Editing Attention (section)

===1950–1974===
In the 1950s, [[Psychologist#Research Psychologists|research psychologists]] renewed their interest in attention when the dominant epistemology shifted from positivism (i.e., [[behaviorism]]) to [[philosophical realism|realism]] during what has come to be known as the "[[cognitive revolution]]".<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Harré R | title = Cognitive science: A philosophical introduction | location = London | publisher = SAGE Publications | date = 2002 | isbn = 978-0-7619-4746-2 }}</ref> The cognitive revolution admitted unobservable cognitive processes like attention as legitimate objects of scientific study.

[[File:Why is it so hard to stay focused.webm|thumb|thumbtime=44|Lecture by cognitive scientist Marie Postma ([[Tilburg University]]) on focused attention]]
Modern research on attention began with the analysis of the "[[cocktail party effect|cocktail party problem]]" by [[Colin Cherry]] in 1953. At a cocktail party how do people select the conversation that they are listening to and ignore the rest? This problem is at times called "focused attention", as opposed to "divided attention". Cherry performed a number of experiments which became known as [[dichotic listening]] and were extended by [[Donald Broadbent]] and others.<ref name = "Hampson_1996">{{cite book | title = Understanding cognition | vauthors = Hampson PJ, Morris PE | year = 1996 | publisher = Wiley | isbn = 978-0-631-15751-9 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/understandingcog0000hamp }}</ref>{{rp|112}} In a typical experiment, subjects would use a set of [[headphones]] to listen to two streams of words in different [[ears]] and selectively attend to one stream. After the task, the experimenter would question the subjects about the content of the unattended stream.

[[Broadbent's Filter Model of Attention]] states that information is held in a pre-attentive temporary store, and only sensory events that have some physical feature in common are selected to pass into the limited capacity processing system.  This implies that the meaning of unattended messages is not identified. Also, a significant amount of time is required to shift the filter from one channel to another. Experiments by Gray and Wedderburn and later [[Anne Treisman]] pointed out various problems in Broadbent's early model and eventually led to the Deutsch–Norman model in 1968. In this model, no signal is filtered out, but all are processed to the point of activating their stored representations in memory. The point at which attention becomes "selective" is when one of the memory representations is selected for further processing. At any time, only one can be selected, resulting in the ''attentional bottleneck''.<ref name = "Hampson_1996" />{{rp|115–116}}

This debate became known as the early-selection vs. late-selection models. In the early selection models (first proposed by [[Donald Broadbent]]), attention shuts down (in [[Broadbent's Filter Model of Attention|Broadbent's model]]) or attenuates (in [[Broadbent's Filter Model of Attention#Attenuation model of attention|Treisman's refinement]]) processing in the unattended ear before the mind can analyze its semantic content. In the late selection models (first proposed by J. Anthony Deutsch and [[Diana Deutsch]]), the content in both ears is analyzed semantically, but the words in the unattended ear cannot access consciousness.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Deutsch JA, Deutsch D | title = Some theoretical considerations | journal = Psychological Review | volume = 70 | issue = 1 | pages = 80–90 | date = January 1963 | pmid = 14027390 | doi = 10.1037/h0039515 }}</ref> Lavie's [[perceptual load theory]], however, "provided elegant solution to" what had once been a "heated debate".<ref name="pmid15581120">{{cite journal | vauthors = Theeuwes J, Kramer AF, Belopolsky AV | title = Attentional set interacts with perceptual load in visual search | journal = Psychonomic Bulletin & Review | volume = 11 | issue = 4 | pages = 697–702 | date = August 2004 | pmid = 15581120 | doi = 10.3758/BF03196622 | doi-access = free }}</ref>