And that thing severely decreases their chances of avoiding a heart attack. They all have selective attention. They each attend to the part of their lives that allows them to ignore, overlook, rationalize, modify, minimize, or deny the possibility of a heart attack. My mother died of a heart attack, but she smoked and I don't smoke. If I had heart problems, I'd never be able to do the things I do.
Selective attention refers to the brain's capacity to limit and choose between stimuli and thoughts.
Therein lies the problem of selective attention. We prioritize and choose information that is relevant. That is, information that we choose to make relevant. Unfortunately, relevance has little to do with reality and a lot to do with perception. Equally unfortunate is the fact that perception is distorted by the brain's willingness to accept reality.