Pay Attention!

Selective inattention is defined as, "The screening out of stimuli that are threatening, anxiety-producing, or felt to be unimportant." It is basically when you are paying attention to and focusing on one specific thing so much that you don't realize when other things happen. There are 5 different examples of selective inattention. One is inattentional blindness. Inattentional blindness is when you are not paying attention to something but it is happening and you don’t realize it because you are paying attention to something else. For example, the basketball passing/gorilla video we watched in class. Change blindness is when for example, I am giving you directions and another guy comes by with a big board and I switch with that guy so now he is giving you directions. You would not realize that I switched places with him because you are so focused on the directions. Choice blindness is when for example, I give you a choice, "which paper do you like better: red or blue?" You tell me red and the next day I ask you why you like the blue paper better. Even though you said you like the red paper better yesterday, since I make it seem like you said you like the blue paper better, you begin to tell me the reason why you like the blue paper better. Now, the obvious response to learning about choice blindness is, "There is no way that I would do that when given two choices." That is a clear example of choice blindness blindness. Choice blindness blindness is the overconfidence to say I would never perform choice blindness. Last but not least, deaf blindness is when someone is talking to you and someone switches places with him, you wouldn't realize they switched places because you were so focused on what they were saying. Selective inattention comes in many forms and applies to our everyday life.