Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Selective attention, Art education

Journal/Book/Conference Title Title

Leonardo

Volume

9

Issue

4

First Page

292

Last Page

294

Abstract

Since the 1950's several psychologists have studied the subject of human selective attention [1, 2]. It has been called the 'cocktail party problem' because a good example of the exercise of selective attention occurs when a large convivial group of people come together and it is still possible for an individual to isolate from the high noise level of conversation what a particular speaker says. Thus, the psychological question is: How do humans select what they consider significant information from the vast amount of information provided to the senses by the external environment? It is known that the amount of information input to the senses by far exceeds the processing capabilities of the brain and, therefore, a means exists to filter from the input what a human considers as essential at any particular moment. In the case of vision, one must ignore most of what can be seen. Selective attention is clearly important to artists scientists and technologists, for the sense of sight plays a large role in their work. However, the kind of visual information selected and how it is used may differ greatly in these three domains. Readers of Leonardo are acquainted with the discussions of the possible differences presented by various authors.

Department

Department of Art

Comments

First published in Leonardo, v.9 n. 4 (1976), pp. 292-294, published by The MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1573355.

Original Publication Date

1976

DOI of published version

10.2307/1573355

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Date Digital

1976

Copyright

©1976 The MIT Press

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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