Of late, I can see myself being consumed by so many
thoughts that never transpired like this before. Unlike my childhood days, I
have become incompetent beyond compare to brew my attention and focus it on one
direction. And many times now, I have realized that even the slightest noise of
my friend’s cough in the next room is enough to dissipate my concentration.
Consequently, it has undoubtedly made me believe that one key organelle of my ‘Cocktail
Party Effect’ system has been impaired as a result of which the
total system has collapsed fatally.
Coined
by the English cognitive scientist Colin Cherry in
1953, ‘Cocktail Party Effect’ is a phenomenon in which a person is able to
focus the attention on a particular stimulus among many other stimuli occurring
at the same time. For instance, a person who is capable to listen to a single
conversation inside a noisy party hall is one perfect analogy of this
spectacle.
Besides,
there is another setting that can help us understand more about this
terminology.
Understanding the Cocktail Party Effect Courtesy: Click the LINK
Occasionally,
when we talk with our friends in the presence of other people around, we often hear
their conversation too, even if we don’t attend to it. In such circumstances, our
attention box is often disturbed when we suddenly hear something that is of our
importance or similarity, for example hearing the name of our beloved friend or
a famous actor or anything else.
The
studies reveal that the ‘cocktail party effect’ person is capable of tuning their
attention frequency and filtering all those unrelated. They can sieve the kind of
things they are interested in and bottleneck their attention within a narrow passage.
In doing so, they can channel their right attention to the right target.
But
what’s happening to poor me these days? The entire hive of my attention is
getting disturbed even with the silent footsteps of the breeze. This is rather funny
and miserably humiliating.
“I love the attention but I don't like too much of it”- Eminem
No, not humiliating! To me, it sounded like scientists were interested in studying this phenomenon because it shows that, when people are bombarded with so much to take in, they may focus on something over there, forgetting about everything else. It's important in relation to driving cars and things...fascinating stuff!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the remarks. I am seriously under different kinds of thinking these days. Hehe
DeleteYes...definitely facinating stuff!
ReplyDeleteEvery time I visit your fabulous blog, I find such food for thought...my cogs are positively spinning with this one.
Thank you so much for sharing your amazing talent with us, Dumcho.
You are the greatest teacher...:)
Thank you for your regular visits. I am humbled to receive so much of your compliments and I will live up to your expectations to be one. You are indeed an amazing blogger friend of mine for all times to come.
DeleteGod bless you.
It is indeed a fascinating article you have written Dumcho, this is something we all take for granted and don't realise that it carries such an elaborate label as 'cocktail party effect' (which is quite fitting) nor did I know that this behaviour has actually been studied :) I don't think there is anything wrong with you accept that you probably just need to find a quite place in nature and become one with the self to regain your balance. This behaviour you have written of is very much like multi- tasking which is all good and well to say a person can multitask but not all the tasks can be done as well or with the best attention.
ReplyDeleteI love your phrases, very poetic! And if you can hear the footsteps of the wind then it is perhaps willing you to follow :)
Categorically speaking, I am encouraged when a prolific writers in and around the world step their mouse into the ring of my blog and drop the beads of inspiration. I am humbled and I have learned so much from each of them.
DeleteI am encouraged when people around read through my scribblings and make a reflective comments. Thank you Ms. Rose for the comments.