Unit 3 Lesson 3: Attention

change blindness

a type of inattentional blindness wherein a person misses significant changes in their immediate visual environment because their attention is focused elsewhere

cocktail party effect

the ability to focus your hearing on something specific when there is noise all around you

external stimulus

sensory energy that is detected via the physical senses

inattentional blindness

the failure to see something that is clearly visible when actively paying attention to something else

inattentional deafness

the failure to hear something that is clearly audible when actively paying attention to something else

internal stimulus

includes stimuli like memories, thoughts, emotions, dreams, and bodily sensations

selective attention

the ability to choose what to allocate one’s attention to

selective auditory attention

when you only hear what you are paying attention to; also known as selective hearing

Stroop effect

the tendency to experience difficulty naming a color when a word is printed in a different color than the one the word spells