Inattentiveness

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unaufmerksamkeitstaubheit (including deafness because of inattention ;. English inattentional deafness ) is the non-perception of noise, due to the limited processing capacity of the human brain .

Inattention deafness is about the fact that only sounds and sounds are perceived or noticed on which the attention was directed. The brain has to select which information is relevant and which is less. Only when the attention is directed to a stimulus does it become aware of it. The activity of certain brain structures is influenced by the direction of attention.

Experiment by James SP Macdonald and Nilli Lavie

Macdonald and Lavie (2011) showed the test subjects cross shapes on a screen. Each of the crosses had a blue arm and a green arm, and one arm was slightly longer than the other. First of all, the test subjects were asked to use the keyboard to indicate which cross arm was blue or which was the longer one. The second task was a little more difficult than the first, because the participants had to be particularly careful to see the subtle difference in the length of the cross arms. All subjects wore headphones, which they had been told would improve concentration on the task.

During the experiment, an audible tone was played on the headphones, either over white noise or alone. Finally, the participants were asked whether they had noticed the tone. In fact, respondents heard the note less often during the more challenging task, even when played alone.

Results

  • When the test subjects are engaged in an elementary observation task, they sometimes fail to perceive an unexpected sound.
  • The level of inattentional deafness depends on the difficulty of the observation task .

See also

literature

  • James SP Macdonald and Nilli Lavie: Visual perceptual load induces inattentional deafness . In: Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics . tape 73 , ISSN  1943-3921 , p. 1780–1789 , doi : 10.3758 / s13414-011-0144-4 .

Web links