# Selective Attention **Domain:** Cognition / Perception / Learning **Doc Type:** Canonical concept node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition Selective attention is the allocation of limited perceptual and cognitive resources toward some signals while other available information receives less processing. ## Mechanism and Significance Goals, learned categories, expectations, salience, and prior experience tune what is noticed. Training can therefore make previously invisible patterns or opportunities easier to detect. ## Evidence Boundary Attention changes access to information without creating every object it discovers. It can reveal real structure while also reinforcing expectation and blind spots. ## Relationships [[wiki/Attention Economy|Attention Economy]] · [[wiki/Pattern Recognition|Pattern Recognition]] · [[wiki/Perception Management|Perception Management]] · [[wiki/Metacognition|Metacognition]] ## Related Articles and Collections - [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - [[articles/Analog Cognition and the Architecture of Continuity|Analog Cognition and the Architecture of Continuity]] - [[articles/Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter!|Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter!]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “Attention is selective, and opportunity is often invisible until you know how to recognize it. In the same way that a newly learned word suddenly seems to appear everywhere, a mind trained to look for possibility begins to find doors in walls that once looked solid, because the doors were there all along.” > **— Bryant McGill**, *All Is Well Within When Pain Becomes a Seed of Change - Livestream (Oct 2015)* [[reminders/Cognitive Agency/Attention Finds What the Mind Learns to Recognize by Bryant McGill|Attention Finds What the Mind Learns to Recognize by Bryant McGill]]