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Here included are the subsections I've added to the Cocktail party effect article. For the sake of not wanting to interfere too much with others' work, only information pertaining to the subsections I included had been removed or otherwise incorporated into my edits.

The Cocktail Party Effect

The cocktail party effect refers to a phenomenon of auditory attention, describing the ability to focus one's attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, much the same way that a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room. This effect is what allows most people to "tune in" to a single voice and "tune out" all others, and is thus referred to as a theory of selective attention. It may also describe a similar phenomenon that occurs when one can immediately detect words of importance originating from unattended stimuli, for instance hearing one's name in another conversation.

Models of attention

Some of the earliest work in exploring mechanisms of selective attention was performed by Donald Broadbent, who proposed a theory that came to be known as the filter model. This model was established using the dichotic listening task. In this type of experiment, a participant wears a pair of headphones and listens to two different auditory streams, one in each ear. The participant then pays attention to one stream while ignoring the other. After listening, the participant is asked to recall information from both the attended and unattended channels. Broadbent's research using the dichotic listening task showed that most participants were accurate in recalling information that they actively attended to, but were far less accurate in recalling information that they had not attended to. This led Broadbent to the conclusion that there must be a "filter" mechanism in the brain that could block out information that was not selectively attended to. The filter model was hypothesized to work in the following way: as information enters the brain through sensory organs (in this case, the ears) it is stored in sensory memory. Before information is processed further, the filter mechanism allows only attended information to pass through. The selected attention is then passed into working memory, where it can be operated on and eventually transferred into long-term memory. In this model, auditory information can be selectively attended to on the basis of its physical characteristics, such as location and volume. Others suggest that information can be attended to on the basis of Gestalt features, including continuity and closure. Broadbent, this explained the mechanism by which we can choose to attend to only one source of information at a time while excluding others. However, Broadbent's model failed to account for the observation that words of semantic importance, for example one's own name, can be instantly attended to despite having been in an unattended channel.

A comparative diagram of selection theories. Click to enlarge.

In a later addition to this existing theory of selective attention, Anne Treisman developed the attenuation model. In this model, information, when processed through a filter mechanism, is not completely blocked out as Broadbent might suggest. Instead, the information is weakened (attenuated), allowing it to pass through all stages of processing at an unconscious level. Treisman also suggested a threshold mechanism whereby some words, on the basis of semantic importance, may grab one's attention from the unattended stream. One's own name, according to Treisman, has a low threshold value (i.e. it has a high level of meaning) and thus is recognized more easily. The same principle applies to words like fire, directing our attention to situations that may immediately require it. The only way this can happen, Treisman argued, is if information was being processed continuously in the unattended stream.

In order to explain in more detail how words can be attended to on the basis of semantic importance, Deutsch & Deutsch and Norman later proposed a model of attention which includes a second selection mechanism based on meaning. In what came to be known as the Deutsch-Norman model, information in the unattended stream is not processed all the way into working memory, as Treisman's model would imply. Instead, information on the unattended stream is passed through a secondary filter after pattern recognition. If the unattended information is recognized and deemed unimportant by the secondary filter, it is prevented from entering working memory. In this way, only immediately important information from the unattended channel can come to awareness.

A diagram of Kahneman's Capacity Model.

A diagram depicting Kahneman's Capacity Model. Click to enlarge.

Daniel Kahneman also proposed a model of attention, but it differs from previous models in that he describes attention not in terms of selection, but in terms of capacity. For Kahneman, attention is a resource to be distributed among various stimuli, a proposition which has received some support. This model describes not when attention is focused, but how it is focused. According to Kahneman, attention is generally determined by arousal; a general state of physiological activity. The Yerkes-Dodson law predicts that arousal will be optimal at moderate levels - performance will be poor when one is over- or under-aroused. Thus, arousal determines our available capacity for attention. Then, an allocation policy acts to distribute our available attention among a variety of possible activities. Those deemed most important by the allocation policy will have the most attention given to them. The allocation policy is affected by enduring dispositions (automatic influences on attention) and momentary intentions (a conscious decision to attend to something). Momentary intentions requiring a focused direction of attention rely on substantially more attention resources than enduring dispositions. Additionally, there is an ongoing evaluation of the particular demands of certain activities on attention capacity. That is to say, activities that are particularly taxing on attention resources will lower attention capacity and will influence the allocation policy - in this case, if an activity is too draining on capacity, the allocation policy will likely cease directing resources to it and instead focus on less taxing tasks. Kahneman's model explains the cocktail party phenomenon in that momentary intentions might allow one to expressly focus on a particular auditory stimulus, but that enduring dispositions (which can include new events, and perhaps words of particular semantic importance) can capture our attention. It is important to note that Kahneman's model doesn't necessarily contradict selection models, and thus can be used to supplement them.

Visual correlates

Some research has demonstrated that the cocktail party effect may not be simply an auditory phenomenon, and that relevant effects can be obtained when testing visual information as well. For example, Shapiro et al. were able to demonstrate an "own name effect" with visual tasks, where subjects were able to easily recognize their own names when presented as unattended stimuli. They adopted a position in line with late selection models of attention such as the Treisman or Deutsch-Normal models, suggesting that early selection would not account for such a phenomenon. The mechanisms by which this effect might occur were left unexplained. It has been suggested in brain imaging studies using PET that a variety of brain areas may be involved in selectively processing visual linguistic material (i.e. word form), including the inferior prefrontal and posterior insular cortices, the amygdala, caudate nucleus, and several areas of temporal cortex. It is currently unknown if these same brain areas are implicated in focusing attention for other visual or auditory stimuli.