Final answer:
In psychology, the ability to ignore distractions dramatically increases when our attention is focused on a novel and complex task. This phenomenon is known as inattentional blindness.
Step-by-step explanation:
In psychology, the ability to ignore distractions dramatically increases when our attention is focused on a novel and complex task. This phenomenon is known as inattentional blindness, which is the failure to notice something that is completely visible because we are actively attending to something else. A classic example of inattentional blindness is the gorilla experiment conducted by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, where participants failed to notice a person dressed in a gorilla costume in a video while they were focused on counting basketball passes (Simons & Chabris, 1999).