Educational psychology of teacher recruitment examination: filter theory and attenuation theory of attention theory

Since 196s, psychologists have done a lot of research on the selective function of attention and put forward a series of theoretical models. These theories explain the essence of the selective function of attention and at which stage of information processing the human brain chooses information.

1. filter theory

in 1958, British psychologist Broadbent (1958) put forward a theory to explain the selective function of attention: filter theory, based on a series of experimental results of binaural listening. Broadbent believes that the capacity of the nervous system in processing information is limited, and it is impossible to process all sensory stimuli. When information enters the nervous system through various sensory channels, it must first go through a filtering mechanism. Only a part of information can pass through this mechanism and receive further processing; And other information is cut off from it and completely lost. Broadbent compared this filtering mechanism to a long and narrow bottle mouth. When people pour water into the bottle, part of the water enters the bottle through the bottleneck, while the other part of the water stays outside the bottle because of the narrow bottleneck and limited channel capacity. This theory is sometimes called bottleneck theory or single channel theory (see the figure below).

2. Attenuation theory

The filter theory is supported by some experimental facts, but further research shows that this theory is not perfect. For example, in the study of binaural hearing, some studies have found that information from non-following ears is still processed. Based on the results of daily life observation and experimental research, Treisman (1964) put forward the attenuation theory. Attenuation theory holds that when information passes through the filtering device, the information that is not noticed or followed is only weakened in intensity, not completely disappeared. Trisman pointed out that the activation threshold of different stimuli is different. Some stimuli are of great significance to people, such as their own names, fire alarm signals, etc. Their activation threshold is low and they are easy to activate. When they appear in non-following channels, they are easily accepted by people (see the figure below).

Tressman's theory and broadbent's theory have different views on the specific function of the filtering device, but there are similarities between the two theories: ① The two theories have the same starting point, that is, the capacity of human information processing system is limited, so the external information must be adjusted by filtering or attenuation devices; ② Both theories assume that the choice of information occurs before the full processing of information. Only the selected information can be further processed and processed.

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