Selective attention is the process by which people choose what to focus on and how much concentration to exert. Theories suggest that people filter out what they deem unnecessary or unimportant, and neural function is heavily involved. ADHD and autism can affect attention, while poor sleep and brain injuries can shorten attention span. Advertisers try to attract attention by appealing to certain age groups with images, music, or other means.
The question of why people pay attention, how much they do and what is often more referred to as selective attention. In any crowded scene, whether it’s a classroom or a highway, it’s virtually impossible to notice everything at once. What a person pays attention to under these circumstances is what she chooses to pay attention to, although it may be noted that the selection is not necessarily conscious. Selected attention can therefore be viewed as the process by which people find something to focus on and the level of concentration they can continue to exert as distractions arise.
There are many theories as to why people select certain things or why they have different levels of selective attention. Some believe that memory or working attentional state can only hold so much at a time; thus people filter out what they deem unnecessary or unimportant, usually without being aware of the filtering process. A number of theories have linked the study of attention to the senses and the idea of how they stimulate focusing decisions in humans, and others believe that neural function is heavily involved. For example, if two people call someone else at the same time, who will that person answer? People may already be able to respond in a more familiar voice, a louder voice, or a voice of a certain pitch, so they will automatically select which person will receive the response, and may not even realize that another person is also he called them.
The degree of selective attention can vary between people, and some people have short attention spans, particularly if they have certain learning disabilities. Conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can make it difficult for students to stay focused appropriately, and any distraction can cause a student to lose focus. It is difficult for the child with ADHD to stay in touch with a single thing, even though he may also show hyperfocus at times.
In a slightly different way, those with forms of autism may also have difficulty focusing, although primarily the difficulty has to do with selection. Autism is sometimes described as receiving “all channels” on the radio station, where the person may be paying attention to almost everything. Trying to filter out most channels to pay attention to one thing is often the challenge of those on the autism spectrum; in other words, they can’t tune into a single channel and are overwhelmed with too many choices.
There are many other potential conditions that can inhibit attention of this type. Poor sleep makes people easier to distract, and shift workers in particular can have this problem. Any form of brain injury can also shorten your attention span.
One way the concept of selective attention is used outside of the cognitive and learning fields is in advertising. When advertisers create ads, they must try to do so in ways that will attract people to look at them. A number of things could be employed, such as appealing to certain age groups with images, music or otherwise, who are more likely to be noticed. This is hard work given the many potential distractions that can occur in a person’s home when the TV is on, but there are clearly some advertisers skilled enough at grabbing the attention of their desired audience and holding it for a few seconds.
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