Selective Attention

Should we focus on the lone sheep and ignore the rest of the flock?

Life is always coming at us.

The honk of a car horn from the street outside. A ray of sunlight coming through the window. The smell of perfume in the air. A pinch in the toe from new shoes that are a little too tight. The taste of a cough drop in your mouth.

Each of us receives a continuous barrage of sensory information. It comes to us through hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste.

Most the time, we don’t pay attention to every one of these sensory experiences. If we did, we’d be constantly distracted. “Instead,” says an educational consultant named Kendra Cherry, “we center our attention on certain important elements of our environment.” Other things blend into the background or slip by us unnoticed. So, how do we decide what to focus on and what to ignore?

“Imagine that you are at a party for a friend hosted at a bustling restaurant,” says Cherry. “Multiple conversations, the clinking of plates and forks, and many other...