Human Development
Tuning-in
Description:
When the attention is presented with a number of competing stimuli it is possible follow one stimulus while remaining aware in a general sense of all the stimuli. Thus one may be aware of a number of people speaking while focusing the attention upon what is being said by one of them. Input seems to be divided into a number of channels, with attention to one of them being distracted to another depending upon the meaning of what is being seen, heard or whatever. For example, attention may be distracted from one conversation if one's own name is spoken in another conversation. A special example is absent-mindedness, when attention is focused upon what one is thinking and not on what is going on around one.Narrower:
Absent-mindedness