Describe the "seat-of-the-pants phenomenon," "the cocktail party effect," and inattentional blindness, and explain how they are all related to the "bottleneck" of selective attention

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer will include that as you sit reading this question, receptors for touch and pressure in the seat of your pants are sending nerve impulses to your brain. Although these sensations have been present all along, you were probably not aware of them until just now. This "seat-of-the-pants phenomenon" is an example of selective attention, which involves voluntarily focusing on a specific sensory input. Selective attention appears to be based on the ability of brain structures to select and divert incoming sensory messages. We are able to "tune in on" a single sensory message while excluding others. Another familiar example of this is the "cocktail party effect.". When you are in a group of people, surrounded by voices, you can still select and attend to the voice of the person you are facing. Or if that person gets dull, you can eavesdrop on conversations all over the room. Actually, no matter how interesting your companion may be, your attention will probably shift away if you hear your own name spoken somewhere in the room. At times, we can even suffer from inattentional blindness, a failure to notice a stimulus because attention is focused elsewhere. Not seeing something that is plainly before your eyes is most likely to occur when your attention is narrowly focused. For example, using a cell phone while driving can cause inattentional blindness since you might miss seeing another car, a motorcyclist, or a pedestrian while your attention is focused on the phone. In fact, the more engaged you are with your cell phone while driving (say, texting instead of just having a conversation), the greater the problem. It is helpful to think of selective attention as a bottleneck, or narrowing in the information channel linking the senses to perception. When one message enters the bottleneck, it seems to prevent others from passing through. For instance, if you were driving a car and approaching an intersection, you would need to be sure the traffic light is still green. Just as you are about to check it, your passenger points to a friend at the side of the road. If you then fail to notice the light just changed to red, an accident may be seconds away.