Cognitive Connie
What is attention?
Attention refers to the processes that help us select, prioritise, and maintain information for further processing. Because our sensory systems receive far more information than we can process in detail at any moment, attention determines which information receives priority — but unattended information is not simply suppressed or ignored; it may receive partial processing.
Key concepts
Selective attention
The capacity to focus cognitive resources on one source of information while giving lower priority to competing inputs. The cocktail party effect — being able to follow one conversation in a noisy room — demonstrates selective attention to speech. Cherry's (1953) dichotic listening experiments showed that unattended messages are processed for physical features (voice, pitch) but rarely for meaning — a finding that shaped the first filter models of attention.
Sustained attention and vigilance
The ability to maintain an alert, focused state over extended periods, particularly when monitoring for infrequent or unpredictable targets. Classic vigilance research (Mackworth, 1948) using radar-monitoring tasks showed that detection performance declines within 30 minutes — the "vigilance decrement." Sustained attention draws on overlapping neural systems with selective attention but is particularly sensitive to fatigue, boredom, and arousal level.
Inattentional blindness
The failure to notice an unexpected, fully visible stimulus when attention is directed elsewhere. In the Simons and Chabris (1999) study, roughly half of participants who were concentrating on counting basketball passes failed to notice a person in a gorilla costume walking through the scene. The result illustrates that consciously noticing an event depends partly on where attention is directed — not simply on whether the stimulus was visible.
Change blindness
The failure to detect a change in a visual scene, particularly when the change occurs during an interruption such as a cut, blink, or brief disturbance. Rensink et al. (1997) showed that observers fail to notice large changes to objects in photographs when the change coincides with a brief flicker. Change blindness is related to but distinct from inattentional blindness: both involve missing something visible, but inattentional blindness concerns a new object that was always there, while change blindness concerns an object that changed.
Top-down vs bottom-up attention
Top-down (goal-directed) attention is voluntarily guided by goals, expectations, and task demands — what you are looking for. Bottom-up (stimulus-driven) attention is involuntarily captured by salient, sudden, or biologically significant stimuli — a flash of light or an unexpected loud sound. In most real situations, both operate simultaneously: top-down attention shapes what we search for, while bottom-up capture can redirect attention despite current goals. The dorsal attention network supports top-down attention; the ventral network mediates bottom-up capture.
Attentional networks: alerting, orienting, executive control↗
Posner and Petersen (1990) proposed three functionally distinct attentional networks. The alerting network (brainstem noradrenergic systems + frontal and parietal regions) maintains a state of readiness to respond. The orienting network (superior parietal cortex + frontal eye fields + superior colliculus) directs attention to a location or object in space. The executive control network (anterior cingulate cortex + lateral PFC) resolves conflict between competing responses and regulates attention when goals conflict with distracting stimuli. These networks interact but are dissociable by lesion and neuroimaging evidence.
Filter models: Broadbent and Treisman
Broadbent's (1958) filter model proposed that attention acts as an early filter based on physical features (e.g. voice pitch), allowing only one channel to be processed for meaning at a time. Treisman's (1969) attenuation model revised this: rather than fully blocking unattended channels, the filter attenuates (weakens) them, explaining how personally relevant information — your own name, a sudden threat — can still capture attention from an unattended channel. Both models shaped the information-processing approach to selective attention.
Attentional blink
When two targets appear close together in a rapid stream of stimuli, people are often good at detecting the first but temporarily worse at detecting the second. This ~500 ms window of reduced sensitivity, called the attentional blink, is studied using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). It is thought to reflect competition for limited processing and consolidation resources following the first target — not a failure of sensory registration but of attentional engagement. First reported by Raymond, Shapiro, and Arnell (1992).
Test your knowledge
See also
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between selective and sustained attention?+
Selective attention is the ability to prioritise one source of information over competing inputs at any given moment — choosing what to process. Sustained attention is the ability to maintain a focused or alert state over an extended period. The two interact: you may be highly selective about what you attend to but struggle to maintain that focus for long. Both decline under fatigue, and both can be disrupted by events that automatically capture attention.
What is the difference between inattentional blindness and change blindness?+
Inattentional blindness is failing to notice an object that was present all along, when attention is directed elsewhere — the classic example is missing the gorilla while counting passes. Change blindness is failing to notice that something changed — an object appeared, disappeared, or changed colour — typically when the change coincides with a brief interruption (a cut, blink, or flicker). Both demonstrate limits of conscious visual awareness, but they involve different failures: one concerns detecting a persistent object; the other concerns detecting a change over time.
What are the three attentional networks?+
Posner and Petersen (1990) identified three functionally distinct networks: alerting (maintaining a state of readiness to respond, involving noradrenergic brainstem and frontal regions), orienting (directing attention to a spatial location or source, involving parietal and frontal eye-field regions), and executive control (resolving competition and regulating attention in goal-conflicting situations, involving anterior cingulate cortex and lateral PFC). Each can be selectively impaired by damage to its constituent brain regions.
Is attention the same as consciousness?+
Attention and consciousness are related but not the same. Attention determines which information receives prioritised processing; consciousness involves subjective awareness of that information. Information can receive some attentional processing without reaching full conscious awareness, and there are cases where consciousness and attention appear to dissociate. The relationship between the two is an active area of research in cognitive neuroscience.
Sources
Last reviewed September 2026- 1.
Broadbent, D. E. (1958). Perception and Communication. Pergamon Press.
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Foundational filter model of selective attention based on dichotic listening experiments — the first information-processing model of attention.
- 2.
Treisman, A. M. (1969). Strategies and models of selective attention. Psychological Review, 76(3), 282–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0027242
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Attenuation model proposing that unattended channels are weakened rather than fully blocked, explaining how personally relevant information can still capture attention.
- 3.
Posner, M. I., & Petersen, S. E. (1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ne.13.030190.000325
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Influential neuroanatomical framework identifying three separable attentional networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control.
- 4.
Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059–1074. https://doi.org/10.1068/p281059
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Classic invisible gorilla study demonstrating that roughly half of attentionally occupied observers fail to notice an unexpected visible stimulus.
- 5.
Rensink, R. A., O'Regan, J. K., & Clark, J. J. (1997). To see or not to see: The need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8(5), 368–373. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00427.x
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Key change-blindness study showing that large changes to scene objects go unnoticed when the change coincides with a brief visual disruption.