← all facts
attention
You can be deaf even when your ears work.
In inattentional deafness, you fail to notice obvious sounds when focused on a visual task.
Researchers asked participants to perform a difficult visual tracking task while playing auditory stimuli in the background. Despite the sounds being audible, many participants failed to report hearing them entirely. The auditory signal fails to reach conscious awareness because cognitive resources are entirely occupied by the visual demand.
You are only conscious of what you prioritize.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Macdonald and Lavie, 2011
- What the check found
- The study by Macdonald and Lavie (2011), 'Inattentional deafness: The effect of visual load on auditory perception', exists and supports the claim; provided references were irrelevant.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.