A general definition - Attention is the concentration of mental activities. Attention is limited and selective. Functions of Attention Focus processing resources on some inputs rather than others. We get better with practice Easier to do two tasks in different modalities than in the same modality Selective Attention Shadowing a message in a dichotic listening task. Cocktail party phenomenon.
Some information gets through un-shadowed channel.
The filter or bottleneck can move around Capacity Theory of Attention Tasks require mental effort, and there is only a certain amount of mental energy available at any given time. When performing 2 tasks at one, people quickly reach their attentional capacity. The person is seeking the appearance of the target stimulus. Signal detection theory Invented in WWII to in response to problems interpreting sonar images Used in psychology in psychophysics, memory and decision making research. Decipher the detection from the decision aspects.