Question

While engrossed in reading a novel, Raoul isn't easily distracted by the sounds of the TV or even by his brothers' loud arguments. This best illustrates:

A. Selective attention
B. Inattentional blindness
C. Change blindness
D. Divided attention

Answer 1

Raoul's ability to concentrate on his novel without being distracted by other noises in his environment is an example of selective attention, which enables focusing on a particular task while disregarding other stimuli.

Step-by-step explanation:

Raoul's ability to focus on his novel and not be easily distracted by the TV or his brothers' loud arguments best illustrates selective attention. Selective attention is the capacity to focus on one task or stimulus while ignoring others. This concept is distinct from inattentional blindness, where an individual fails to notice a fully visible but unexpected object because attention is engaged on another task, and change blindness, where changes in a visual stimulus are not detected by the observer. This phenomenon does not reflect divided attention, as that implies attending to multiple sources of information or performing more than one task at the same time. In Raoul's case, he successfully tunes out distractions to concentrate solely on the novel, which is a clear example of selective attention.