Final answer:
Selective attention is the ability to focus on relevant information while ignoring irrelevant information. It helps us filter out distractions and concentrate on important tasks.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term selective attention refers to the ability to focus on a specific aspect of experience that is relevant to the task at hand while ignoring others that are irrelevant.
In psychology, selective attention is a cognitive process that allows us to filter out unnecessary information and focus on what is important. For example, when studying, selective attention helps us concentrate on the material we need to learn while ignoring distractions.
An example of selective attention can be seen in a famous study by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. Participants in the study watched a video of people passing basketballs and were asked to count the number of passes made by a specific team. During the video, a person dressed in a gorilla costume walked among the players, but many participants failed to notice the gorilla because their attention was focused on counting passes.