Question

Samuel has been carefully entering numbers into a spreadsheet for a class project. He is focusing so hard that he hardly notices the sound of the television in a nearby room or his younger siblings playing outside. Samuel is involved in a _______ attention task.

Answer 1

Samuel is engaged in a selective attention task, a process where focus is placed on a specific stimulus, leading to potential inattentional blindness to other stimuli.

Step-by-step explanation:

Samuel is involved in a selective attention task. Selective attention refers to the process by which we focus on one particular stimulus while ignoring others. This phenomenon of focusing so intensely on one task that we fail to notice other stimuli is also known as inattentional blindness. Studies such as the one by Simons and Chabris illustrate how individuals can miss obvious visual information, like the unexpected appearance of a gorilla on a basketball court, when they are engaged in a task that demands their attention. The resources needed for this high level of concentration are substantial, leading at times to fatigue or stress, especially when the attention demanded is prolonged or the task is particularly challenging.