Abstract
Selective attention allows us to ignore what is task-irrelevant and focus on what is task-relevant. The cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie this process are key topics of investigation in cognitive psychology. One of the more prominent theories of attention is perceptual load theory, which suggests that the efficiency of selective attention is dependent on both perceptual and cognitive load. It is now more than 20years since the proposal of load theory, and it is a good time to evaluate the evidence in support of this influential model. The present article supplements and extends previous reviews (Lavie, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 75-82. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2004.12.004 , 2005, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 143-148. doi: 10.1177/0963721410370295 , 2010) by examining more recent research in what appears to be a rapidly expanding area. The article comprises five parts, examining (1) evidence for the effects of perceptual load on attention, (2) cognitive load, (3) individual differences under load, (4) alternative theories and criticisms, and (5) the future of load theory. We argue that the key next step for load theory will be the application of the model to real-world tasks. The potential benefits of applied attention research are numerous, and there is tentative evidence that applied research would provide strong support for the theory itself, as well as real-world benefits related to activities in which attention is crucial, such as driving and education.
Highlights
Selective attention is the ability to focus on that which is important to the task at hand while ignoring or suppressing task-irrelevant information
The authors recommended that this result should be applied to teaching: If a lecturer were to increase the perceptual load of a presentation, this might benefit students who would otherwise be susceptible to distraction
We have reviewed a broad range of studies on load theory
Summary
A widely debated question in attention research has been whether selective attention operates at an early or late stage of processing. More indirect measures suggested that the bottleneck might not be absolute, with participants displaying increased galvanic skin response when words that had previously been paired with an electric shock were presented in the unattended stream (Moray, 1969) This evidence that selection could occur later, beyond the supposed “bottleneck,” led some to favor a theory of late selection (e.g., Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963; Duncan, 1980). If the visual properties of this article incurred high perceptual load (e.g., if the paper was transparent and the words written on the reverse of this page were visible here, demanding increased attention to distinguish these relevant words from the irrelevant distractor words), it is likely that the fly would be filtered out of the reader’s awareness at the perceptual stage and not processed further; early selection occurs in this case because perceptual capacity is exhausted. We will break down the state of the research on load theory into five distinct branches—evidence for perceptual load effects, cognitive load, individual differences under load, criticisms and alternatives, and the future of load theory
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