 One of the ways Broadbent achieved this was by simultaneously sending one
message to a person's right ear and a different message to their left ear. This is
called a split span experiment (also known as the dichotic listening task).

9. Dichotic Listening Task
 The dichotic listening tasks involves simultaneously sending one message (a 3-digit
number) to a person's right ear and a different message (a different 3-digit
number) to their left ear.

11.  Participants were asked to listen to both messages at the same time and repeat
what they heard. This is known as a 'dichotic listening task'.
 Broadbent was interested in how these would be repeated back. Would the
participant repeat the digits back in the order that they were heard (order of
presentation), or repeat back what was heard in one ear followed by the other ear
(ear-by-ear).
 He actually found that people made fewer mistakes repeating back ear by ear and
would usually repeat back this way.

13. Treisman's Attenuation Model
 Anne Treisman proposed her selective attention theory in 1964.
 Treisman (1964) agrees with Broadbent's theory of an early bottleneck filter.
 Treisman's filter attenuates (Weaken) rather than eliminates (Remove) the
unattended material.
 Attenuation is a process in which the unselected sensory inputs are processed in
decreased intensity.
 For instance, if you selectively attend to a ringing phone in a room where there's
TV, a crying baby, and people talking, the later three sound sources are attenuated
or decreased in volume. However, when the baby's cry goes louder, you may turn
your attention to the baby because the sound input is still there, not lost.

15.  Treisman demonstrated that participants were still able to identify the contents of an unattended
message, indicating that they were able to process the meaning of both the attended and
unattended messages.
 Treisman carried out dichotic listening tasks using the speech shadowing method.
 Participants are asked to simultaneously repeat aloud speech played into one ear (called the
attended ear) whilst another message is spoken to the other ear.
 For example, participants asked to shadow "I saw the girl furniture over" and ignore "me that bird
green jumping fee", reported hearing "I saw the girl jumping over"
 Unattended message was being processed for meaning and Broadbent's Filter Model, where the
filter extracted on the basis of physical characteristics only, could not explain these findings.
 The evidence suggests that Broadbent's Filter Model is not adequate, it does not allow for meaning
being taken into account.

17. Thanks